Steppenwolf: A Jungian Reading
Hermann Hesse is one of the writers who has had a great impact on the development of my thinking, especially concerning the messiness of being human and trying to make some sense of that experience. I consider Steppenwolf (1925) to be Hesse's best piece of work. It has a darker tone than his other novels and it plays with strong Jungian themes and a more experimental attitude to writing that are quite unique as far as I am familiar with Hesse's writing. To me it seems that Hesse uses characters in his novels to display different human ”types” and their interactions that mirror the different aspects and motivations that we might have as multifaceted human beings. As an artist, Hesse portrays externally what we might recognize as our own internal conflicts and complexity being represented in dramatic sequences between different characters. This approach seems to be most prominent in Narcissus and Goldmund.
Yet in Steppenwolf, Hesse directs his attention directly to the inner conflicts of the main character, Harry Haller. The portrayal of his crisis of meaning, and the eventual resolution of his inner conflict by learning to appreciate his internal complexity is the main theme of the story. The novel points to an ecological understanding of personality, where personality can be understood as consisting of different motivations, valuations, levels of maturity, impulses towards growth, which are always in the process of forming a self-sustaining equilibrium amidst unrelenting change. The novel contains themes that can be interpreted through a Jungian lens for a rich thematic analysis. The use of resources borrowed from analytical psychology and aiming towards an interpretation of the novel as informed by these tools of analysis is the main theme of this essay.
My analysis is also informed by Gregory Bateson's theories that focus on the interconnectedness of systems, whether ecological, social, or psychological. He posited that these systems are made up of complex, interdependent relationships and feedback loops that drive change and development within the system. Applying this framework involves viewing Harry not as an isolated entity but as a system interacting with and influenced by multiple external and internal factors. The process of change that is depicted in the novel does not happen in a vacuum, but is instead developed in a context comprised of Harry's internal state and his encounters with the world around him, as well as the cultural framework that he is embedded in.
Harry is presented as a man in crisis, torn between his bourgeois social identity and his deeper, more instinctual ”wolf” nature. This duality creates significant internal conflict, and a sense of alienation from the world. From a Batesonian perspective, Harry Haller can be seen as a complex system struggling to achieve balance and integration among its disparate parts. Harry's ”Steppenwolf” identity symbolizes the failure of these parts to communicate and integrate effectively, leading to a fragmented self. His existential struggle can be viewed as a systemic issue related with suboptimal integration and balance. Through this lens, Harry's narrative becomes a vivid illustration of the quest for psychological harmony and the challenge inherent in navigating the complex web of relationships that define us, the deep ecological interconnectedness at the heart of the human experience.
There is a layer of meta-narrative in Steppenwolf, as the introduction of the novel is ”written” by an anonymous publisher, who provides us with his account of meeting Harry and gaining his notes, as Harry was provided housing for a while by the publisher's aunt. Therefore we only gain a sense of who Harry was by a testimony of the publisher and what appear to be Harry's notes. The publisher expresses some doubt as to the literal truth contained by the notes, as they depict some very peculiar events. But it is clear that something of momentous importance has happened to Harry during the time he lived with the publisher and his aunt. Note to the reader: Since I have read the novel in Finnish, all the quotes and references are my own translations into English.
The publisher tells us about Harry in the following words: ”Steppenwolf's gaze penetrated through all of our time and revealed its diligent hustle and vanity, its shallow spirituality and superficial culture – yes, and it penetrated even deeper, it did not stop at merely seeing our time and our culture, the hollowness of our era's spirit. It penetrated to the very core of human life, in a single fleeting moment it extensively narrated the despair into which a thinker, who perhaps truly possesses knowledge, falls when weighing the value and meaning of human life in general. That gaze said: ”Look, such fools we are! Such is man!” (Hesse 1925/1952, 10). Harry is presented to us as a thinker, who is disillusioned and cynical of the state of the culture of his time, the time between two great World Wars.
The publisher believes that Harry's sickness of the soul is not simply a peculiarity of the individual, but rather the illness of the era itself, the neurosis of the generation to which Harry belonged. And from this circle, it is not always the weakest and least significant individuals who succumb, but precisely the strong, the most gifted, the broadest spirits (22). According to my understanding Jung has formulated the idea that neurosis often has an effect on the most sensitive and intelligent minds of the generation. Therefore, if one wants to assess the current state of culture and its pathologies, one might survey the typical cases of neurosis as exemplified by the population of gifted individuals. Perhaps Hesse tried to convey that the struggle that Harry goes through is not his own individual, idiosyncratic case of neurosis, but it mirrors a larger conflict that a whole culture has gone through. A time between worlds.
Before presenting us with Harry's personal notes, the publisher makes a reference to this in-between state: Every era, culture, morality, and tradition takes certain sufferings for granted and patiently endures certain troubles. True suffering, hell, befalls a person only when two epochs, two cultures and religions intersect each other. There are times when an entire generation finds itself at the crossroads of two periods, such that it loses all that should be taken for granted (23). Harry is a specimen of that generation, carrying the burden of this conflict in his own soul, seeking for redemption, a path forward.
From Harry's notes we find that he considers his days as tolerable and passable, with no particular anguish or pain. Despite this relative comfort he can impassively and calmly consider whether it might be time to end one's days alongside shaving (27). A razor can be put to many uses. We are effectively told that Harry is suicidal, and life doesn't seem meaningful for him. The state of his soul is that of persistent conflict, and during these days of relative comfort this is cloaked with a quiet, equally persistent despair. Harry writes that this state soon becomes repulsive to him, and he needs to flee to another temperature, if possible via the path of joy, but if necessary also through the path of pain (28).
