Steppenwolf Reflections Part II – Jungian Psychology

 

Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, first published in Germain in 1927, first English language version published in 1929. All page numbers and quotes in this essay come from the Picador Modern Classics Kindle Edition, translated by Basil Creighton.

The novel Steppenwolf is rife with allusions to concepts that derive from psychological theories of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. One of the most obvious is in the character(s) of Herman and Hermine. Jung argued that the unconscious aspects of our psyches have both a masculine and a feminine component. He used the technical term ‘animus’ to refer to the masculine component in women and ‘anima’ for the feminine component in men. Jung argued that one of the pathways one should follow as a means to psychological growth was to form an awareness and connection with both ones own ‘animus’ and ‘anima’. In the novel the characters Herman and Hermine serve that function for the protagonist Harry Haller. When Harry first meets them, they appear to be separate individuals but soon this separateness starts to break down.

“…her face that reminded me of my own boyhood and of my friend of those days. His name was Herman. For a moment it seemed that she had turned into this Herman.” [page 107]

Soon the two characters have begun to meld not only into each other but also into Haller himself.

“Hermine stood in too close a relation to me. She was my comrade and sister—my double, almost, in her resemblance not to me only, but to Herman, my boyhood friend, the enthusiast, the poet…” [page 125]

“It seemed to me that it was not, perhaps, her own thoughts but mine.” [page 154]

A third character Pablo represents an individual in whom the acceptance and melding of the anima and animus into his psyche had already been achieved. His behavior as well as his thinking embrace both masculine and feminine traits. He invites Harry to engage in homosexual and bisexual activities. Harry resists doing so but increasingly falls “under the spell of the hermaphrodite.” Near the end of the novel, Harry decides to enter Pablo’s Magic Theater hoping this will be a path that will aid in his psychological growth and healing.

Another Jungian concept that is alluded to in Steppenwolf is ‘Collective Unconscious’. This is a controversial, and difficult to define, term that comes from Jung’s writings. Jung considered the psyche to be a complex entity made up not only of our individual thoughts and emotions, but to also include elements outside of ourselves, i.e., the Collective Unconscious.

For academic psychologists such as myself who adopt a neurobiological approach to try to understand the mind, this concept of the Collective Unconscious can be interpreted in a way that makes sense in the context of evolution.  If one accepts that thoughts and emotions arise from activities of neural circuits in our brains, and also accepts that all humans, including their neural circuits, evolved from common animal ancestors, then the notion that some aspects of consciousness should be common to all humans does not seem unreasonable. And although it is perhaps best thought of as being poetic language, it is not totally unreasonable to imply, as Jung sometimes did,  that Consciousness encompasses all space (it is after all present wherever humans are present in the world) and all time (it goes back into deep evolutionary time and will continue forward as long as the human species survives).

However, there is another (nonbiological) context within which the concept, Collective Unconscious, is more commonly referenced. This is within mystical or religious traditions, particularly those prevalent in Asia such as Buddhism. When evaluated from that perspective the Collective Unconscious is sometimes interpreted to be a nonphysical entity that transcends space and time and can be characterized by terms such as ‘the eternal’. That is the context in which the allusions to Collective Unconscious are probably better understood in Steppenwolf.

Harry Haller states that especially while listening to music, but also sometimes while engaged in other activities, he experiences an intense feeling that he characterizes as ‘the eternal’.

“[While listening to] a concert of lovely old music. After two or three notes of the piano the door was opened of a sudden to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work.” [page 29]

“Once it came to me while reading a poet, while pondering a thought of Descartes…” [page 27]

“Hadn’t I once felt this shudder before and found it at the same time a joy? Hadn’t I once caught this music before? Yes, with Mozart and the immortals.” [page 211]

Jung argued that humans can undergo journeys of transformation of the psyche in which they learn to engage not only with the individual self but also with the eternal Collective Unconscious.  The technical term he used to refer to the process of doing so was ‘individuation’. Jung considered some practices of mystical religions, particularly those from Asia such as Buddhism, to be potential paths to facilitate the process of individuation.

The process of individuation involves an expansion of the psyche, and this is one of the ways in which Jung differed from his contemporary Sigmund Freud. Freud considered the psyche to be a relatively simple entity as compared with Jung, consisting of simply three agents, ‘id’, ‘ego’, and ‘superego’. The properties of the self involve nothing other than interactions and conflicts between these three agents. Furthermore, Freud did not allow the individual self to grow more complex and expand beyond the individual person.

All these ideas are alluded to in Steppenwolf. Harry Haller initially has a conception of his ‘self’ as being relatively simple, more akin to Freud’s notion. He thought of his self as consisting of only two components — human and steppenwolf. However he soon abandons this simple conception and embarks on something more akin to Jung’s process of individuation, a quest to expand his psyche and

“to discover the eternal in the momentary…” [page 95]

Haller draws on his knowledge of Asian religions in doing so.

“These conceptions are not native to us, but are merely picked up at second hand, and it is in them, with their common source in the visible body, that the origin of the fiction of an ego, an individual, is really to be found. There is no trace of such a notion in the poems of ancient India. The heroes of the epics of India are not individuals, but whole reels of individualities in a series incarnations.” [page 59]

“[I]n the Buddhist Yoga an exact technique was devised for unmasking the illusion of the personality.” [page 60]

“Instead of narrowing your world and simplifying your soul, you will have to absorb more and more of the world and at last take all of it up in your painfully expanded soul, if you are ever to find peace. This is the road that Buddha and every great man has gone…” [page 64]

Was Harry Haller successful in this journey to expand the nature of his psyche and find peace?

Sorry. You, the reader, will have to read the book to its conclusion and decide for yourself.

Ron Boothe

psyrgb@emory.edu

May 18, 2020

[NOTE: This is the second in a series of three commentaries I wrote about Steppenwolf. The First can be found here, and the third here.]