| The purpose of this thesis is to show that Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game (1943) is a part of the dystopian tradition of the early 20th Century. Hermann Hesse's novel covers many of the same themes and ideas as We (1924) by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley and 1984 (1949) by George Orwell. As these dystopias appear to set the standard for the genre, I would like to expound upon the themes and ideas that they discuss, in order to clarify the standard to which I will hold Hesse's novel. The thesis begins with an exploration of the life of Hermann Hesse and his contemporaries, and a look at the motivations behind each of the novels mentioned above. The discussion then expands into a thematic and comparative analysis of the ideas of thought control and propaganda, the treatment of the outsider, i.e., the protagonist, and the treatment of women in dystopian literature, as well as the function of science, technology and war in the genre. This is followed by an exploration of the function of history and the closed nature of the dystopian state. After proving the merits of seeing Hesse's novel as a part of the dystopian tradition, the thesis concludes with a brief discussion of what Hesse may have been criticizing in his novel, as all novels of the genre are a criticism of something in the author's present-day reality. |