Harry thus considers even pain to be more tolerable than the numb meaninglessness of his ordinary days. He claims to hate this well-being and comfort, this bourgeois-nurtured optimism, this mediocre, schematic, normal person's decent and gentle life more than anything (29). At this stage Harry seems to have a somewhat warped understanding of ”normal life”, as his state of being is far from those who are actually quite satisfied by living their uneventful, bourgeois life dictated by custom and comfort. We find he longs for those moments where everything is filled with the distress of a lonely person, the distress of human existence, the yearning to find new meaning for a human life that has become meaningless (30).
To me it seems like these moments of acute existential pain connect him with what he is truly after, a rediscovery of meaning. In a sense, one who suffers from the experience of meaninglessness is already in a relationship with meaning. Being severed from this longing is experienced by Harry as sheer emptiness, going through the motions of life while entertaining the thought of death as liberation from this hell. Harry has his better moments too, and we find he has not yet given up hope. He asks us: ”And who sought the lost purpose of his life even from its ruins, suffered from seemingly senseless, lived a seemingly insane life, and even in the utmost chaos secretly hoped for a revelation, God?” (36).
Jung wrote that a psycho-neurosis must be understood as the suffering of a human being who has not discovered what life means for him. All creativeness in the realm of spirit as well as every spiritual advance of man arises from a state of mental suffering, and it is spiritual stagnation, psychic sterility, which causes this state ( Jung 1933, 230). The patient is looking for something that will take possession of him and give meaning and form to the confusion of his neurotic mind (Jung 1933, 231). We can see that Harry exemplifies this state quite clearly.
Harry is deeply grateful for those moments in his life that brought trials, brought joys, tore down the walls of his prison and took him to the heart of the living world. He tells us he could sometimes see it clearly in fleeting moments, almost always pressed in the dust and mud, but sometimes bursting with golden sparks. During those moments it felt like it could never disappear again – and yet it was soon hopelessly gone (31). A profound sense of meaning, aesthetic appreciation, enchantment with life – these can be elusive and tend to escape our best efforts at grasping them.
A quick recap at some salient features of Harry's inner state described so far: Harry suffers from numb emptiness and suicidal ideation, a deep contempt for bourgeois values and way of life. He feels alive and longs for the pain of experiencing his existential anguish straight on, and he sometimes has those rare and precious moments when all seems to make sense, the fullness of life is there for a passing moment. But he can carry on, waiting for the next flash of lightning. Despite this narrative that Harry provides, we learn that his relationship with ordinary bourgeois life is not so straightforward.
From the introduction that the publisher of Harry's notes has provided for us, we learn that Harry has a strong and sentimental appreciation of bourgeois aesthetics. He tells the publisher that he often has to stop at the place before the entrance to his apartment, as there is a sanctuary of araucarias there, so radiantly clean, so well washed, dusted and polished that it practically shines. Harry says: ”I do not know who lives on this floor, but behind that glass door must be a real paradise of cleanliness and brightly scrubbed bourgeoisness...”(15). The publisher admits that before long, he increasingly realized that this stranger [Harry] truly loved and admired their little bourgeois world, that it meant for him a stable and secure, yet distant and unattainable kingdom, a homeland to which he felt no pathway (17). This complexifies the picture we have of Harry's inner conflicts.
Harry simultaneously despises and longs for the ordinary, clean, conventionally beautiful and peaceful life. Yet when he actually lives a semblance of it, he lapses into such despair that he wants to cut his own throat. Harry seems unable to live in the ordinary world of stability and duty, and he cannot sustain those moments of extraordinary meaning either, that are experienced during his flights into aesthetic or mystical enchantment. This situation leads from frustration to frustration, he oscillates between cycles of longing for the ordinary, and then escaping it anywhere he can. According to Jungian psychology, such a psychic impasse will activate the deep psychic layers that will strive towards integration of the forces that are locked in such persisting conflict. We are hinted at the possibility that something is about to happen, that something strange is starting to manifest itself in Harry's life. Perhaps something that could break through his cycle of frustration. I've heard an interesting definition of what a miracle is in the psychological sense – not something that breaks the laws of nature, but instead something that breaks our sense of what we considered possible.
Harry is walking by himself when he perceives that something is written on a wall:
Magical theater,
Entrance not for just anyone
not for just anyone...only for the insane. (33-34)
Harry encounters a reference to the magical theater for the first time. But not the last. At first he doesn't know what to make of the incident, and just continues his life. Not long after the previous happening, he encounters an unknown man who stood holding a poster that again referred to the magical theater. When Harry approaches him, the man gives him a book from his box, and as Haller is searching for money, the man has already disappeared. In the book is written Steppenwolf: Only for the insane (40-41).
The contents of the book describe in detail the psychological situation that Harry finds himself at. The book tells Harry that Steppenwolf was a very wise man. But there was one thing he had not learned: to be satisfied with himself and his life. The book speculates that this is probably because in his heart he believed he knew that he was not really a human, but a Steppenwolf. It might be assumed that this person had been wild and unruly as a child, and that his caretakers had tried to suppress the raging beast within him, thus planting in him the notion that he was actually a beast. (45). In him, the human and the wolf were constantly fighting each other, and one became utterly intolerable to the other. (49). Harry reads that from these kinds of people originated the idea that human life might be just a miserable mistake, a wild experiment by nature doomed to destruction. But from them also originates the thought that perhaps man is not just an animal equipped with half a mind, but is of divine lineage and destined for immortality. (49).
