The Hero's Journey In Siddhartha By Herman Hesse

In the story Siddhartha by Herman Hesse Siddhartha chooses many times to pursue his own path, by rejecting the offer of learning under Buddha, while Giovinda jumped at the opportunity. He even abandons the pursuit of spiritual tranquility to live a life of material possessions and greed. This is the path he chose and our path is not like anyone else’s. Everyone has their own path to follow, some might intertwine for a time, but it is inevitable that everyone has to follow their own path alone. Friends are an example, most friends are not permanent, some may last longer than others but most end and everybody is left alone in the end.

In the story Siddhartha begins his journey as a prince, living a life free of struggle and material possessions. …show more content…
The next person he meets is Kamala, a courtesan, she strays Siddhartha off of his direct path toward enlightenment, he is not able to resist her, she pulls him back into a life of material possessions and desire. After 20 years of living the life of a normal person, a vacation from his path towards enlightenment, he leaves Kamala. A person who became very close to Siddhartha once again gone in a split second decision. He continues on his journey towards toward enlightenment alone, again. He then contemplates suicide, by the river, drowning himself, he sees the folly in his ways and falls into meditation. When he awakes he is welcomed by a monk, a monk who does not recognize him, Giovinda, his old friend who he had abandoned 20 years prior. Giovinda had continued his path with the Buddha. Giovinda, after a brief reunion with Siddhartha, continues on his journey of enlightenment, leaving Siddhartha by the the river’s side. He meets with an enlightened ferryman, Vasudeva, who like Siddhartha, has a powerful connection to the river. After Kamala’s funeral, Siddhartha attempts to raise his own child, but his child is spoiled and destructive. ‘But Siddhartha knew what his friend was thinking -probably that the boy would have thrown the oar away or broken it …show more content…
It was not exactly hard to find friends since everyone else was doing the same thing. For the next three years I made friends for the first time, building up some sort of group of friends, after the third year, my parents pulled me out to homeschool. I struggled to keep most of my friendships that year, I lost a major portion of them due to not being enrolled in school. The next year my dad had a midlife crisis, he suddenly decided that he wanted to see the world, he pulled my brothers out of school and my family went on a year long trip around the world, going to many countries and states. The trip itself was amazing, even going to Buddha temple for a couple of days and learning about the religion. However when we returned to Iowa, my social life had imploded. I felt like a stranger among familiar faces, I had a new mission, to find new friends. All my old friends had replaced me and I was left with nobody, thus began one of the loneliest years of my life. I slowly began to find friends, some I am still good friends with now. After those years of being gone, my social life took a major step back and so did my confidence. I slowly repaired my social life, through losing friends and gaining new ones, and with a better social life came my confidence. I confronted problems in my life, this year marks one of my happiest years of my life, and