Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

First published: 1927 (English translation, 1929)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of plot: 1920s

Locale: Germany

Principal Characters

• Harry Haller, a middle-aged intellectual; the "Steppenwolf"
• Hermine, a young woman Haller (Steppenwolf) befriends
• Pablo, a saxophonist
• Maria, a friend of Hermine's

The Story

Harry Haller is a middle-aged man who rents a room from a landlady who keeps a spotless bourgeois house; she likes Haller, but the suspicions of her nephew—the narrator of the first part of the book—are aroused when the lodger asks them not to report his domicile to the police. Haller explains that he has a repugnance for official contacts. His room is always in disorder; cigar ends and ashes, wine and brandy, pictures and books litter the apartment.

Haller is about fifty years old, sometimes in poor health and addicted to painkillers. He arises very late and becomes active only at night. He is invariably polite but remote. Once the nephew finds him sitting on the stairs near a landing. Haller explains that the landing, which smells of wax and turpentine and is decorated with washed plants, seems to him the epitome of bourgeois order. Occasionally a pretty girl comes to see Haller for brief visits, but her final visit ends in a bitter quarrel.

One day, Haller disappears, after meticulously paying his accounts. He leaves behind a manuscript, written during his stay, which tells the story of a man identified as Steppenwolf, or wolf of the steppes—a loner, apart from conventional middle-class society. Steppenwolf is in fact Haller's alter ego. The nephew edits the manuscript and has it published.

The text of the manuscript makes up the rest of the book, titled "Harry Haller's Records," and is told from the point of view of Haller, now identified as Steppenwolf. Steppenwolf had suffered a series of blows. His wife became mad and chased him from the house. His profession was closed to him. Living a solitary life, he became a divided personality, one part of him a neat, calm bourgeois, the other, a wolf from the steppes. When he acted politely and genteelly, the world mocked his respectability. When he snarled and withdrew from society, he shocked his bourgeois self.

On a solitary night ramble, Steppenwolf sees an electric sign over a Gothic door in an old wall. The words, which he can barely discern, read, "Magic Theater. Entrance Not for Everybody. For Madmen Only!" A little later, he sees a peddler with a similar sign. From a hawker he buys a pamphlet entitled "Treatise on the Steppenwolf" and reads it avidly.

The treatise explains the popular concept of a steppenwolf, a creature that is half wolf and half human being as a result of mischance or spell. This was an oversimplified concept, however, for everyone, according to the pamphlet, is actually composed not of two but many selves. The great bulk of the populace is held to one self through the rigid patterns of the sheeplike bourgeoisie; only a few individuals, ostensibly complying, are not really part of the pattern. They act like the lone wolf and are the leaders in all fields. Meditating on this philosophy, Steppenwolf understands his own nature a little more clearly, though it is difficult to think of himself as containing many selves.

An old acquaintance, a professor, meets Steppenwolf and invites him to dinner. The occasion is not a happy one. The professor and his wife are naïvely jingoistic and express approval of a vicious newspaper attack on a writer who advanced the opinion that perhaps the Germans shared the guilt for World War I. The professor does not realize that the writer is his guest. Steppenwolf, for his part, ridicules a pompous painting of the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that turns out to be greatly prized by the professor’s wife.

Feeling the wolf in him gaining ascendancy, Steppenwolf drops in at the Black Eagle Tavern, where merriment reigns. At the bar, he encounters a young girl to whom he tells his long tale of woe, including the professor’s dinner and Steppenwolf's mad wife, Erica, whom he saw only every few months and with whom he quarreled. The girl, who refuses to give her name, good-naturedly ridicules his preoccupation with the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Indian myths when he does not even know how to dance. She seems almost motherly in her concern for him; when he confesses he is afraid to go back to his lodging, she sends him upstairs to sleep. Before they part, they schedule a dinner date.

At their next meeting, the girl, whose name is revealed to be Hermine, sets out to change Steppenwolf. She says she will help him for friendship’s sake, so that in the end Steppenwolf would love her enough to kill her. Steppenwolf himself had thought of death; in fact, he was seriously contemplating committing suicide on his fiftieth birthday. Perhaps that is why he does not think Hermine’s plan strange.

Hermine begins her campaign. First she takes him shopping for a gramophone, whereupon he studies dancing in his cluttered room. Although he is stiff, he learns the steps of the foxtrot. Then Hermine takes him to a tavern to dance. At her urging, he asks the most beautiful girl there, Maria, to be his partner. To his amazement, she accepts, and they dance well together. Hermine compliments him on his progress.

Late one night, as Steppenwolf returns quietly to his bedroom, he finds Maria in his bed. Thinking he is too old for her, Steppenwolf hesitates; Maria is so sympathetic, however, that he loses his reluctance. He begins meeting Maria regularly in another room nearby. Steppenwolf is grateful to Hermine, who had arranged it all. She keeps track of his progress in love. After some time Steppenwolf realizes that only through a lesbian relationship could Hermine have known so much about Maria’s erotic technique.

Another new acquaintance is Pablo, a gentle, accommodating jazz saxophonist. He agrees readily with Steppenwolf’s criticisms of modern jazz and with his preference for Mozart. Nevertheless, Pablo feels that music is not something to criticize, but something for listeners and dancers to enjoy. Part of Pablo’s great popularity comes from his ability to provide drugs for jaded profligates. One night, Pablo invites Steppenwolf and Maria to his room and proposes a threesome. Haller refuses abruptly, although Maria is willing.

On several occasions, Hermine hints that she is more unhappy than Steppenwolf. He is learning other sides of life, but she knows only a life of pleasure and the senses. She is hoping that Steppenwolf will come to love her, because at the upcoming masquerade ball, she will give him her last command.

At the ball, Hermine is dressed as a man, reminding Steppenwolf of his friend Herman. They dance with many different women. When Hermine finally changes into women’s clothes, Steppenwolf realizes he loves her. After the ball, Pablo takes them up to his Magic Theater. In a hall of mirrors, Steppenwolf sees his many selves; in the various booths, he lives his many lives. In one booth, he kills automobile drivers recklessly. In another, he meets all the girls he has ever loved. Toward the end, he is Mozart, a laughing, reckless Mozart who plays Handel on a radio. The whirling comes to an end. In the last booth, he sees Hermine and Pablo naked on a rug. They are asleep following lovemaking. Haller stabs Hermine. In court, Mozart is Steppenwolf's friend and comforts him when the judges sentence him to eternal life; he is to be laughed out of court. Mozart turns into Pablo, who picks up Hermine’s body, shrinks it to figurine size, and puts it in his pocket.

Bibliography

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