In the following excerpt, Rose examines the protagonist's search for his integrated self in Hesse's Demian.

The events and characters in Demian are symbolic experiences of the soldier Emil Sinclair who is searching for his integrated self. Sinclair, unlike his artistic predecessors, no longer wants to escape, but strives to accept life. He tries "to give life to that which wanted to come out of me by its own force." In his quest for his self he first returns to his childhood. Soon its protecting warmth is destroyed by the discovery of an outside world of violence and danger under the influence of Franz Kromer, a boy from the other side of the tracks. Sinclair himself for a while shares in Kromer's values and becomes a petty thief.

From this situation Sinclair is rescued by Demian, an older and more mature schoolmate. (The name is a distortion...