Siddhartha: Analysis of Setting
"Siddhartha: Analysis of Setting" explores the significant locations that shape Siddhartha's journey toward enlightenment in Hermann Hesse's novel. Set in India, a land deeply intertwined with the origins of Buddhism, the narrative parallels the legendary journeys of the Buddha, as Siddhartha transitions from the comforts of his Brahmin upbringing to the ascetic lifestyle of the Samanas and finally to the indulgent life in the city. The unnamed river serves as a pivotal symbol of evolution, representing Siddhartha's passage through various stages of his spiritual quest, from innocence to worldly experience and ultimately back to spiritual awakening.
The river is not only a geographic boundary but also a metaphysical one, embodying the concept of unity in all existence, which Siddhartha recognizes through reflective moments by its banks. Additionally, the unnamed city serves as a backdrop for Siddhartha's exploration of sensual pleasures and material success, ultimately leading him to despair and a desire for a return to a more profound understanding of life. Each setting contributes to Siddhartha's internal struggles and growth, emphasizing that the search for fulfillment is deeply personal and unique to each individual. Through these contrasting locations, the narrative suggests that enlightenment is an ongoing journey, shaped by one's experiences and realizations along the way.
Siddhartha: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1922 (English translation, 1951)
Type of work: Novella
Type of plot: Bildungsroman
Time of work: 563?-483? b.c.e.
Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
Places Discussed
*India
*India. Asian country in which the young Siddhartha, a tall and handsome Brahman’s son, lives and travels in his search for fulfillment. His quest for enlightenment parallels the Buddha’s legendary journeys in India: He departs his father’s house to join the Samana ascetics; after forsaking them, he goes to the city, and eventually abandons the city to become a ferryman on the river.
India, where Herman Hesse traveled in 1911 to study Eastern religions and philosophies, is the birthplace of Buddhism and its promise of enlightenment, as well as Hesse’s conscious opposition to it. Whereas Buddhism attempts to prescribe an established pattern of development, Hesse attempts to show, through Siddhartha’s journey through India, that quests for spiritual fulfillment are voyages of discovery in which each person finds his or her own path to absolute peace. The setting of India, with its nameless features, incorporates the Buddha’s legendary journeys and their accumulated wisdom, through which Siddhartha pursues his own quest for universal oneness.
River
River. Unnamed river that is the central natural element in the novel. The river functions symbolically, marking Siddhartha’s evolution. Siddhartha’s early years in his father’s house are spent on the river’s bank in a state of innocence. At the age of eighteen, Siddhartha hopes to find truth by joining the Samanas, whose prescribed truth stirs his doubts. He then crosses the river and goes to the city. Representing boundaries of time and development, the river symbolizes Siddhartha’s passage from the realm of spirit to sense and back again.
When Siddhartha returns to the river, twenty years after his first crossing, he suffers from sickness of the soul and desires death. He listens to the river’s characteristic om murmuring—a sound that is the sacred syllable of the Hindu priestly Brahmin caste—for the unity of all being. The same om wells up within his soul and forms a bond between him and the river. The river’s murmuring lulls Siddhartha into a trancelike sleep. Eventually he awakens, refreshed, and begins the process of restoration to his former state of innocence.
The river proves to be the agent through which Siddhartha finds fulfillment. He assists Vasudeva, the wise old ferryman who transported him across the river twenty years earlier. He learns that the river represents the natural synthesis of sense and spirit; he also realizes that life is a river and that the past, present, and future are all one. The river embodies all creation, all layers of consciousness, memories and impulses common to humankind as a whole; the eternal om brings them to the surface, awakening in Siddhartha knowledge of the essential unity of being.
The river has one last lesson to teach Siddhartha—love. Many years later, Kamala, Siddhartha’s love from the city, arrives at the river with the son she has borne him and soon dies of snakebite. Little Siddhartha runs away to the city, leaving his father stricken with grief. Once again, the river speaks the sacred syllable om and heals the wound produced by his grief.
City
City. The projection of feeling into abstract geographical places continues with the unnamed city, Siddhartha’s destination after leaving the Samanas—a move signifying a progression from the spirit to the senses. There he meets the beautiful courtesan Kamala, through whose assistance he becomes prosperous and comes to lead a life of luxury. At length, sickened by his own degeneracy and intent on suicide, he quits the city, unwittingly abandoning Kamala, who is pregnant with his son. The city represents the second step in Siddhartha’s development, which cancels out the earlier excursion into the spirit and leads to his return to the river and his state of innocence.
Bibliography
Boulby, Mark. Hermann Hesse: His Mind and Art. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967. Scholarly study of the major novels of Hesse. The chapter on Siddhartha provides illuminating information on Hesse’s Orientalism. Discusses the work “in the context of Hesse’s movement away from Buddhism” and views it as the culminating point of his art as a novelist.
Field, G. W. Hermann Hesse. Boston: Twayne, 1970. Contains a critical and analytical chapter on Siddhartha.
Otten, Anna, ed. Hesse Companion. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977. Eight essays on Hesse’s work by various scholars. Theodore Ziolkowski’s essay, “Sid-dhartha: The Landscape of the Soul,” gives an excellent critical analysis of the novel’s Eastern background, plot structure, symbolism, and epiphany. Useful glossary and a bibliography of secondary sources in English.
Shaw, Leroy R. “Time and the Structure of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Symposium 11 (1957): 204-224. A close reading of the text, demonstrating how Hesse communicates his vision of Unity through an intricate blending of form and meaning. A perceptive and illuminating analysis.
Timpe, Eugene E. “Hesse’s Siddhartha and the Bhagavad Gita.” Comparative Literature 10 (1969): 421-426. Demonstrates that Hesse was deeply influenced by the Bhagavad Gita (c. first or second century c.e.) when he wrote his book and that Siddhartha’s quest for self-realization follows the path suggested by the Bhagavad Gita.