We learn from the book that Steppenwolf has wished for peace and isolation, but what had initially been his dream and happiness, now has become his curse. His independence had become untouchable, he did not have to obey anyone. Without caring about anyone, he could dictate the course of his days. (50). He was now surrounded by the atmosphere of loneliness, a frightening silence. This was one of the significant characteristics of his life (51). Another was that he belonged to the class of those who are suicidal. For such a person, it is characteristic to view one's self as particularly dangerous and threatened. This feels like constantly standing on a narrow ledge of a cliff, where the slightest uncertainty can at any time cast him into the void (51).
The book clarifies that Steppenwolf has a peculiar relationship with the bourgeois world. He consciously despised that world and was proud that he himself was not bourgeois. Yet, in many respects, his life was thoroughly bourgeois. He has money in the bank, and tries to live in harmony with laws and governing bodies. Moreover, he constantly suffers a secret longing for that world. (54). We readers are not surprised by this revelation. I wonder if even Harry is? The obviousness of the revelation it reveals begs the question of the real meaning of the book Harry is reading.
The book claims that for the restless Steppenwolves, who suffer in a terrifying manner, who feel the call of the absolute but are unable to live in it, a comforting escape opens us through humor. This can happen after suffering has made their spirit strong and robust (58). I have some reservations about the liberating effect of suffering. Perhaps it is true that some people need to get enough of their neurotic suffering before there emerges the possibility of waking up. But Harry is already suffering – will more suffering cure him, resolve his inner conflicts? Or is the book some kind of allegory for all the propositional knowledge that Harry has gathered about himself? A collection of insight. Still unable to liberate him from the mess that the book describes with surgical precision. The document starts to read like a psychologist's report: Here's what's wrong with you. And this intellectual knowledge changes nothing. Learning that humor might be the answer doesn't make one more humorous by a single degree.
Humor is described in the following way: ”To live in the world as if the world did not exist, to respect the law and yet to be above it, to own as though one did not own at all, to refuse, to submit as though there were no sacrifice at all – all these requirements of sovereign wisdom of life...can only be fulfilled by humor” (58-59). In the book the claim is made that if Steppenwolf could sweat out such a magic potion in the suffocating heat of his hell, the magic potion of humor, then he could be saved. He is not ready yet, but the possibility is there (59).
It is written that to achieve this breakthrough, such a Steppenwolf must at least once look himself in the eye, gaze down to the depths of the abyss of his own soul, and become fully aware of his own self. The human and the wolf must acknowledge each other without false masks Then, either an explosion would occur and the Steppenwolf would cease to exist, or the opposing parties might form a sort of rational marriage and continue their lives (59). But the book strikes at this dichotomy between man and wolf and analyzes it as an oversimplification of the true complexity involved. (60-61).
We learn that if Harry [the tone of the book becomes more personal] were to conscientiously examine each moment of his life, every action and sensation, he would be at a loss to ascribe which part is human and which is the wolf in the totality of his experience. He would find himself quickly in trouble and his fine theory of the wolf would shatter into pieces. Harry's self includes not just two, but hundreds, thousands of different beings. No-one has such a simple inner life that it oscillates merely between two opposing poles. There are countless different poles our inner life organizes itself around. (61). He does not realize that with his tale of the wolf, he enshackles in his soul all these forms – he represses an entire ”paradisal world”, and all he has to account for this multiplicity is a singular word – ”wolf”. Likewise, the ”human” that he posits against the wolf is a bourgeois construction, something that only seems fully human, and he chains the real, boundlessly aspiring human being (70).
The myth that Harry has constructed is thus shown to be an imaginary creation, where one oversimplification is put to battle with another, and thus the real complex human, a creature where both nature and culture merge, is confined and frustrated. The energies that could be used for growth and the progressive harmonization of his psychic system are locked up in fruitless conflict. What keeps the conflict running in perpetuity is that Harry has such a misaligned view of himself. He is much more complex than he thinks he is.
The text now gains an even more personal tone: it now tells directly, that you [Harry] must continually expand your inner self and open it more and more to the world until finally the whole universe fits into your painfully expanded soul. (68). At first sight this seems like quite a grandiose goal to aim at. On the other hand, we can read this as conveying to Harry that this is not going to be easy. A universe is a lot more to hold in balance compared to a wolf and a man.
Now Harry has completed the Steppenwolf book, and we get to hear his reflections. Despite the insights that have been offered to him, Harry feels that he has a right to die, that he can no longer ”look himself in the eye”, which would lead to yet another transformation. This recurring play of Don Quixote has to end. (74). It is quite interesting that Harry has no thoughts about the strangeness of the whole incident, a stranger offering him a book that describes his most intimate thoughts and feelings. We register no surprised reaction from Harry to anything that has been covered so far. It is as though Harry already knew it all, and seeing it in print changes nothing.
To me this reads as an allegory of a situation sometimes encountered in psychoanalysis. The analyst and the patient have a neat formulation of the problem, its dynamics, and a possible avenue by which the problem might be solved. Yet the reaction of the patient is one of bored reactiveness. ”Are you asking me to change? I do not want to be bothered with that, and it isn't going to really help anyway. I've tried to change myself with all the strength I have, and here I am, talking to a shrink who just tells me things I already know, and recommends just more of the same. Can't I just quit this human thing and be gone?” Intellectual understanding is completely devoid of motivating power. Something else needs to happen, something that catalyzes a process of change, that involves the irrational as well as the intellect. As Jung wrote: ”Nothing influences our conduct less than do intellectual ideas”. (1933, 42).
