Hesse begins
Demian (written in the fall of 1917) with the epigraph: “All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so very difficult?”
1Hermann Hesse, Demian, trans. Stanley Appelbaum (New York: Dover Thrift Editions, 2017), 1. By exposing his latent desires to the light of day and finally accepting them as his own in a positive way, he consciously began to take steps to overcome his suffering. This attempt was the starting point for the transition to a period of creative evolution and innovation that would later be followed by
Kinderseele (A Child’s Soul),
2“Kinderseele,” SW 8:179–209, written from December 1918 to February 1919. Klein und Wagner (Klein and Wagner),
3“Klein und Wagner,” SW 8:210–83, written from May to July 1919. and
Klingsors letzter Sommer (Klingsor’s Last Summer)
,4“Klingsors letzter Sommer,” SW 8:284–333, written from July to August 1919. which Hesse himself described as “revolutionary creations.”
5A letter to Samuel Fischer (publisher) dated August 27, 1919, in Hermann Hesse, Gesammelte Briefe, vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1973), 416. At the time this letter was written, Kinderseele and Klein und Wagner had been completed, but Klingsors letzter Sommer had not yet been completed.While “Das Nachtpfauenauge” was written before this period of change, it should not be overlooked that the revision of “Jugendgedenken” was completed after this creative transformation. Hesse had long suffered from the internal struggle against his latent desires, symbolized by the dark world, and his self, which belonged to the world of light, the good, the moral, the Christian world, which tries to suppress the world of darkness. In his process of self-improvement, including his creative activities, Hesse recognized the importance of facing and accepting his dark side. However, a multifaceted and objective viewpoint is essential in order to look at the complex and multi-layered latent dark side as well as the attributes of the world of light. In this sense, if we place the changes from “Das Nachtpfauenauge” to “Jugendgedenken” in the context of Hesse’s creative transformation, we can read Hesse’s intention to move towards self-reflection in many of the changes. In addition, the method of taking a multifaceted view of the subject and focusing on it in stages by alternating between two narrators in the story’s framing structure should also be understood in this sense. The absence of the reprise in the frame story should be considered a rational decision made by Hesse as regards the structure, to avoid re-diffusing the attributes of the world of darkness, which were presented for objective observation.
In Japanese junior high school classes, “Das Nachtpfauenauge” is rarely cited as a key to reading “Shonen no Hi no Omoide,” given time constraints and other reasons, and thus it is difficult to read this short story in relation to Hesse’s creative transformation. However, it is to be hoped that even the slightest attention to such perspectives in the classroom will open up new possibilities for the interpretation of the story—which has been read by Japanese junior high school students for many years—and will lead to a new and greater impact of Hermann Hesse in Japan. Certainly, it would be difficult for junior high school students who know nothing about Hesse’s background as a writer or his creative transformations to understand this story in the above sense. However, if Japanese language teachers provide such knowledge in class and encourage students to freely interpret the story, the students should be able to find new appeal in this story. I also believe that this growing momentum will give also older Hesse readers an opportunity to re-read this story.