Question: Demian
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||RESPONSE||"What is Demian 's relationship between coincidence and the force of will?"
While discussing books for this course the issue of coincidence has arisen several times. For example, in Yvain coincidences happened almost magically, as when the horn blew three short blasts and brought a new adventure closer to Yvain. However, I hav e not been able to simply equate coincidence with a grandly designed fate because the character of Arthur Rowe showed me how quirkily coincidences can occur. Many things happen in the novel to which I first reacted by thinking "Shyeah right; how did he a rrange that?" Sinclair's introduction to Abraxas is a great example of this because the scene seems to me to be both unbelievable and yet not altogether impossible all at the same time.
Demian early on discounts his ability to control others by using the force of his mind when he says that mind reading is just paying close attention and anticipating the actions of your subjects. Yet does he similarly discount the power of the will? Dem ian explains quite logically how he moved to the back of the Confirmation class in order to sit with Sinclair and then stared down the priest whenever he would consider righting the situation, but I still have the impression that it was somehow magical - as if Demian bent the planned course of events in order to make it coincide with the desires of his will.
In this book I feel that Hesse purposely structured his story so as to represent the force of a person's will. How many things can be counted as coincidence? Is he trying to say that nothing is coincidental in life because somebody somewhere had to have shaped it? And does this notion mesh with the other romances which we have read? I saw coincidence as being the will (to put it in the same terms) of some non-human power - perhaps the God whom characters often beseech or maybe it is just a force which likes to set things into order. Yet I do not believe in the existence of a God in reality, so whose will is shaping our destinies?
Demian said that most people would look away from his gaze and I have to suppose that I would also be one. Although I tell myself that I want the truth I think that I sometimes comfort myself with the notion that my problems are not completely of my doin g, instead coincidences manufactured by Fate have tossed me about. Does Demian's impact upon readers come from asserting the opposite? Or does Hesse leave the connection obscured so that each person may decide for himself what it is that shapes the nove l and, ultimately, himself?
Response
Unless we either live as total slaves or in complete isolation, there is no way in which we can live wholly by either coincidence or the force of our wills. I was hoping though, that Hesse was using Demian to show that one of the two has more leverage in our lives than does the other. Yet I wondered whether or not some of the things which I saw as coincidences might only appear as me because my own will is not developed enough to recognize them. Deliana's assessment of their adult reunion was very helpful to me in rethinking my ideas on how coincidence and the will reside together. She said that even though it was coincidence that brought them to the same place it was their wills which "made Sinclair aware of the opportunities to meet Demian." Had he failed to follow the sound of Demian's voice they would not have reunited at that time.I think that Deliana perceives Hesse as advocating the force of will as the dominant shaper of our lives. Since Hesse's personal history included years of psychoanalysis I agree that he would be incline towards thinking that the will is dominant. When I look at my own life, though, I am not sure about how I would rank coincidence against will.
I agree that it is the action taken by your will which enables situations to develop, but I also think that coincidences are what brings you to something new -- if something was not deliberately planned then I do not see it as being a direct product of the will (even though the will's action may have set the scene). Although will acts for the greater portion of our lives (at least I hope that mine does), I think that the power of coincidence must also be accorded a heavy weight in the equation of what determines our lives. After all, Demian's will is incredibly forceful but even he is not able to escape the repercussions of World War I.
I would like to know how the will and coincidence quantitatively stack up against one another. I know that it is impossible, but until then I will continue to wonder if I am like the mouse who exerts his will to escape his cage but never realizes that, in what might seem a coincidence from his perspective, his means of escape is actually an exercise wheel which doesn't take him anywhere. Is my will equally ineffectual in the face of a higher will/design or is it truly able to accomplish the changes which I desire in my life?
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Last revised May 1, 1996
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