Demian

In the story, Demian, Sinclair states that people help themselves without the help of others in such matters. When a person gets help from teachers, mentors or advisors, this support is not meant to put a person down, but to motivate and help move them along in life. People helped Sinclair get through life in many situations, starting when he was a little boy at the age of ten. There are some who may come through one’s life and try to hinder him or her from getting them where it is that they need to be because of jealousy or many other reasons. If most cases, successful people most often refer back to someone who served as a mentor or some positive influence in their life.

Sinclair was helped by Demian who he did not really know until they walked home together one day. Demian helped Sinclair to show that he was not afraid of people. Franz Kromer, a local bully, lured Sinclair into telling him that he stole some apples when Sinclair really did not do it. Sinclair did this because Kromer’s bad reputation was affecting him, making him want to seem cool. Kromer was one who put Sinclair down when he was a little boy. Demian, on the other hand, was someone who Sinclair looked up to, not as a peer but as a mentor and a man.

Demian talked to Sinclair about books and life in general. Kromer finally stopped bullying and bothering Sinclair and Sinclair was able to move on with his life. In this particular situation, it was Demian who helped Sinclair move forward. Sinclair was also beginning to see that Demian was not trying to be a mean person or someone who was trying to get something out of him as Kromer had been. Sinclair began to hang around Demian more and more and was looking at him as a mentor. Sinclair stated that, “Sometimes in those days I made attempts to imitate him and to concentrate my willpower on some goal I had to achieve it.”(pg. 37) Sinclair started making plans and setting goals in life that he wanted to achieve through willpower and motivation. He was trying to do everything like Demian. Demian talked to Sinclair as a grownup of some sort, telling him to follow his wishes. Sinclair was saying how he could not bring himself to talk to Demian about certain things he had on his mind, but yet he wanted to achieve big dreams. The help Demian gave Sinclair, contradicted Sinclair’s statement, “In such matters people can’t help each other. No one helped me, either. You have to meditate on your own needs, and then you must do whatever is in accord with your own real nature. Nothing else will help.”(pg. 76) In reading the story, Demian, it seems as if Demian was a great mentor and friend to Sinclair, and then he makes a statement like that. Once again Sinclair said how he admired and looked up to the way in which Demian talked, but he still could not find his path in life. Sinclair stated that, “But in my way of thinking, which was totally influenced by Demian, I differed greatly from those among my fellow pupils who displayed total belief.”(pg. 37) Demian and Sinclair were around the same age yet Sinclair seemed to think like him. At times people may reject what a mentor might say because it may not sound good to them because it is something that they might not want to hear, but deep down they know that it is right. If they follow the advice or heed to the information, they may be motivated to go on and do well in life. As with Sinclair, he would hear something and Demian would interpret it for him and tell him to give him his ideas about it, and Demian would notice that they did not share the same views all the time. Demian also had a strong impact on Sinclair at home with his family. Demian’s impact on Sinclair was so forceful that, “In the days that followed, I devoted myself several times to a new exercise in my bedroom: I sat down stiffly on a chair, made my eyes rigid, kept completely motionless, and waited to see how long I could keep it up and how it would affect me.”(pg. 43) Sinclair was becoming more and more like Demian, his mentor.

After one thinks that they no longer need a mentor, they seem to go off on their own or the mentor may leave and the person is left to live on what they learned. Of course, someone else can come along and negatively turn that person back to their old ways. Sinclair did this when he made a big transition. He was living up to the ways that Demian had taught him until he met Alfons Beck, a bad influence. Alfons Beck was not a mentor, advisor, nor teacher. He led Sinclair to drink. Of course, everyone knows that drinking often leads to a dead end. Alfons took Sinclair a step back from where Demian had brought him. When Sinclair talked to Alfons Beck, he did not talk in the manly way that he talked to Demian. “Beck listened to me with pleasure, finally at last someone I could give