ABSTRACT
This chapter is a theoretical guide to using Siddhartha (1922) in the classroom. The question and answer format tracks the story line and highlights four theoretical concerns: anthropology, cosmology, theology, and soteriology. Designed to guide students through the narrative by focusing on the protagonist’s personal growth and deepening insight, this meditation on a now-classic tale aims to provide teachers of literature and religion courses with a specific way of thinking about the text. The approach it takes is guided primarily by an interest in how to live life, while also highlighting connections between the two religions and the novel. The questions assume a basic knowledge of Hinduism and Buddhism and seek to both reinforce certain important terms and concepts as well as contextualize them within this fictional biography. Hesse’s character Siddhartha deals with the same central problem that the character of Jesus does in Nikos Kazantzakis’s subsequent The Last Temptation of Christ (1953): the role of human love in a life committed to seeking an enduring connection to the divine.
