Herman Hesse's 1919 novel Damien profoundly influenced thinking in Germany after World War I and helped establish his own fame in this story of Emil Sinclair, a boy who could have grown up to have an ordinary life but who has the course of his life altered by his encounters with a number of different people, including perhaps most importantly the title character. Max Demian is at least a quasi-mystical character who, when they are both children, befriends Emil Sinclair. As he matures, Emil seeks to become spiritually more aware and Demian is his most important guide in this respect even though he is only an intermittent presence in Sinclair's life, appearing from time to time rather like a deus ex machina when he is needed.
One of the most important influences that Demian has on Sinclair is his insistence both in his own life and for Sinclair as well not simply to accept blindly the conventional morality. This was, of course, a topic that was of immense concern for Germans in 1919 since many of them felt that they had been too easily lead into war by a government that assur
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