Harry's thoughts are occupied by the vision he experienced near the monastery wall, the reference to the magic theater. He tells us: ”I would have to be mad, anything but 'just anyone', if I wanted to enter that strange, magical world...I realized very well within myself what this requirement of madness actually meant; it implied dismissing reason, inhibitions, bourgeois conventions, and surrendering to the freely flowing stream of the soul, to the stream of imagination that knew no bounds” (76-77).
That Harry understands what is required of him to enter the theater points that he already has some insight into these domains of experience. The textual descriptions of his troubles didn't energize him, but he can't get the magical theater out of his mind. This points to the necessity of involving the irrational elements, the freely flowing stream of the soul, to move forward in his psychic life. But how? The irrational is not something at our command – a point often stressed by Jung. Yet life may bring forward circumstances that lead to something in us waking up, and suddenly we must deal with the reality of the psyche. The unconscious and the forces contained are turned from something abstract to something very concrete, and the world is no longer the same. And neither is the self that emerges into that world.
Harry realizes that he cannot transform himself, and he is bored to death with just the idea of putting more effort into his internal life, where most of his life energies have been invested anyway. But this does not mean that he cannot be changed. What is needed is whole-hearted participation in what happens to him. Like a fruit ripening and ready to fall, soon he may be ready, and he doesn't even need to know it. A drying branch waiting for the flames to catch.
Harry is in a brooding mood, and as he passes by the library, he encounters a young professor who is familiar to him from earlier years. They had often engaged in intellectual discussions, especially about religious symbolism. Harry receives an invitation to visit the professor's home that same evening, and Harry accepts, albeit with mixed feelings. (79).
The evening turned out to be spectacular, as one might expect. The professor talks about having read some of Harry's anti-war writings and reproaches them without knowing that his dinner guest is the one who wrote them (84). Harry ends up mocking a Goethe statue, which happens to be particularly dear to the professor's wife. The evening ends in a strained atmosphere, and Harry ends up rushing out of the place (87). He decides to commit suicide during the same evening, the razor will not wait a day longer anymore.
Harry is desperate and restless, ending up in several pubs to drink on his way home. He is terrified of the thought of dying by his own hand, but he cannot drop that thought away. He seems to be buying time for himself, doing anything to procrastinate. Harry seems to be stuck between not being able to live and not being able to die. Jung was very interested in psychic standstills like the one that Harry experiences at this moment.
Jung writes that when he hears the exclamation of ”I am stuck”, he knows no better than the patient what to do. But he has this to say: ”when for the conscious outlook there is no way forward, the unconscious will react to this unbearable standstill. (1933, 63).
Harry eventually finds himself in the Black Eagle where he meets a pale, beautiful girl who warmly welcomes him. (89). Harry finds joy in the way the girl commands him to eat and drink: ”Shall we bet it's been a long time since you had to obey anyone?”, the girl says. She invites Harry to dance, and mock him for having managed to learn many difficult things in life, writing books, but never bothering to learn how to dance. The girl goes off dancing and Harry falls asleep in the bar.
In Jungian psychology, it is thought that at moments of crisis an anima figure may appear to guide the person back to a satisfactory relationship with his inner totality. I think that the girl whom Harry meets can be analyzed as personifying the anima function of the psyche. Harry is in a situation where he cannot die, he cannot live, and he is terrified by his own resolve to die. This moment of peak intensity and inability of the conscious ego to decide his fate are the right conditions for the irrational to finally breach through Harry's isolation. It is telling that Harry actually enjoys taking commands from the anima figure, who encourages him to take basic care of himself and to dance with her. Harry's inner tensions are relaxed somewhat, and he manages to get some sleep.
In his dream, Harry sees his intellectual hero Goethe, whom he accuses of convincing himself and others that permanence and purpose can be found in our spiritual endeavors. ”You have crushed all confessions of the deep, all voices of desperate truth, your own self...” (99). Goethe replies: ”My boy, you take old Goethe far too seriously. One should not take old people who have already died seriously, unless one wishes to do them an injustice. We immortals do not like serious attitudes; we love play. Seriousness, my son, is something that has its place in time; it arises, I want to enlighten you, from overestimating time. I too once overestimated the value of time, that's why I wanted to live to be a hundred years old. But in eternity, you see, there is no time; eternity is only a moment, just long enough for a jest.” (100).
Goethe begins to dance wonderfully, and Harry thought that this man certainly had not neglected learning how to dance (101). Both Goethe and the girl he met in the bar have reproached Harry for his over-serious attitude and started to dance, which is essentially playful bodily engagement with the living present. This is something that seems to be missing from Harry's way of life. Goethe seems to just make fun of Harry's overly pompous statements, he laughs and dances and isn't at all serious. If his hero can be like this, perhaps Harry could too? The dream seems to reveal an overlooked but necessary pathway of development. The encounter with the anima seems to immediately reveal new possibilities and relational approaches hitherto unforeseen.
Harry wakes up, and he receives a promise from the girl that they would meet again. Then Harry goes to sleep: ”It was after ten when I woke up, clothes wrinkled, body aching, tired, with the memory of yesterday's terrible intent in my mind, but full of hope, desire for life, joyful anticipation. The feeling of dread from the previous day had been swept away by the feeling of returning home.” (105). Harry feels that the wonderful girl had conjured a small window, letting some light into his dark cell. She was the solution, the way to freedom. She would teach him how to live or how to die. (107).
