Govinda And Siddhartha Comparison

Life is a journey; and as with all journeys, some people take the time to appreciate the road it takes to get there: the path, the sights along the way, the experience, and the excitement. Then there are those who are so blinded by the allure of the destination that they neglect everything else on the way. In the novel Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, these two types of people are mirrored by the characters Siddhartha, who discovers the value in being a finder and Govinda who is doomed to be a seeker. Because Siddhartha invites change and constantly finds himself in situations he never thought likely, he allows himself to grow, acquire knowledge and love others, unlike Govinda who fails to notice what goes on in his life as it passes him by, leaving him unhappy and endlessly searching for something he is never going to find.
Govinda inhibits not only his growth as a person, but his ability to see himself …show more content…
From the start Govinda is portrayed as inferior to Siddhartha, seeing as,”He wanted to follow Siddhartha… and if he ever became a god… then Govinda wanted to follow him as his friend, his companion, his servant, his lance bearer, his shadow”(2). His loyalty to and pride in his friend make Govinda willing to blindly follow Siddhartha wherever he goes. Being childhood friends makes it easier for Govinda to be, “at [Siddhartha’s] side… [as] his shadow” (12) because this is the only life he has ever known. It is only after the pair grow old and Govinda stumbles upon Siddhartha at the river that Govinda is told that his whole life had been wasted, doing just as he did in his youth: following others, trying