562 Hesse, Hermann
and most controversial work, grew out of a personal
and artistic crisis. Just before Hesse started compos-
ing the novel, his short-lived second marriage to
mentally unbalanced Ruth Wenger collapsed, his
health deteriorated, and, approaching his 50th birth-
day, he suffered a severe midlife crisis. In addition,
a writer’s block that had been precipitated by the
revelation of his nom de plume, “Emil Sinclair,” kept
Hesse from completing his Indian novel, Siddhar-
tha (1922). In order to overcome this crisis Hesse
underwent psychoanalysis, meeting with Dr. Josef B.
Lang, one of Carl Gustav Jung’s disciples, numerous
times. Hesse also wrote a cycle of poems, entitled
Krisis (1928), which served as a palliative and which
is closely linked with Steppenwolf. One of the poems,
entitled “Steppenwolf,” eventually became part of
the novel, with Harry Haller as its fictional author.
Considering the novel’s genesis, it is not surprising
that it is Hesse’s most autobiographical work. The
book’s protagonist shares his initials with the author
and many of the locations and characters are based
on those known by Hesse. Harry Haller’s existential
crisis and his attempts at anesthetizing his pain by
drowning it in alcohol, drugs, and sex mirror Hesse’s
life between 1924 and 1926. It was the use of drugs
depicted in the novel that caused Timothy Leary in
the 1960s to recommend Steppenwolf to his follow-
ers as preparation for an LSD trip. Moreover, the
riveting depiction of the protagonist as an outsider
who despises war and technology and who rejects
middle-class values, struck a chord with large parts
of the American youth in the 1960s and the book
became a best seller in the United States.
Karl Stegner
alienation in Steppenwolf
The title of Hesse’s novel alludes to the protago-
nist’s role as outsider, his alienation from middle-
class society. Before we learn his real name, Harry
Haller, he is introduced by the (fictional) editor of
his writings as “a real wolf of the Steppes, as strange,
wild, shy-very shy-being from another world” who
is extremely unsociable and who gives off a foreign
and hostile air. To the editor, whose aunt takes the
stranger in as a lodger and who is a representative
of bourgeois values, proud of leading “a narrow,
middle-class life, but a solid one, filled with duties”
(20), the Steppenwolf ’s slovenly, irregular, and irre-
sponsible way of life, which does not seem to serve
a practical purpose, is an affront. The editor, an
avowed abstainer from alcohol and a nonsmoker, is
especially displeased by the Steppenwolf ’s numer-
ous wine bottles and the ever-present stumps and
ash of cigars, which he discovers while spying on
the lodger. A stickler for rules and regulations,
the editor balks at the Steppenwolf ’s request not
to inform the police of his residence, as stipulated
by law. Even though Haller gives poor health as a
pretext for his request, his alienation from society,
in particular from the bureaucratic constraints of
the state, is the true reason for his breach of existing
law. Although the Steppenwolf leads a bohemian
life which stands in stark contrast to the editor’s
sense of duty and purpose, the outsider is attracted
to middle-class orderliness to a certain degree.
When the editor returns home one evening, he
finds the Steppenwolf admiring two plants at the
entrance of a flat. For Haller the spotlessly clean
plants are “the very essence of bourgeois cleanli-
ness, of neatness and meticulousness, of duty and
devotion shown in little things.” While he declares
that he does not laugh at bourgeois life, because
it reminds him of his childhood, the Steppenwolf
is painfully aware that he is estranged from that
world and that it is lost to him forever: “I live a bit
to one side, on the edge of things.” After an initially
negative view of the lone wolf, the editor eventually
feels sympathy “for one who had suffered so long
and deeply.” When the Steppenwolf suddenly dis-
appears, he leaves only a manuscript behind along
with the statement that the editor may do with it
as he pleases. Because the editor regards the manu-
script as a document of “the sickness of the times
themselves,” he decides to publish it with a caveat
to the reader that he considers it for the most part
fictitious: He believes that the Steppenwolf has
attempted to give deeply lived spiritual events the
form of tangible experiences.
Having experienced the Steppenwolf from a
primarily exterior perspective, the reader is next
confronted with a firsthand, interior view of the
outsider’s sufferings in “Harry Haller’s Records,”
which bear the caution “For Madmen Only.” It is
significant that Verrückte, the German word for