In Demian, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the dramatic story of a young man's awakening to selfhood. Writing in the existential tradition of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, and employing the discoveries of Freud, Hermann Hesse portrays the turmoil of Emil Sinclair, a docile young man who is drawn by his schoolmates - and especially by the precocious Max Demian - into a secret and dangerous world of petty crime and revolt against convention.
Emil Sinclair is a young boy raised in a bourgeois home, amidst what is described as a Scheinwelt, a play on words that means "world of light" as well as "world of illusion". Emil's entire existence can be summarized as a struggle between two worlds: the show world of illusion (related to the Hindu concept of maya) and the real world, the world of spiritual truth. In the course of the novel, accompanied and prompted by his mysterious classmate 'Max Demian', he detaches from and revolts against the superficial ideals of the world of appearances and eventually awakens into a realization of self.
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