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Although countless papers have been written with the endpoint of analyzing Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in mind, there are still subjects left untouched. These subjects are frequently glossed over in discussion, with little effort devoted towards developing a deeper understanding of them. One untouched subject which requires attention is Siddhartha’s brief relationship with his son. The failure of Siddhartha’s relationship with his son remains shrouded in mystery because of the seeming lack of connection between it and the rest of the novel.
I attempt to take a deeper and more investigative view of Siddhartha by focusing on the parallels between Siddhartha’s relationship with his son and his relationships with other characters throughout the novel to show that the failure of his relationship with his son is the byproduct of his inability to truly connect with people because he cannot understand them and that this inability stems from not knowing what others need, and because of the belief that the unenlightened are inferior. This article attempts to analyze from a viewpoint that has never been discussed before.
Siddhartha and His Son
Siddhartha fails to connect with his son, and this failure is not due to such simple causes such as difference in experience between him and his son. One prominent example of his failure to connect with his son is his son’s response to his continuous love. Hesse writes: Since time had passed on in the meantime, and the boy remained a stranger and in a gloomy disposition, since he displayed a proud and stubbornly disobedient heart, did not want to do any work, did not pay his respect to the old men, stole from Vasudeva’s fruit-trees, then Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. (Hesse)
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Upon reading this passage, the reader might jump to the conclusion that the causes of Siddhartha’s failure to bond with his son can be easily found in the different experiences of him and his son. First, Siddhartha is enlightened and understands that possessions and pleasure are not important, while his son is too attached to them to let them go. Second, Siddhartha is comfortable among mystics, having journeyed with them in his youth, while his son has never seen them before and is afraid of them. Third, Siddhartha is willing to love others while his son is only capable of barking orders at him as if he were a servant.
However, all these causes do not actually explain why Siddhartha failed to connect with his son because they all lack support from the rest of the text, when taken into consideration. First, Siddhartha was strongly attached to possessions when he was in the world, and he understood from personal experience why his son would be so thoroughly attached to them. Second, Siddhartha’s experience with the mystics may have given him a taste of what it was like to be a mystic, but it never allowed him to become mentally comfortable with their worldview. Third, Siddhartha never allowed his love for others to interfere with his quest for enlightenment, and abandoned the people he loved whenever it did so. Turning to Siddhartha’s experiences can only reveal so much about him, because his actions are primarily driven by his behaviors and motives. Experiences may influence behaviors to some extent, but it is the underlying motives and behaviors that drive them. Siddhartha’s failure to connect to his son did not stem from any mere difference in experiences, as some might first conclude.
Siddhartha’s Inability to Connect
Siddhartha’s failure to connect to his son stems from his inability to connect to people. One example of his inability to connect with people is when he first interacts with the masses after his return from being a Samana. Hesse writes: “— and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction.”(Hesse)
Siddhartha’s focus on his ideology’s view of the material world and everyday life in general as a rotting garment for the pure soul to emerge out of makes it impossible for him to connect with people because he does not view them as people. Instead, he views them with contempt as ciphers, as non-factors in the quest to enlightenment. This attitude parallels Siddhartha’s attitude towards the boy because he views him as less than fully human, as an object to be molded by his love into a desired relationship with him, instead of a fully independent human with free will. The inability of Siddhartha to form a relationship in both cases stems from his unwillingness to connect to people. Siddhartha does not connect with people, whether these people are his son or others.
Siddhartha’s Inability to See Others’ Needs
Siddhartha is unable to see the needs of others even as he is propelled along his quest by his need for Enlightenment and this is one cause of his inability to connect to other people. One relationship which testifies to this cause of failure is Siddhartha’s relationship with his son. Siddhartha worries: ‘ Won’t he become exuberant, won’t he lose himself to pleasure and power, won’t he repeat all of his father’s mistakes, won’t he perhaps get entirely lost in Sansara?'(Hesse) Siddhartha focuses on his desire for his son to become enlightened, and disregards his son’s need to live in the world.
