Hermann Hesse
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Hermann Hesse explores in depth the issue of service to a community in Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game, an issue which he does not cover in any significant way in Steppenwolf. "Community" here is best seen as the community of human beings as they live in the real world, not an ideal realm such as Castalia. Actually, Joseph Knecht is concerned with service to two communities, the elites of the Castalian Order and then, leaving that utopia, the non-elites outside of the order, or, at least, the embodiment of that outside world in the person of Tito, Knecht's student. Knecht's maturity in this concern for service to others is what differentiates him most from Harry Haller, who focuses almost entirely on what he wants as an individual with little real connection with any community. On the other hand, one can fairly argue that even the far more spiritually and philosophically evolved Knecht is following an internal, self-oriented rather than a social urge. This does not mean Knecht is self-centered, but rather that the purest service to others also fulfills the deepest need of the self. The best way to approach and understand these two novels relative to each other is to see Haller as a student in the kindergarten of life (despite the fact that he is well into middle-age at the book's beginning), and to see Knecht as a graduate student. Haller's journey of learning (about himself, others, the world) is essentially only beginning by the end of Steppenwolf, while Knecht by the
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part of human happiness, although the opening of his mind and heart at the end of the book indicate that he is at least capable of living for others instead of only for his own suffering or pleasure.
Knecht, on the other hand, gradually develops himself through a carefully ordered series of stages which lead him to his role as an important part of Castalia, as the leader of the Bead Game, and then out of Castalia to take both the risk and the opportunity of greater service to others who perhaps need that service more than the elite residents of Castalia.
Knecht's life up to the point of his leaving Castalia is essentially predetermined by his personal gifts and by the nature of his society, which guide and nurture such talented children, priming them for the Order:
Knecht was one of those fortunates who was born for Castalia, for the Order, and for service in the Board of Educators. Although he was not spared the perplexities of the life of the mind, it was given to him to experience without personal bitterness the tragedy inherent in every life consecrated to thought (Hesse Magister 36).
The narrator may view the life of philosophy as tragic, but Knecht's life as an elitist thinker is anything but tragic. He is made
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1664
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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