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Rebecca Palacios
Professor Gerstman
IDH 1001
Demian Reflection Paper
College students such as myself can easily relate to the character of Emil in
Herman Hesse’s Demain. Emil has solid views about stories in the bible, and religion,
and clearly God is of great importance in his life. His views are altered as soon as his new
friend Demian brings in a new perspective into his life. Both Emil and Demian discuss
the biblical story of Cain and Abel and Demian tells Emil that Cain is actually very
intelligent and great, and that people make him seem like such an evil person because
everyone was just intimidated by his greatness. Upon hearing this new viewpoint on the
story, Emil’s mind opens up to different perspectives on everything in life, and he starts
to wonder what he truly believes, essentially trying to find “his true self”.
Being a first year college student, I can easily connect my life to Emil’s
experiences throughout the novel. There are professors, and students in college that
know so much more than I do, and have studied such a wide variety of subjects, and are
much more experienced than me. Just in my first semester, I have been faced with so
many different opinions, and views on controversial subjects that I never knew existed
before, and they have truly widened mind and broadened my thinking. I feel like college
is not only a place you go to, to get your degree. It’s so much more than that. To me,
college is a once in a lifetime experience that teaches students like myself, life lessons,
and gives us the ability to think critically about problems and find logical and practical
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solutions to them. Like Emil at the start of the story, I still do not know who I truly am, or
what my own individuation is. Towards the beginning of the novel, Emil lies about
stealing apples, to try to seem like a hero, or cooler, in front of his friends. Emil describes
the story as “an elaborate tale of thievery”(Hesse 6) in which he is the hero. That was a
mistake on Emil’s part, because Franz Kromer blackmails him, at least until Demian gets
involved. Since I am in the Honors College here at FIU, I remember thinking that I must
be one of the smartest freshmen. My thinking quickly changed when in one of my honors
classes, people were introducing themselves and talking about their past achievements in
high school. I was going to mention that I was valedictorian in my high school to try to
sound smart and cool (much like Emil did) and decided that I better not mention that,
because a good portion of the honors class I was in were also valedictorians, or close to it
