Desire In Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha

encounters with the two women suggest that physical desire and sex are essential aspects of the material world he must explore. When the first woman wordlessly invites Siddhartha to engage in a sexual act, Siddhartha refuses her, but his curiosity about sex remains. When he sees the beautiful courtesan Kamala, his lust finds a focal point. When Siddhartha decides to make sex his new project, he immerses himself with an intensity usually reserved for his religious apprenticeship. Although he has rejected spiritual teachers, he will accept a teacher of desire, and he consciously decides to follow her teachings. Siddhartha is not an innocent, and neither is he willing to passively accept whatever sexual experience falls into his lap. He is, to …show more content…
Siddhartha follows Kamala’s advice and does not beg for work but, instead, acts in a manner that requires Kamaswami to treat him respectfully. Kamaswami quizzes Siddhartha about his desire to become a businessman, not expecting much. When Siddhartha answers honestly, and shows that he can read and write, Kamaswami is impressed and offers to take Siddhartha as a protégé. Siddhartha lives in Kamaswami’s house and works with him as a merchant. Siddhartha handles the business world with relative ease, but he does not emotionally attach himself to the results of his ventures, laughing off failure as easily as he laughs at his success. Disturbed by this flippant attitude, Kamaswami tries to motivate Siddhartha by giving him a small percentage of the gains from each transaction. Yet business remains only a game for Siddhartha, and nothing Kamaswami does can make him take business affairs more seriously. Kamaswami suggests that he try giving himself over to the pleasures wealth can bring, but still Siddhartha does not change his perspective. His life as a Samana showed him that many people live in a childish, animalistic way, suffering over things that have little real meaning, such as money, pleasure, and honor. Siddhartha rejects this sort of …show more content…
Siddhartha works hard with Kamaswami in order to afford the gifts and clothes necessary to court Kamala, but he feels he learns far more important lessons from her than from Kamaswami. He learns much about the physical act of love, but also about patience and self-respect. He notes that she understands him better than do Govinda or Kamaswami, because she, unlike Kamaswami, can always retreat from the material world and be herself. Her life seems to have purpose and meaning and in this way seems similar to the life of Gotama