Returning home : the novels of Hermann Hesse and reinhabiting a life-place
(Book - Regular Print)

Thesis,MSES,Green Mountain College,2014

Includes bibliographical references.

An ecocritical lens allows for the interpretation of the role of the environment within a literary text. Five novels by Herman HessePeter Camenzind, Beneath the Wheel, knulp, Siddhartha, and Narcissus and Goldmundas well as several poems, are read from an ecocritical perspectice to show how Hesse's main characters interact with the natural world. Each of these characters forms connections with nature in his home place, on a journey away from home, and in his eventual return home or to another place he has connected with along the way. These characters return to their life-places, and each chooses to reinhabit that life-place in his own way. The eventual return to one's life-place shows how nature has influenced that character and what "home" means.