The Sacred Struggle in Hesse and Tolstoy

Paper Summary:

This essay compares the struggle of Tolstoy's Ilych and Hesse's Siddhartha. The essay concludes that both characters needed to learn something similar: Knowledge is not always something that one should seek; rather it begins in a kind of listening to oneself, a turning inward and a clear-minded acceptance of one's wounds. Both stories portray that only through struggle and strife do we gain clear insight into our innermost natures. In fact, the real crisis of our lives may not be in the struggle itself, but in the fact that we may refuse to look (or delay looking) at that part of ourselves where such struggles arises.

From the Paper:

"Ilych finally became conscious and only then "the screaming began" (1318). He finally understood how he had come to treat others, his wife and children, and himself. In a sense, perhaps he recognized that our lives are all about choices choices about who we associate with, how we live, how we work, how we think, how we respond to adversity, how we treat others, and how we feel about ourselves. The real tragedy in the life of Ilych is that right up to the moment of his death, he believed he had no other choice but to live as he had, and die as he would. Cruel fate demanded it. And he had always believed himself to be deprived of choice or free will in terms of his life but in reality, at each step, Ilych held the reigns of control."

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