44 pages 1 hour read

Hermann Hesse

Demian

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1919

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Chapter 5

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “The Bird Fights Its Way Out of the Egg”

As Sinclair waits for Demian to get his painting, he discovers a note in one of his books. The note says, “The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born first must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God’s name is Abraxas” (73). Throughout his class, he fixates on the note, believing it is from Demian. Distracted, Sinclair suddenly realizes his teacher is giving a lesson on Abraxas. His teacher says that Abraxas unites the divine and the satanic parts of the world.

Sinclair says that Demian’s previous advice about how “whatever you wanted strongly enough happened” begins to manifest in his own life (74). He believes that he can now protect himself with his stare, just as Demian did in their confirmation class. During this time, Sinclair begins to lose interest in Beatrice, and he focuses on a recurring dream about returning to his parents’ home. In this dream, the sparrow hawk in the coat of arms glows brightly, and he hugs a person he believes to be his mother. However, he realizes that this figure looks like Demian and his painting from the previous chapter.

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