Steppenwolf

:This article is about the novel. For the 1960s rock band known primarily for "Born to Be Wild" and "Magic Carpet Ride", see Steppenwolf (band). Steppenwolf is a German language word which means a desert dog, or "wolf of the steppes."

Synopsis

The book is presented as a manuscript by its protagonist, a middle-aged man named Harry Haller (who has the same initials as Hesse himself, a recurring device in his books), which he left to his chance acquaintance (the nephew of his landlady), who decided to print it, adding a short preface of his own. The title of this "real" book-in-the-book is Harry Haller's Records (For Madmen Only).

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As it begins, the hero is beset with reflections on his being ill-suited for the world of "everybody", the regular people. In his aimless wanderings about the city he encounters a person carrying an advertisement for a "magic theater", who gives him a small book, Treatise on the Steppenwolf. This treatise is cited in full in the novel's text (another level of self-reference) as Harry reads it. The pamphlet addresses Harry by name and seems to describe him perfectly, as a man of two natures, one "high", spiritual, a "human", and the other - "low", animal, a "steppenwolf", entangled in an unresolvable struggle, never content to be either.

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The next day, he meets a former academic friend and is invited to his home. However he ends up offending him by criticising his wife`s picture of Goethe, a figure he later dreams about. Trying to postpone returning home to the razor he plans to kill himself with, he chances upon a young woman in a dance hall, who talks to him at length, mocking and understanding him in turn, and gives him, in promising a subsequent meeting, a reason to start "learning to live". Over several weeks Hermine (the woman) finds Harry a lover, teaches him to dance and introduces him to a saxophonist named Pablo. After a lavish masked ball Pablo leads Harry to his "magic theater", where the rigid notions about his soul are shattered and where he, once inside, participates in several fantastic episodes, culminating with him killing Hermine with a knife, thus fulfilling, as it seems, her own earlier request. This results in Harry being judged by Mozart, who, as a punishment, condemns Harry to "listen to the radio music of life", challenging him at the same time to "reverence the spirit behind it".

Related Topics:
Goethe - Dance - Mask - Ball - Mozart

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