Steppenwolf 563madman, implies displacement and derangement,
stressing yet again the Steppenwolf ’s outsider posi-
tion. Haller’s alienation from middle-class values
becomes only too evident when he is invited to the
home of a conservative professor. The evening turns
into a disaster when the professor unwittingly calls
Haller a “bad fellow and a rotten patriot” and when
the Steppenwolf insults his hostess by criticizing her
favorite portrait of the classical writer Goethe for
its sentimentality. For Haller the disagreeable soirée
represents his ultimate break with the bourgeois
world: “It was my leave-taking from the respectable,
moral and learned world, and a complete triumph
for the Steppenwolf.” The image of the Steppenwolf
gains another dimension in Haller’s writings. It sig-
nifies not only his outsider role but also his untamed,
animalistic nature, which is in constant conflict with
his intellectual, civilized side. This strife between
nature and spirit, which frequently brings Haller
to the brink of suicide, is expanded upon in the
“Treatise on the Steppenwolf,” a detached analysis
of his dilemma, which he receives from a mysterious
stranger. It not only stresses that Harry consists of a
hundred or a thousand selves, not merely two, it also
offers humor as the solution. As recommended by
the treatise, Haller now commences the “wild zig-
zag trail” of exploring those elements of his psyche
that he has suppressed. This quest, during which he
is assisted by several characters from the margins of
society, culminates in the Magic Theater, in which
he explores such suppressed facets as sexuality and
violence. Thus, even though Haller’s alienation from
the middle class is exacerbated, the alienation within
him is slightly ameliorated.
Karl Stegner
Sex/SenSuality/eroticiSm in Steppenwolf
One sign of Harry Haller’s alienation is his lack
of an intimate relationship and his suppression of
sexual feelings. The collapse of his marriage to a
mentally unbalanced woman, along with Harry’s
loss of profession and livelihood, constitutes the
reason for his withdrawal from society: “Love and
confidence had changed of a sudden to hate and
deadly enmity. . . . It was then that my solitude
had its beginning.” The subsequent relationship
with his lover Erika is fraught with conflict and is
based on desperation rather than love. They see each
other only intermittently and each meeting leads
to quarrels. Harry concedes that “since both of us
were lonely, difficult people related somehow to one
another in soul, and sickness of soul, there was a link
between us that held in spite of all.”
One evening, when Harry is close to commit-
ting suicide, he meets Hermine, “a pale and pretty
girl” who wears a withered camellia in her hair and
who reminds him of his former sweetheart, Rosa
Kreisler, and of Hermann, a boyhood friend. The
flower is symbolic for Hermine’s being a courte-
san who is financially supported by several men in
exchange for sexual favors. Hermine, however, does
not see Harry as a prospective customer but rather
as a lost soul who needs to be taught the pleasures
of life. She takes on the role of a mother by calling
Harry a silly baby who needs someone to look after
him. In order to loosen Harry up and to free him
from his inhibitions, Hermine teaches him to dance
the fox-trot. Soon Harry’s feelings of depression
lift and he glimpses a ray of hope: “She was the
one window, the one tiny crack of light in my black
hole of dread. She was my release and my way to
freedom. She had to teach me to live or teach me to
die.” Hermine introduces Harry to Maria, another
courtesan, and to Pablo, an exotic, bisexual musi-
cian who talks him into experimenting with drugs.
Since Hermine represents the female component of
Harry’s personality, or, in Jungian terms, his anima,
he cannot be intimate with her. Hermine states: “I
am a kind of looking glass for you, because there’s
something in me that answers you and understands
you” and Harry concedes: “You’re my opposite. You
have all that I lack.” When he finds Maria in his bed
as a gift from Hermine, Harry is at first hampered
by bourgeois hang-ups: he worries about what his
landlady might think. Eventually, however, he learns
to enjoy the sensual pleasures the experienced cour-
tesan has to offer: “She taught me the charming play
and delight of the senses, but she gave me, also, new
understanding, new insight, new love.” Harry enters
into a sexual liaison with Maria, renting a room
specifically for their frequent assignations. Surpris-
ingly, he is not bothered by the fact that he has to
share Maria with other men who are paying for her
favors. A further indication that Harry is shedding