Emil Sinclair, a boy from a comfortable, pious home, is drawn into a darker world by a bullying schoolmate. He is rescued by the older, mysterious Max Demian, who offers him unorthodox ideas about good and evil and about independent thought. As Sinclair grows up through school and university, he searches for his own path and for a deeper self. Published just after the First World War, the novel spoke strongly to a generation seeking new meaning, and it draws on ideas from psychoanalysis.
Quotes
I wanted only to try to live in obedience to the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?