Essay on The Father-Son Relationship Depicted in Hesse's Siddhartha

Siddhartha was raised in a life of luxury being raised as a prince since birth, he was one of the few people of his time who were able to receive an education consisting of the sciences, mathematics, art, and eventually at the behest of his father sports and archery. It has been written by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in Introduction to Buddhism that “He mastered all the traditional arts and sciences without needing any instruction. He knew sixty-four different languages, each with their own alphabet…” (Gyatso 4) he was seen as a genius and wise beyond his years once telling his father that he could “…count all the atoms in the world in the time it takes to draw a single breath.” (Gyatso 5) Siddhartha’s father, Śuddhodana, took great effort in blocking religion from Siddhartha

Siddhartha parted from Govinda to leave behind the childhood memories and with that decision, he felt at peace, he had renounced friendship too. He was no longer going to leave himself behind and begin his day with the thinking of Atman. Atman is the subject of knowledge (Smart 203). His identity was plain and simple, Siddhartha, the awakened one, not his father’s son and not a Brahmin. (Hesse 38).

As with the Brahmins, Siddhartha’s experience with the Samanas is not a fulfilling one. Hesse writes, “he slipped out of his Self in a thousand different forms. He was animal, carcass, stone, wood, water, and each time he reawakened” (Pg-15). Siddhartha learned a great deal from the Samanas, yet he was still unable to reach enlightenment. During his time with the Samanas, Siddhartha never saw or heard of a single person achieving enlightenment. Feeling disillusioned with the teachings of others, Siddhartha decided to leave the Samanas, and seek out the venerable Buddha. Siddhartha seeks out the Buddha and hears his sermon, but he ultimately decides to seek his own path to enlightenment. In leaving the Buddha, Siddhartha begins to follow a Buddhist path. Siddhartha says, “But there is one thing that this clear, worthy instruction does not contain; it does not contain the secret of what the Illustrious One himself experienced he alone among hundreds of thousands" (Pg-34). In this part of his journey, Siddhartha realizes that no one can teach him how to achieve enlightenment. As Gautama did before him, Siddhartha heads out to find his own path to enlightenment.

In the first chapter, Siddhartha had been born into a Hindus family of the ruling caste. He was surrounded by the ruling of Braham and priests. His dad, King Sudhodana, was very forceful into controlling what his future determined to be and longed for his son to carry on his legacy as being the ruler of

Family relations are complex, but none may be as difficult to navigate as the bond that exists between a father and his son. Even though the son becomes angry and displeased with his father, he is always able to come back to him, revealing the cyclic nature and the impacts of

The relationships between Odysseus and Telemachus and also of Poseidon and Polyphemus in The Odyssey gives us several examples for the aspects in which the Greeks valued in father son relationships. If you think about it, people admire similar aspects today. Fathers can still be relied upon to defend their sons and are motivated to help raise them into good men. However, we can compare them to how we view father and son relationships today and see how they may have changed and why. Nevertheless, the bond a father has with his son can impact the lives of them and the people around them

At the beginning of the novel we see foreshadowing of Siddhartha’s constant tangle with conformity when it states “Govinda knew that he would not become an ordinary Brahmin… or just a stupid sheep amongst a large herd” (Hesse 4). This relates to the fact that Siddhartha doesn’t want to go through the motions of what the Brahmin’s are trying to teach. Rather he wants to find his self-fulfillment which he can only do by not conforming to ways that make him who he is not. The first instance of this is shown when Siddhartha confronts his father about leaving the house saying “With your permission, Father, I have come to tell you that I wish to leave your house tomorrow and join the ascetics.” (Hesse 10). At first his father rejects his son’s notion to leave, but after time has passed and Siddhartha remained where his father rejected him in

But, Siddhartha would always have a part of the Samana in him, and this is relayed by Kamala when she says, “She was not surprised when she learned that Siddhartha had disappeared […] Was he not a Samana, without a home, a pilgrim? She had felt it more than ever at their last meeting, and in the midst of her pain

