Refusal of the Call

Siddhartha is a complicated man with complicated existential problems, and we seem to accept this premise because it aligns with the hero’s journey narrative, and this English class is about the hero’s journey, so it all works out quite nicely. However, sometimes I wonder what would happen if we briefly removed the cloak of this narrative. Are we still left with the knowledgeable, wisdom-searching, rebirthing hero we all know and love? Or is Siddhartha really just a typical man encountering the journey that is life? How much of a hero is Siddhartha really? This question, I think, is the true inquiry to ponder. In the chapter “Samsara,” Siddhartha, after meeting Kamala, has been living with the ordinary for many years and is now struggling because he has lost the “glorious exalted awakening” that he had discovered two chapters ago (Hesse 76). He becomes too accustomed to the way the ordinary live: gambling with dice and learning how to “exercise power over people, to amuse himself with ...