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Siddhartha

 Hermann Hesse
 

Key Facts

 
full title · Siddhartha
 
author · Hermann Hesse
 
type of work · Novel
 
genre · Spiritual and Religious Novel
 
language · German
 
time and place written · 19191921, Switzerland
 
date of first publication · 1922
 
publisher · Bantam
 
narrator · An unnamed narrator tracks Siddhartha's spiritual progress.
 
point of view · Third-person omniscient. The point of view follows Siddhartha most closely.
 
tone · Measured without being detached; formal
 
tense · Past
 
setting (time) · Concurrent with the life of Buddha, estimated at around 625 b.c.
 
setting (place) · India
 
protagonist · Siddhartha
 
major conflict · Siddhartha searches for total spiritual enlightenment.
 
rising action · Siddhartha experiments with different teachers and approaches to Nirvana, and when they prove unsatisfactory, he turns his search inward.
 
climax · Siddhartha finally achieves total spiritual understanding as he sits beside Vasudeva and listens to the river.
 
falling action · Siddhartha meets Govinda and shares the Nirvana he has attained.
 
themes · The search for spiritual enlightenment; inner vs. exterior guidance; the wisdom of indirection
 
motifs · Love; Om; polarities
 
symbols · The river; the ferryman; the smile
 
foreshadowing
 · Siddhartha's sloughing-off of his father's traditional Brahmin beliefs foreshadows Siddhartha's future loss of his own son.
 · Siddhartha's observation to Govinda that not even the eldest of the Samanas has attained Nirvana, and Govinda's subsequent dismissal of the statement, foreshadows Govinda's inability to find Nirvana by following the teachings of others.
 · The first appearance of the peaceful ferryman, whom Siddhartha encounters on his way to the city, foreshadows Siddhartha's own future as a ferryman and as a man of total spiritual peace.
 
 
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