By ignoring his son’s needs, he cannot connect to his son because his son’s unaddressed need will prevent him from wanting to have a relationship with his father. Because this willful ignorance of his son’s need gives rise to the failure of his relationship with his son, we can conclude that his relations fail because he ignores the needs of others. Another example would be Siddhartha’s reaction to the people he meets when he goes about his business as a merchant. Hesse writes: “He saw mankind going through life in a childlike or animallike manner, which he loved and also despised at the same time.”(Hesse)
By viewing the masses as children or like animals, Siddhartha is unable to take their needs and deprivations seriously. Their complaints about their sufferings, which reveal their hidden needs, would be viewed from this mindset as the whining of children. However, these hidden needs define the level on which the masses connect to each other. Without acknowledging these hidden needs, Siddhartha cannot connect to the masses, or to anyone else. Both his son and the masses he meets on his trip as a merchant share mundane needs which to be addressed for him to enjoy connection with them. With the example of his interactions with people other than his son, we can easily see that Siddhartha’s failure to take others’ needs seriously is his primary obstacle to forming relationships with his son. Because Siddhartha fails to acknowledge the needs of others, he is bound to fail when he tries to connect to them.
Siddhartha and the Unenlightened
Siddhartha’s failure to connect with his son also stems from his inability to treat the unenlightened as equals even though he treats them with compassion and open-heartedness. His view of the unenlightened should have changed after entering the world, and experiencing Om, but it did not. One example of this is his treatment of his friend Govinda after they meet on Siddhartha’s ferry. Hesse writes: ‘When someone is searching,’ said Siddhartha, ‘then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal.
Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don’t see, which are directly in front of your eyes.'(Hesse) Although this quotation may not appear to express contempt, Siddhartha is expressing it by treating Govinda as a subordinate to be taught and with his sarcastic use of Govinda’s title. This is a major change in Siddhartha’s attitude towards him. Before his quest for enlightenment, Siddhartha viewed Govinda as an equal and considered him to be his dearest friend. Siddhartha’s new attitude makes his relationship with Govinda difficult because a hierarchy in the relationship appears where none existed.
Govinda is reduced to having a purely passive role, only absorbing Siddhartha’s newfound wisdom and becoming enlightened through Siddhartha. Siddhartha occupies the role of sacred teacher, with any arguments between the two simply redirected into Siddhartha’s teaching of Govinda. The separation between former friends into master and student clearly shows that Siddhartha’s condescension for the unenlightened made it impossible for him to connect to characters other than his son. This factor explains why his relationship with his son is so fraught. Returning back to Siddhartha’s encounter with his son, we discover that Siddhartha expected to teach his son how to be enlightened. When confronting Siddhartha, Vasudeva argues: “And could you in any way protect your son from Sansara? How could you? By means of teachings, prayer, admonition?” (Hesse)
This too, reveals Siddhartha’s contempt for the unenlightened. By assuming that his son could not discover enlightenment by the same grueling process that he did, Siddhartha placed himself above his son and expressed contempt towards him. By preaching at his son, Siddhartha would have placed himself not only in the familiar role of the father disciplining his son, but also in the role of a cleric discipling his flock. This would have stifled all communication and shared interests with his son because his son would resent being treated as merely an unenlightened fool, forced into it by his father’s stern sermons. The similarities between Siddhartha’s conduct towards Govinda and his desired conduct towards his own son are strikingly clear. Both require that Siddhartha occupy the role of the sacred teacher. Both require that the other occupy the role of passive observer and follower. Both require the distortion of a previously equal relationship into a strict hierarchical order. With these similarities in mind, it is easy to see why Siddhartha’s attitudes toward his son led to a failed relationship. Friendships cannot be reduced to an order between a passive student and an enlightened teacher, and that is why Siddhartha failed.
Conclusion
Although Siddhartha is a tale about an Indian priest in the sixth-century BCE, who seeks enlightenment on his own terms while failing to relate to his own son, it is also a source of social and moral commentary for the present as well. The inability to see other people’s needs remains as much as of a stumbling block towards good relations with other people as it did in Siddhartha’s day. On the other hand, the notion of contempt for the unenlightened or unsaved may have gone, with the passing of religion’s importance in contemporary society, but similar attitudes towards people who “just don’t get it” remain, especially concerning political viewpoints. With their minds refreshed by reading this book, it remains up to the readers to argue with it if the perceived stumbling blocks are still relevant to daily life. It may be even beneficial to question if they are necessary in some situations, such as in the willingness of a businessman to temporarily ignore the lesser needs of his workers to ensure that the greater need of product delivery and increased revenue for all. No matter what position the reader takes on the book’s moral standpoints, the reader will be able to gain a wider understanding of the world.
