Demian

In the novel, Demian written by Herman Hesse, there are several events that lead up to the fact where Max Demian, one of the main characters, was an imaginary figure. Emil Sinclair, an additional main character, has a troubled relationship with Franz Kromer, who acted like a bully to Emil Sinclair. Since Sinclair could not pay back Franz Kromer, he was forced to become Kromer’s slave. He offered Kromer a silver watch which was broken, and a compass, but Kromer had denied the offer. Now, every time Kromer needed anything he whistled to signal Sinclair to do whatever Kromer wanted him to do. As the days passed Sinclair was getting sick of Kromer’s demands, and soon all of his misery came to an end as he met a boy named Max Demian. Max Demian had helped Sinclair overcome his dilemma with Kromer with just one conversation with him. Kromer is frightened as he sees Sinclair; “When he saw me he flinched, his face twitched and he turned away so as to avoid meeting me” (35). Why would Kromer flinch as he saw Sinclair? There is only one good explanation for that. As Kromer saw Sinclair he flinched and twitched, as if he saw Max Demian instead of Emil Sinclair. Usually Sinclair was the person to flinch when he saw Kromer, but this time it was vice versa. After Franz Kromer had a chat with Demian, he had felt fear whenever he saw Sinclair. Sinclair himself has told the reader that he is a good dreamer; “I have always been a great dreamer; in dreams I am more active than in real life…” (27). Since Sinclair was a great dreamer, he was imagining Max Demian as an actual figure, even though he was not real. Being a great dreamer is somewhat similar to hallucinating. Hallucinating defines as seeing something when it actually is not there, just as a great dreamer, you do not know when you hit reality. Sinclair also has an odd dream of meeting Max Demian “When he first approached me again, it was, oddly enough, also in a dream” (28). It was bizarre how Sinclair had met Demian in a