One night, he is urged to slip out of the monastery, acquiescently following his companions beyond its walls. He experiences his first fleeting encounter with a girl, the visceral appeal to his senses troubling him deeply. Having accepted the fate of this monastic life, and aiming with youthful fervour towards an ascetic ideal of piety, this discovery threatens his conviction and culminates in violent physical illness.
Herman Hesse portrays the inherent duality in our identities by symbolizing their extremities in his characters Narcissus and Goldmund. Behind the cloistered walls of Mariabronn monastery, a German monastic school, Narcissus, a young monk, pursues a life of extreme discipline and abstinence, an exemplary teacher amidst its ranks. Withdrawn from the world’s chaotic nature, he lives in a carefully reasoned edifice of spiritual commitment, a life governed by prayer bells, meditation, and intellectual pursuits. Into this sanctuary arrives ardent Goldmund, a student imbued by his father with an ambition to pursue this same sacred path, developing a natural admiration for Narcissus.