Narrative Voice

Demian is written in the first-person narrative voice. Emil Sinclair is both the narrator and the protagonist of the story. Hesse's choice of first-person narration is central to Demian, because Sinclair is describing his own inward journey toward selfknowledge and the formulation of his personal identity. Critics have noted that Demian does not have a strong or complex plot, because the novel is concerned with a process of self-reflection rather than a series of external events. It has also been noted that Sinclair's recollection of significant childhood events, powerful dreams, and internal struggles resembles the process by which a patient expresses himself to a psychoanalyst.

Setting

Demian is set in Germany during the decade preceding World War I, the early years of the twentieth century. It is interesting to note that Hesse's own youth did not coincide with these events, as he grew up during the final...