Perception Of The Bourgeoisie in Steppenwolf Essay -- Hesse Steppenwol

Perception Of The Bourgeoisie in Steppenwolf Hermann Hesses Steppenwolf presents a paradoxical picture of the bourgeoisie. The main character, Harry Haller, acknowledges his bourgeois upbringing and frequently has a bourgeois view about various aspects of troupe however, at the selfsame(prenominal)(p) time, he condemns the bourgeois lifestyle and all that it represents because of his perceived delirium from it. The bourgeoisie itself is represented in many different lights in Steppenwolf. The starting signal representation is through the character of Hallers landladys nephew. The nephew is the most typical bourgeois in the novel, and thus the least explored representation because he easily fits into the readers own perceptions with no need for further elaboration. He is the petit bourgeois who goes to his business every day, takes the same short lunch break, returns to work, goes home, and repeats the same unadventurous pattern day by and by day without ever questioning his role in society or the reason for his existence. The Treatise on the Steppenwolf presents another portrait of Hesses perception of the bourgeoisie and of Hallers birth to it. Haller is secretly and persistently attracted to the little bourgeois world (50) in the same way he is to jazz music which much as he hated it, had always had a secret charm for him.(37) Because he took up his household always among the middle classes, he had grown accustomed to viewing society in a thoroughly bourgeois manner. (51) The treatise describes being bourgeois as seeking balance between two extremes at the cost of that tawdriness of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. (51) In this sense, Haller himself is bourgeois because he constant... ...nderstands it and resolves to be a better hand at the game (218) it seems that he will one day join Pablo and Mozart who are waiting for him in this magical realm free of bourgeois conventions. To teach him to laugh was the totally aim (177) and it is the only true suicide of the Steppenwolf and the bourgeois self because its no good with a razor. (178) Only laughter can free the 1000 facets of his soul. Works Cited Boulby, Mark. Herman Hesse His Mind and Art. Ithaca Cornell UP, 1967 Hesse, Hermann. Steppenwolf. Trans. Basil Creighton. Ed. Joseph Mileck and Horst Frenz. New York Henry Holt and Company Ltd., 1990 Wegener, Franz. Herman Hesses possible action of National Socialism in Der Steppenwolf. Trans. Laura Campbell, Werner Habel and Eva-Maria Stuckel. http//www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/8444/steppenwolfeng.html (visited 99/01/30)