They meet again at a restaurant. Harry says: ”If you were a boy...your name could be Hermann”. We learn that Harry has had a dear friend in his youth whose name was Hermann. The girl answers: ”Who knows, maybe I am a boy, maybe I am just dressed as a girl”, she says laughing. Harry makes a guess - ”Is your name Hermine”. (110). We get the impression that Harry gets it right.
If we continue our Jungian interpretation further, the passage above could be read in the following way. We might assume that at least to some extent Steppenwolf reflects conflicts and their solutions that Hermann Hesse as the author has personally gone through. As the name Hermine is a feminized version of Hermann, we can assume that Hermine points to a feminine figure, or a constellation of such attributes and their personification, that Hesse has come to know in his inner experience. Hermine isn't at all serious about the sex she appears to be representative of, which is in no degree surprising if Hermine truly personifies the anima function. Psychic functions do not have a sex, even though they might have sexual attributes as figurative representations when they make themselves known to consciousness. For a psychic content or function to appear in consciousness, form is indispensable. Pure intuition may be an exception to this rule.
Hermine tells Harry that he needs her, so that he can learn to dance and to laugh and to live. Hermine says she needs Harry too, for a special task at a later moment. Hermine says that when Harry has fallen in love with her, she will give her final command, and it will be the best for both of them. Harry will have to kill her. (112-113). This turn of events is quite surprising to say the least. I will extend the Jungian interpretation to account for this strange exchange of words later in this essay, but for now I will let the events unfold.
Hermine and Harry continue their conversation, and suddenly Hermine decides that she wants to teach Harry the foxtrot (117). They go to buy a gramophone so they can have music while they practice (121). The next time they meet in a place called Blances where they dance together, and at Hermine's initiative, Harry goes to ask an unknown beauty to dance with him (124). Harry has a wonderful time. Then when Harry again dances with Hermine, she explains to him that when they met at the Black Eagle, she could understand him because she is just as lonely and loves life just as little as he. (127).
In the discussions between Harry and Hermine, dark and light themes seem to alternate, and the changes can be quite fast and dramatic. Hermine takes the role of a teacher – she teaches Harry to dance, orders him away from his comfort zone to dance with a beautiful stranger, and also provides perspectives that are very surprising to Harry. Note that if we take literally the expressions ”just as lonely...just as little”, we might arrive at an interpretation that there is a degree of common identity between Harry and Hermine.
According to Hermine, some people are destined to yearn for sanctification in their lives; they never learn to feel at home in the dullness and brutality of life. (127). Hermine also confirms the multifaceted nature of the self that was described in the Steppenwolf book Harry received earlier. Hermine tells Harry that his spiritual side is very well developed, but he is severely lacking in all sorts of little life skills. ”Thinker Harry is a hundred years old, but dancer Harry is barely half a day old. We need to help this Harry to move forward in life, just like all his little brothers...And what do you think of Maria [the girl that Harry went to ask for a dance]? ”. (128). Hermine suggests that Harry should for a change sleep with a charming girl. (129).
Hermine introduces Harry to a black, beautiful jazz musician called Pablo. Harry encounters him now and then, and Harry feels that Pablo doesn't have much of an intellect. Harry confesses that he had to revise his opinion of Pablo solely because Hermine liked him so much and eagerly sought his company. From Hermine, Harry also learned that Pablo had many secretly acquired substances, which he occasionally offered to his friends, and that he was a master of mixing and dosing them. He had substances that numbed pain, aided sleep, induced beautiful dreams, made one cheerful, and caused one to fall in love. (132). Once again we find that Hermine has broadened Harry's relational world. I think that both jazz and drugs were quite out of the bourgeois norm in 1925.
There is a shamanic element to Pablo's character. We learn that he is the soul of an orchestra, a very good trumpet player. Despite his virtuosity, he is not interested in talking about music theory with Harry. Pablo is not an elitist in his taste for music, he is happy to play whatever people want to hear and what they want to dance to. According to Pablo, this is the eternal task of the musician, to play and to make people happy with music. It is true that some music is timeless and perhaps will always be played, but it's not the musicians themselves who are to decide what lasts and what disappears. We gain the sense that Pablo is a sensual lover of life, who knows how to enjoy music, altered states of consciousness, and the company of beautiful women, and he is very much loved by them in turn.
Soon Harry experiences a great surprise, though he has to overcome his apprehensions about it. Hermine arranges for Maria to come secretly to Harry's room, and she is waiting in the bed for Harry to arrive. When Harry discovers Maria, he loses his orientation and doesn't know what to do. But Maria is gentle and patient, and they spend the night together. Maria becomes Harry's lover. ”During this first wonderful night and the following days, I learned a lot from Maria, not just new delightful games and the art of the senses, but also new understanding, new perspectives, and a new kind of love” (139). Harry notes that Maria, too, seemed to be very much in love with Pablo, ”this beautiful man”.
Being with Maria reminds Harry of his loves throughout his life, and those memories come alive again. His past wasn't so devoid of love as he had often imagined. Harry seems to be changing. The efforts of Hermine to lead Harry towards new relational domains is working, and even though Harry can be apprehensive and resistant, he is making solid progress.
The new attitude that starts to gain ground in Harry's inner life is summed up eloquently in the following quote: ”...[A]nd I remembered again what I had forgotten along the way of my long misery: I knew that my [experiences of love] were my imperishable possessions, experiences that had become stars. I could forget them, but I could not completely destroy them; their sparkling path was the poetry and the fairy tale of my life, their stellar brilliance was the indestructible value of my existence. My life had been laborious, filled with misfortunes and mistakes, renunciation and denial were its hallmarks, it was seasoned with all sorts of human bitterness, but it had been rich, proud and rich, even in its misery a king's life. Let the remaining journey towards ultimate destruction be twice as worse, at its core this life was noble, it had stature, it was not exchanged for money, it led to the stars.” (142).
