Loss of Innocence
I started reading Demian last night by Herman Hesse. It's a really good book as most of his are, but this one is striking a chord with me. I've been reading so much lately that I think I am starting to understand more things in what people are trying to say. I think I am getting smarter because of reading.
I'm only about 80 pages in but I started to think that the book is totally about the loss of innocence. You see the main character gets tricked into telling a lie and then the lie becomes his shackles throughout the glory years of his youth (10-11). He is forced to lie more, steal, fight, lower his moral character and run from the "light" that is his home. He abandons his family in order to save them from his embarrasing moment. He hides in shame from the one's who love him most. He loses his innocence all because of one event. One thing that started so small and trivial, and looking back, if it were initially divulged as a sin to the people he was now hurting even more, it would have been better than the current flight of more evil to cover the original evil. Basically he should have nipped it in the bud.
Now I don't know what happens after page 80 but this brings about an interesting thought on people. What if that original sin would have never happened and what if he would stayed in the light. What if that darkness would have never creeped in originally. How long could he stay in that light. I think Hesse is going to tell me, "Until puberty" as he has a weird fixation on sex and adolescense but I think it could go on forever if we just broke all the rules that govern our lives. If we were just good. If we just stayed away from the initial dark and if we were to eventually wonder astray into that dark we should run back to the light as fast as possible and be cleansed no matter how dirty we were. If we merely absolved ourselves from the dark after being in it, we could stay in the light and in innocence. We would never be shackled or engulfed by the building snow ball that comes from the fear of divulging. The fear that comes from the shame.
I'll tell you later what comes out of the book.
