"Destiny" and Hesse's Demian

In Demian the search for the self becomes the search for one's Schicksal. Though Sinclair seeks it in the chillness of social isolation, his destiny appears as a very public war. Here as elsewhere, Hesse is of two minds about free will and about the source of destiny, whether in the self or the historical milieu. In the usage of language, Schicksal is an anthropomorphic antagonist or partner of the self, the response of the world to man's hope and action. Hesse's identification of self and destiny fails logically and in practice by insisting that destiny be sought in isolation from the world.