Harry starts to have insights that have actual motivating power, that are his own in a way that no book or therapist can convey. A new sense of a meaningful life starts to emerge, not in moments of ecstatic rapture that are over as soon as they arrive, but in a rooted way where the past is remembered through all the love that was there all along, and thus the present is approached with a different relationship to it. Harry regains appreciation and gratefulness for the past, and the courage to face the future with the inevitable difficulties that are soon to follow. And he does this voluntarily.
Hermine tells Harry that she often feels that Pablo might be a saint in disguise. She exclaims: ”Oh Harry, we must wade through filth and many follies before we can return home! And we have no one to show the way, our only guide is homesickness” (154). This is one of those moments where Hermine confesses her own existential suffering and the bond that both she and Harry share. Why might Pablo be perceived as a saint in disguise? I think that one salient feature of his character is that he doesn't approach life seriously, but neither is life frivolous or without meaning to him. Pablo is a ”player” of life, who regards life as opportunities for joyous play. Existence is not a problem to him. In Jungian terms, there are marks of the ”Divine Child” archetype in Pablo's character.
Harry in turn has an insight into the nature of Goethe's laughter that he heard in his dream: ” It was objectless, it was sheer light...it was the surplus that remains when a true human being has passed through sufferings, vices, passions...and has arrived at eternity...And 'eternity was nothing else but a liberation from time, a return of time to innocence...”(154). Through his encounters with Pablo and shared reflection about him with Hermine, Harry arrives at a new understanding of the relationship between laughter and eternity. As the Greek Gods demonstrate, immortals do not take life seriously. What immortals are all about is divine play. This liberation from time, a return to innocence that Pablo inspires in others makes him a somewhat saintly figure. Pablo is happy to take those around him beyond their usual time-occupied selves with his mastery of sex, drugs and jazz. Before there were rock stars, there was Pablo.
Harry hears from Hermine about a masquerade ball that will be held in three week's time (143). It is here that the events of the novel will culminate. The masquerade is a salient event with high expectations on part of Harry's new acquaintances. The night before the great event Maria explains to Harry that quite special delights and pleasures were planned when the celebration concludes. Maria admits to having premonitions that this is their last night together. Harry thinks to himself: ”Perhaps tomorrow a destiny, a new path would begin?” (157).
Then comes the evening of festivities. At first, Harry feels like an outsider, soon his mood starts to sour and he decides to leave, but he loses his coat check ticket. He receives a ticket from a stranger, which has an inscription in it: ”Hermine is in hell” (163). Harry decides to stay, and he has an encounter with Maria, whom he does not recognize behind her mask at first. He continues on his way and meets Hermine dressed as a youth. (164). Hermine played the youth the whole time, smoking cigarettes and speaking in a light, spirited manner. But in Harry's experience, through it all shone Eros, a journey into sensory seduction. (165). Harry starts to warm to the festivities.
Soon, for the first time of his life, Harry experiences collective ecstasy. ”I no longer had my own self; I had dissolved into the festive revelry like salt in water. I fell in love with one charming woman, then another, and took them to dance...All of them belonged to me and I to them, we all had a share in each other” (167). Harry continues his wild adventure, and thinks to himself: ”Whatever happens to me now, I have at least once been happy and free, free from myself, Pablos brother, childlike.” (168).
Then the party begins to wind down. Now Pablo appears at the door, his eyes are gleaming happily. Harry thinks that Pablo's eyes look like those of an animal, but whereas animal eyes are serious, Pablo's always smiled, and their laughter made them human eyes. He beckons at Harry and Hermine to come to him. (171). Pablo invites Harry to ”a small festivity – admission only for those who are mad, and the admission price – your understanding. Are you ready?” (172). The magical theater finally begins.
Pablo was ceremonially heartfelt as always. Harry is surprised that Pablo, whom he had never heard speaking continuously, whom no conversation or play with ideas seemed to inspire, whom Harry thought to be hardly capable of thinking at all, now spoke with excellent fluency, with control and clarity. (172). We get the sense that Harry has underestimated what Pablo is capable of. Before, Harry has compared Pablo to a child. Now, Pablo seems to embody the archetype of the Magician, who represents the ability to navigate between the natural world and the supernatural, the domain of the unconscious. This archetype is the mediator of sacred and secret knowledge, often acting as a guide or initiator in the process of transformation towards increased wholeness.
Pablo says that he can be Harry's host this evening. Pablo asks rhetorically if he has been thoroughly bored with his life, if he longs for an escape. He encourages Harry to do so, and says that he will provide the opportunity for it. Pablo says that Harry knows already where this hidden world is that he seeks, that it is in his own soul. (173). Pablo as Magician thus provides a way for Harry to encounter the domain of his deep interior experience, where the hidden depths contain the primordial images of the human experience, and perhaps a glimpse of liberating knowledge, of gnosis. The shamanic aspect of Pablo's character is thus fully revealed,
This is our theater, Pablo explains: You will find abundant reason to laugh here. In my little theater, there are as many doors as you want, and behind each door waits exactly what you are looking for. Pablo tells Harry that he will not benefit from wandering through his gallery as he is now, that the phenomenon called personality will confuse and deceive him. Pablo advises Harry to ”abandon these glasses” and kindly leave his ”very honorable” personality in the dressing room for the time being. ”Here it is safe and also available to you again, if you wish so”. (174-175). Pablo thus makes a comparison between personality and eyeglasses, which points toward his understanding of personality as habitual patterns, as our habitual ways of seeing. To be able to benefit from the magical theater, these habits must be set aside for a while.