The boy simply wants to stay down there later so he could have a good time with his friends, but his parents know better that being downtown that late at night runs a higher risk of being in danger. Luckily for Siddhartha, his father had a very wise understanding of love and accepted him for the way he was. Siddhartha's father came to the conclusion that he was adult enough to look after himself

A father-child relationship can be a good thing for some people, and problematic for others. There are different types of fathers. There are fathers who are always around their children, who give unconditional love and guidance. Then there are hard-to-please fathers who drain their children with extremely high expectations, leading to a strained relationship. Moreover, there are fathers who cannot handle the responsibilities that come with fatherhood, this type of fathers walk out on the family when the situation gets tough. Many people see their fathers in one way as a child and grow to see them in a whole different light as adults. The richness and complexity of the child and father relationship are the reason many poets write about fatherhood and fathers.

Although Siddhartha didn’t struggle with a relationship between his mother and father but McCandless did. Siddhartha waited for his father’s permission before embarking on his spiritual journey. Instead, McCandless headed right towards his journey leaving nothing for his family behind. Upon their journey, both McCandless and Siddhartha dealt with the issue of abandonment and separation. In Siddhartha’s life, he became separated from his best friend, Govinda in order to become a Samana. Siddhartha also experienced the sorrow of losing his own son just like Siddhartha’s father had experienced among his own son, while McCandless chose the life of abandonment and isolation. McCandless broke off all ties with his friends he met along the journey. Correspondingly, Siddhartha and McCandless both experienced an ascetic lifestyle upon their arrival. Siddhartha believed in losing his Self in order to find his Self. He went through pain and suffering just like McCandless did on his last few days in the Alaskan wilderness. Towards the end of their journey, Siddhartha didn’t believe in idealism and materialism, he knew nothing would satisfy him if he stayed with his father. Therefore Siddhartha pursued a journey with nothing but his friend, Govinda. McCandless knew staying at home would not satisfy him, therefore he went on his own. McCandless gave up everything but all the supplies he could fit into his backpack and went on his journey. Siddhartha and McCandless were more similar in more ways than one, but they had their differences that made them who they

Siddhartha resolved that he would first go to the Samanas, ascetics that hard lives of self-denial of all comforts and pleasures in order to rid themselves of desire and those emotions that would hinder them on the journey to discovering Atman. Although joining these extremist monks was a high ambition, Siddhartha knew that he would succeed as a Samana, for he believed that the path of the ascetic would aid him on his journey of self-discovery. As his time with the Samanas lengthened, Siddhartha began to take pride in the knowledge that he was not blinded by the material world like everybody else was; he saw the world for what it truly was -- bitter lies and misery. Despite the fact that Siddhartha was becoming a great Samana, revered by even the older monks, he felt that what he had learned from them he could have learned on his own and in less time. Once again, he was not satisfied with the path that he was on and aspired to achieve even greater heights by parting from the Samanas. This ambition is plainly displayed when Siddhartha’s friend Govinda, who had become a Samana as well, proclaimed that Siddhartha would have learned to walk on water had he stayed with the ascetics. Siddhartha simply says that he would “let old

The pains in life are taught through his son. He tries really hard to deal with his spoiled son, but cannot overcome this. "He had considered himself rich and happy when the boy had come to him, but as time passed and the boy remained unfriendly and sulky, when he proved arrogant and defiant, when he would do no work, when he showed no respect to the old people and robbed Vasudeva's fruit

Athena also spoke of father and sons as. “Few sons are like their fathers: most are worse, a few excel their parents.” As shown the role of fatherhood is significant, just as the quest of the son is to learn from his father

     Siddhartha first tries to follow the path of the Brahmins.  His father thinks of him as "a prince among Brahmins" (Hesse 4).  Siddhartha washes "in the daily bath of atonement" (Hesse 5) so that his soul might be cleansed of guilt in order to merge with the all-perfect being (Archie 60).  He also offers sacrifices to the gods.  The Brahmins teach him that Atman created the world and that this great god can be found by men only when they sleep (Hesse 7).  Despite the love and