Pursuing Identity

Hermann Hesse’s literary works focus on the confusion of individual existence in modern society and encourage the self-improvement of individual personality.The author himself had been exploring a path of his own,deliberating on how to become a harmonious and self-centered person and trying to find a way to become a perfect self on a spiritual level.The main characters in Hesse’s novels always suffer from the pain caused by the polarization,hovering between morality and humanity,reason and emotion,society and the individual.In this thesis,Hesse’s four representative novels are selected as the research objects,among them are Hans in Beneath the Wheel,Sinclair in Demian,Haller in Steppenwolf and Knecht in The Glass Bead Game.These four protagonists all raise question to the wider society as an individual.They swing between the individual identity and collective identity.In the first chapter,the thesis firstly sorts out the development of identity theory.The psychological characteristics of Hesse’s works and the intersection of identity theory and psychoanalysis are research basis for the thesis.The second and third chapters specifically adopt the personality development theory from psychological theory and the individual identity and social identity from identity theory to expound the identity construction of the protagonists in the four novels by Hesse.In the initial stage of identity development,the protagonists not only suffer from the split of subjectivity,but also have many contradictions with their society.However,with the process of individuation and self-perfection,namely the continuous improvement of a complete personality,they enrich their spiritual worlds and get rid of the anxiety and accomplish pursuit of identity.They eventually adapt to achieve the harmony between the internal and the external since the self-identities are constructed.The construction of individual identity not only depends on the self,but also relies on the change of external environment.The crisis of the human spirit and the loneliness that Hesse worried about still have strong significance today.The exploration of individuals in his works that how individuals overcome the contradictions of the surrounding environment and their own personalities in the process of growth in order to resolve the crisis of identity,and thus embark on a real "journey to the inner self”,endowing Hesse’s works with eternal significance.