Lonely Among Loners

Throughout Herman Hesse’s Demian, the use of verbal irony illuminates Sinclair’s struggle to deal appropriately with his callow behavior and thereby evolve. As he tentatively begins to experiment with his sense of self through interactions with friends and family, Sinclair often speaks in indirect ways and skirts direct encounters with the implications of his callowness. As Sinclair comes of age, he awkwardly straddles the dichotomy between the protective world of his family and the threatening outside world. If he says what he really thinks and faces direct implications, he fears he risks losing the comfort of his closest relationships which guide him along his path; yet while he knows the world beyond those relationships is full of existential alienation and solitude, he nevertheless desires to mature, even if that maturity means isolation and pain. The use of verbal irony functions to illuminate the gradual development he undergoes from callousness to a budding acceptance of his existentialism thereby coming to terms with himself. This is evidenced when Demian reprimands him for offering money to Kromer, when he resents having hurt Pistorius, and when his father confronts him in the boarding school