A Freudian-Lacanian reading of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf

This study aims to provide an in-depth look at the existing readership of Hermann Hesse, trace the conventional biographical-Jungian analysis that is ingrained within it, and then proceed to dispense with this rigidly restrictive method to approach the novels of Hesse. Grounded on a structural text-based analysis, this study first excludes the factual information of Hesse, as well as the Jungian psychology and conducts instead a Freudian-Lacanian reading on one novel of Hesse, namely Steppenwolf. The point here, however, is not merely to dismiss the intentional fallacy that is established by Hesse's critics but also to demonstrate first, that the Jungian process of individuation does not accord with numerous incidents in the novel, and secondly, the Jungian psychology is structurally so narrow that it cannot detect the infinite meanings beneath Hesse's metaphoric and metonymic prose. The present research effectively provides a dialectical analysis of the novel's main characters and enables a better understanding of the novel's second part. This study, nevertheless, achieves the fundamental aim of all literature which is to pave the way for infinite interpretation rather than to conventionalize a certain interpretation of a written work.