Pablo encourages Harry to be in good spirits, and tells him that the purpose of this occasion is to teach him how to laugh. Pablo hopes that Harry will do his best, and confirms that at this moment, Harry will fearlessly and out of his own heart's desire step into this world of play. All it takes is a little trick first, a mock-suicide, that's the custom according to Pablo. (175). If we take a Jungian reading at this passage, we could say that leaving the personality behind and committing mock-suicide both point to entering the realm of the numinous experiences, where strange, divine and hellish experiences can make themselves manifest. It is a kind of death to plunge to this realm. And, because it has a commonality with dying, it marks the possibility of rebirth.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Pablo uses the expression ”world of play” to describe the theater. Therefore, it is something not to be taken completely seriously, at least not at face value. What Pablo seems to be recommending is an aesthetic attitude toward what is seen, like participating in a show of some kind. He tells Harry that he is in a school of humor here, and that the beginning of all real humor is that one doesn't take one's personality too seriously. (175).
What follows is a sequence of fantastic visions. At first, Harry sees a legion of miniature versions of himself running over each other, which might represent different aspects of himself having the freedom to mingle and explore without interference from his personality. Pablo is nowhere to be seen and Harry understands that he has been left alone. In an instant he is transported to a conflict zone, where people are shooting each other with murderous glee, and surprisingly, Harry starts to like it. He seems to recognize that the violence and aggression of humanity is part of him too, that his preoccupation with art, music and literature does not make him immune to the lust for blood. (178-179). 'So funny', he thinks – 'that shooting can be such a lot of fun. And I used to be a pacifist!'. (185). A Jungian interpretation of this scene is that Harry is presented with some shadow material, and he does not flinch from it – he seems to revel in it.
Harry finds himself back at the theater, and he surveys the headlines written over the doors. Then he finds a tag that is of interest to him: Introduction to the Construction of Personality. Success Guaranteed. (189).
He enters a dim, quiet room, where a man is sitting on the floor in an Eastern manner, with a game resembling a chessboard in front of him. At first, Harry thinks the man might be Pablo, and he asks the man if this is so. The man answers that he is no one, and that in this house, we have no names and personalities. He asks if Harry wants a lesson in personality building. Harry consents, and the man asks Harry to lend him a couple of dozen of his ”types”, the basic elements which structure his personality. The man educates Harry, and says that science is right insofar it considers that a multitude cannot be managed without a leading principle, without a certain order and grouping. (190).
However, this attitude is wrong if it believes that a single, universal and a lifelong binding order is adequate to the task. He wants to show Harry that an individual, who has experienced fragmentation of his self, can at any time reassemble the pieces in any order he likes, and that he can develop endlessly diverse forms and variations from this game of life. (190).
After a while, he encourages Harry to continue on his own, reminding him to develop and enrich the game, to invent new variations according to his own taste. (191). Jung writes that the primordial images are the deepest, the most ancient, and the most universal thoughts of humanity. They are as much feelings as thoughts, and have indeed an individual, independent existence, somewhat like that of the partial souls which we can recognize in those philosophical or gnostic systems which base themselves upon the apperception of the unconscious as the source of knowledge (Jung, CW 7, 68). These are the ”types” that Harry plays with – the Jungians call them archetypes.
The next room that Harry enters reads ” The miracle of the Steppenwolf's tamer”. Harry sees a man that appears to a caricature of him, who has tamed his wolf to an extraordinary degree. The wolf obeyed his commands with amazing attentiveness, reacting to every word of command like a dog (192). Harry feels it is both fantastic and horrifying to see the extent to which this animal had learned to deny its true nature. Yet when the animal tamer had smoothly smiled and bowed at the conclusion of his victorious performance, the roles switched over. Now the wolf is the one who gives the orders, and it was the man's turn to obey. (193).
Harry is horrified by what he sees and rushes out of the door. He thinks he now understands that this magical theater was no paradise, that all hells were hidden behind its beautiful facade. Harry feels some desperation creeping up, the realization that there wasn't redemption even here. But he doesn't escape without having an insight, albeit a difficult one to accept: ”Now I knew that no animal tamer, no minister, no general, no madman could conceive of a thought or an image that did not already have an equally ghastly and dehumanizing, equally primitive and crude counterpart in my own self”. (194).
In Jungian terms, this episode can be read as portraying the principle of enantiodromia, of the opposites turning into each other when they reach their respective extremes. The tamer attempts to subjugate the wolf, and just when it seems that this has been accomplished, the tamer loses his power and is subjugated in turn. The power that has been applied from one aspect of the psyche to the other can look a lot like successful control, but all that energy and attention will eventually energize the very processes that one attempts to gain control over. There is a sweet spot between trying to control the psyche's impulses and being controlled by them, which is responsiveness to one's needs and the situation as it arises. Attempts at forceful control and blind reactiveness lead to unsatisfactory outcomes.
Harry moves on and explores some more headlines written over the doors, and he finds one that reads ”All the girls are yours”. This seemed to be more enticing for him than anything else he could find. It also freed him from his dreadful wolf-world he was escaping from, and he steps joyfully through the door. (194).
