Abstract

The psychological character of Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf is explored by way of a detailed analysis of the novel’s comic genre. This reading of Steppenwolf contextualizes its celebrated portrayal of the crisis of modern life within a story of “healing” informed by the comic vision of “faith, hope, and love in a fallen world”. The novel’s innovative sonata-like structure and the extensive use of double perception, along with the employment of classic comic action, themes, and stock characters are discussed. In the work’s comic vision, the dichotomies that plague the Steppenwolf give way to humor and imagination as preferred responses to the soul’s alienation and homelessness.