The Steppen Wolf by Herman Hesse

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Hermann Hesse is one of the writers of training novel most relevant internationally. Born in Calw in 1877, he was still an innovative writer who continued in his own way and experimented with the tradition of the Romantic movement in Germany. However, one of his most important works existentialists it is "Steppe wolf", probably also the best known to relate when we hear his name. In a PROFESSOR we have prepared you a summary of Steppe wolf so that you know more about this wonderful novel.

Hesse's novels are characterized by being a mirror to the inner world, a kind of search from within that removes everything. Normally, the character is in some kind of crisis or in a transition stage, it is from there, where he can best explore, we will see it next.

Index

1. The steppe wolf: plot summary
2. Summary of the first part of The Steppe Wolf
3. The steppe wolf, summary of the second part
4. Summary of the third part of The Steppe Wolf

Written in 1927 when Herman Hesse I was fifty years old, it's about a masterpiece among the training novels. Harry Haller, the protagonist, is the projection of Hesse in his crisis period. It constitutes, according to various experts, the first autobiographical project that the writer tackled.

The plot of the play revolves around Harry Haller, a lonely man living in Basel given over to music, tobacco, reading and vices. He is described as a man hybrid in nature, a mixture of human and lone wolf. This character is today known as the archetype of everyone who has been influenced by the dehumanizing and devastating effects of an unsupportive society.

Harry Haller will meet several characters, starting with an old professor from his youth that will force him to go out to dinner and followed by Armanda, a young woman who will try to get him out of his isolation in order for him to discover a much more joyful life. Towards the end of the play, Harry will arrive at a theater where he will meet a saxophonist named Pablo. In this theater, madness and Dionysian delight will mix, leading to Harry's arrest. Luckily, he will discover that everything he experienced in that theater it was nothing more than a hallucination.

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We already start with the summary of Steppe wolf analyzing the first of the parts. Here we meet the introduction to the main character, Harry Haller. The individual arrives at a new, furnished boarding house and is described as gloomy, lonely, and sullen. The character reflects on his customs and habits. He goes out for a walk and discovers an inscription that catches his attention: "Magic theater"Later, this fact will be relevant, especially because he meets a boy with a sign from the same theater, distributing brochures. He gives you one of those brochures titled: Tractat of the steppe wolf. Not for just anyone.

This document tells the story of the steppe wolf, who happens to be a man named Harry half wolf half human. Harry begins to ponder, thinking of a poem he wrote, in death and suicide. He continues walking and meets a teacher who taught him during his youth, he invites him to dinner. Harry ends up going but feels very strange in the house, the night ends with the main character walking through the streets and taverns until he finds a call "Black eagle", where he decides to enter.

Arriving at the tavern, Harry meets Armanda, a happy woman who catches your attention. He starts chatting with her and tells her that he can't go to her house because something terrible awaits him: suicide, since he, he had been fantasizing about this idea a long time ago. Harry stays at the place, which is also a hostel, and falls asleep dreaming of Goethe. They meet again for dinner, and he can't stop thinking about her to the point that when he sees each other again he tells her that he will do whatever she wants.

Armanda tells her that she will have to do whatever she wants and asks her well, that he falls in love with her and then kills her. They talk about the steppe wolf tractat and the fox-trot, thus staying the next day to practice dancing. They meet in a hotel where they meet another girl, Maria. Armanda proposes to Harry to fall in love with her, but he refuses.

They continue dancing and chatting, the two feel very close. Later, they meet Pablo, a saxophonist that offers them a white powder that will make them feel great. Harry takes it and evidently begins to feel much better than before.

And we finish this summary of Steppe wolf to focus on the end. One night Harry returns to the hotel and finds Maria naked in her bed. He thinks it is a gift from Armanda and decides to have sex with her, feeling something that he has never experienced before: pleasure, love and eroticism. He continues to associate with Pablo the saxophonist, Armanda and Maria until the day of a masked ball, where he witnesses all kinds of stories. He looks for his friends but cannot find them, he decides to leave but in the wardrobe he receives a note from a man who says:

"Tonight, from four o'clock, Magic Theater - just for crazy people. The entrance costs the reason. Not for just anyone. Armanda is in hell. "

Harry runs in search of Armanda to the room called Hell, where he finds her disguised as a man. He starts a game where they dance and Armanda proposes to him how she should seduce and which women. They finish dancing and go to the Magic Theater. They arrive and Pablo gives them some long yellow cigarettes to smoke, he offers Harry a mirror so that he can see the reflection of him as a steppe wolf.

From now on, Harry begins to experience a journey through different places and situations, kill characters, rush into the void... The steppe wolf sees his life pass through the different theaters. At the end of a series of strange events, Harry realizes that everything has been a hallucination.

If you want to read more articles similar to The steppe wolf: summary, we recommend that you enter our category of Reading.

• Anonymous. (2016). Summary of The Steppe Wolf, The thinker.
• Anonymous (2019). Summary of The Steppe Wolf (Hermann Hesse), summaryof.net.
• Martínez, I. (2011). Hermann Hesse's training novel as a testimony of an identity and a philosophy of life: the construction of the outsider on Steppe wolf. Space, time and form (23), 1-22.