Literature / Demian

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Demian, or Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth is a 1919 Coming of Age German novel by Hermann Hesse.

The book follows the childhood of Emil Sinclair, an average boy who feels trapped between two worlds, his home life and his friends. That all changes when he meets a mysterious kid named Max Demian. Demian's disruptive and heretical ways radically changes Emil's worldview, sending him on a years-long journey of self-discovery full of philosophy and religion.

Demian contains the following tropes:

• Above Good and Evil: Abraxas embodies this concept - unlike Christian God, he is both good and evil at the same time, to represent the complexity of human nature and the inability to divide everything perfectly.
  "Our god's name is Abraxas and he is God and Satan and he contains both the luminous and the dark world."
• The Ace: Max Demian is not only smarter than everyone in his age group but is capable of trouncing the bully who has the protagonist in his thrall. Emil Sinclair thinks that he seems like an adult among children and forms what can only be described as a platonic crush on him.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming: Max and Eva Demian, Emil Sinclair and Franz Kromer.
• Ambiguously Bi: Emil Sinclair is definitely attracted to women as he wants to have sex with the one that he would really like. He also often makes comments about Demian's handsome looks and is even attracted to him when he paints him.
• Arc Words: "Abraxas", which represents Demian's god and the embodiment of both parts of the human soul.
• Be Yourself: The ultimate lesson Sinclair has to learn is that he cannot divide his life into two parts and go between two extremes. Instead, he has to combine both halves and live as his full self.
  I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?
• Bifauxnen: Demian's mother, Frau Eva, is described as androgynous and boyish in her appearance. Sinclair falls in love with her immediately, which may have something to do with her resembling her own son.
• Break Them by Talking: Emil does this to his friend and mentor Pistorius without really meaning to. During a philosophical debate, Emil gets frustrated and offhandedly implies that all of Pistorius' ideas are unoriginal and stale, only to realize that his friend was already painfully aware of his own limitations, and that having them pointed out like that has wounded him deeply. Emil feels genuinely guilty (especially when the usually irascible Pistorius doesn't get angry and instead sadly concedes the truth) but it still marks the end of their close relationship.
• The Bully: Franz Kromer, who blackmails Emil Sinclair into working for him, until Demian appears and scares him away.
• Bully Hunter: Demain goes after a bully who has Sinclair in his thrall. What he does is not shown, but the kid never bothers Sinclair again.
• Central Theme: Duality. Sinclair at first divides his life into two worlds — the safe one (his family and school) and the dark one (Franz Kromer and his friends). During his high school and university years, he goes from one extreme to another, either being drunk or stone-cold sober. Demian's role is to show him that humans cannot be divided like that and that he needs to accept both parts of himself.
• Contrived Coincidence: To impress Franz Kromer, Emil Sinclair tells a fake story of how he stole apples from the mill. It just happens that there were actual thefts from the mill, which allows Kromer to blackmail Sinclair into working for him.
• Duality Motif: One of the main themes of the novel is the duality between the world of light and darkness, and Abraxas represents both worlds and their union despite being complete opposites.
• The Descendants of Cain: A central theme of the novel. The title character (whose forehead does have a certain brightness) speculates that the whole story of Cain killing Abel was spiteful propaganda from ordinary people who felt threatened by the genuinely gifted.
• Establishing Character Moment: Demian establishes himself as a non-conventional thinker by telling Emil that the story of Cain and Abel can be interpreted differently from how their teachers expect it to be interpreted. He tells Emil that the idea of Cain being protected by God after Abel's death is the justification used by weak people to justify their fears of those who don't fit the norm, and that Abel's death was a case of the weak being killed by the strong. This shocks Emil enough to make him initially doubt Demain's intentions.
• Forced into Evil: At the beginning of the novel, Emil Sinclair is forced to work for Franz Kromer by giving him money and other gifts due to the latter blackmails him because of Emil's attempt to impress him gone wrong.
• Freudian Excuse: Franz Kromer comes from a poor family and has troubles at home, which may explain his greed and willingness to blackmail Sinclair.
• Useful Notes/Gnosticism: Abraxas, the god that is mentioned in this book is a Gnostic deity who represents both great good and great evil.
• Has a Type: Sinclair likes androgynous, Bifauxnen women, which is why he falls in love with Frau Eva.
• If Only You Knew: Sinclair feels a moment of pity and resentment that his family doesn't know he's being blackmailed into petty crime by a bully; he thinks the trope name almost word for word when his father scolds him for getting his boots muddy.
• Innocence Lost: The story begins with Sinclair being Forced into Evil (schoolkid-level evil, anyway) and feeling trapped because he doesn't dare tell anyone.
  "None of this was mine any more ... I was followed by a darkness of which this world of home knew nothing. How many secrets I had had, how often I had been afraid — but all of it had been child's play compared with what I brought home with me today. I was haunted by misfortune, it was reaching out toward me so that not even my mother could protect me, since she was not even allowed to know."
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: Frau Eva (Max's mother) is described as having male features alongside feminine cues. She looks quite a bit like her son.
• Last-Name Basis: Emil Sinclair and Max Demian call each other by surname. Demian's mother, on the other hand, is "Frau Eva" to Sinclair almost from the start, which her son duly notes as the name people call her when they are in love with her.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Demian's mother is named Eva, like the biblical mother of humanity.
  • "Demian" sounds similar to "daemon" - a Greek type of spirits who can be friendly or malevolent alike.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Sinclair and Demian eventually enlist in the army. Both are injured in combat and put in neighboring beds in the same field hospital. They have a last conversation, and the next morning Sinclair finds Demian gone and someone else in his place.
• The Muse: Sinclair finds his muse in a woman passing by. He overcomes his alcohol addiction and miserliness and starts to paint, even when he doesn't know her name; he simply dubbed her "Beatrice". In a suitably Mind Screw-y fashion, when the painting is finished, it actually resembles... the 👁 This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.
  face of the titular character, who incidentally has been described as the perfect union between masculinity and femininity.
• The Not-Love Interest: Sinclair develops what can only be described as an awed crush on the title character, and it continues throughout the book. When he meets Frau Eva, who looks like a feminine version of her son, he falls in love immediately.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Sinclair calls the beautiful woman he met a park "Beatrice", as a reference to The Divine Comedy, but it isn't her true name and the reader never knows what is it.
• Shout-Out: Sinclair names the woman he saw in the park "Beatrice" after the character from The Divine Comedy.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Franz Kromer disappears quite quickly after Sinclair meets Demian, but it's because of him the two meet and the plot can properly start.
• Stacy's Mom: Sinclair is immediately smitten with Demian's mother, who is not only aware of this but once rather unsubtly hints that he could have her if he'd just be bold enough to try.
• Secondary Character Title: Emil Sinclair is the protagonist, but the book is named for Demian.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: Demian claims that the reason Cain is considered evil is because his contemporaries were scared of him and jealous of his power.
• Uncertain Doom: During the war, Sinclair and Demian are wounded and taken to a field hospital. Demian's injuries are worse, and he kisses Sinclair while saying what sounds like his last goodbyes. The next morning, he is gone and another soldier is lying in his place.
• You Are What You Hate: What Pistorius tells Sinclair during one of their many talks.
  If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
• Younger Than They Look: Max Demian appears older than his actual age due to having a gentlemanly disposition.