Here Harry experiences all his former relationships with women as how they could have been. He is rejuvenated by the experience, and we get the sense that some of his old wounds have been healed. Harry explains this in his own words: ”They came and went, the whirlpool brought them to my arms, drew them in, washed them away; full of childlike playfulness. I swam in the stream of sexual desire, delightful and dangerous, full of surprises and wonders. I was amazed to discover how rich my life, apparently so poor and loveless in my Steppenwolf existence, had been – rich in infatuations, opportunities, temptations. I had neglected them, pushed them to the side...and here they were all intact, authentic, and there were hundreds of them...”(200).
Perhaps Harry is now finally ready for an authentic relationship, having the courage and vulnerability to truly be with someone. This sequence points to the real-world consequences that engaging with the imaginal can bring. It can lead us to reframe some long-held beliefs, release us from feelings that have held us in bondage, and emerge back in the world with a fresh take on things.
Harry emerges from the experience finally ready to meet Hermine. But he doesn't want to encounter Hermine here in the theater, as a mere image, but wants to see and feel her for real. And he wishes to give him all of him, not just an aspect of himself. To her belonged all of Harry. (200). Harry is searching endlessly for the exit. He happens to read the nearest text by accident which reads ”How to Kill With Love”. He starts to search his pockets to practice some magic that could rearrange his personality to a new order, but the pieces are gone. Instead, he finds a knife. (201). Suddenly Harry hears music beginning to emanate from the empty rooms of the theater, and Harry recognizes Mozart – the image of his inner life that was the dearest and highest to him. It is quite interesting that the arrival of Mozart and the sudden emergence of a sacrificial tool happen at the same moment.
In Jungian psychology, the Self, the archetype of all-encompassing psychic order that underlies the functions of all other archetypes, which symbolizes the very ground of cognition itself, often expresses itself through a figure associated with the highest values of the person. In Harry's case, this is clearly Mozart. Harry hears Mozart laughing behind him, and his laughter is bright and cold as ice, something that only the humor and suffering of the gods can produce. He sees Mozart coming... (202). But he remembers that he had some task to do, he had to find Hermine.
He comes to the last door and stops, opens the door and witnesses a beautiful sight. He sees Hermine and Pablo curled up in each other's arms, sleeping, exhausted from lovemaking. Under Hermine's left breast was a mark left by a love-bite. (206). There, in the middle of that mark, Harry sticks the knife that he was carrying. Harry watched her for a long time, and then he shudders like he has just suddenly woken up. Pablo opens his eyes, stands up and notices what has happened to Hermine. He just laughs and then leaves the room without a sound. Harry reflects that Hermine's wish has now been fulfilled. He admits that he doesn't know whether what he did was right or wrong. (207). Overcome with dread Harry continues to stare at Hermine's form, now petrified like stone. The coldness that emanated from her was chilling, but at the same time it was wonderfully beautiful. It sang. It was music. (208).
Then the door opens and Mozart steps in. He wears a modern outfit and is toying with a radio. ”For God's sake, what are you doing!” Harry cries out loud. ”Are you out of your mind, Mozart? You let the devil loose, you let that horrible contraption scream! Do you know what it is? Our time's triumph, the latest and most effective tool by which art is violated.” Then Mozart starts to laugh, coldly and overwhelmingly. (209). There is something comical about Harry being enraged with Mozart, like he had just committed a terrible crime. Meanwhile, Harry is standing there with the corpse of the woman he killed – and he dares to be indignant at Mozart.
Mozart explains that when we listen to the radio, we hear and see the primal struggle between idea and form, between eternity and time, between the divine and the human. (210). If I remember correctly, Aldous Huxley has referred to this same idea in his writings. Huxley's interpretation was that life or the universe or God is something ideal and quite sublime, but as we encounter it through the human nervous system optimized for survival instead of aesthetic appreciation, we are like low-quality radios through which divine music is being played.
Mozart tells Harry that people like him really should not be judging the radio any more than life itself. He encourages Harry to really learn to listen first. He advises Harry to learn to appreciate what deserves appreciation and to laugh at everything else. He asks if Harry has done something better than usual, more nobly or wisely. Mozart tells him that no he hasn't, instead he has made his life into a miserable case of medical history. (210). In effect, Mozart is attacking Harry's feelings of intellectual supremacy and arrogance. It must hurt quite a bit to hear such words from your most respected intellectual hero.
Yet perhaps only from him would such words have any effect, and strike some humility into Harry's hubris. To drive this point even deeper Mozart points to Harry that he had killed a beautiful girl with a knife, and asks if Harry did not know how else to have fun with her. (211). This is a striking way to point to Harry his foolishness and inadequacy in the relational domain which he has neglected in his life. Instead of sex, he somehow ends up with death.
Harry is brought to trial, and Mozart introduces the case to the audience. Harry is accused of using the magical theater in a heedless way. He has confused the images of the theater with reality and he has killed an imaginary girl with an imaginary knife, and thus he has perpetrated degrading acts on this high art. Harry has also demonstrated grave humorlessness, and tried to use the theater as a suicide mechanism by requesting to be executed as an act of corrective justice. Mozart recommends that Harry will be condemned to eternal life, and he will not be allowed to enter the theater in the next twelve hours. To his sentence will be added an experience of being laughed at. (212).
Harry comes to his senses, and Mozart is there with him. He tells Harry that it will do good for him to learn to listen constantly to the radio music of life. Mozart argues that while Harry is a particularly less-gifted individual than most, he will finally learn what is demanded of him (213). The demand is that he will need to learn how to laugh. He needs to learn how to listen to the infernal radio music, appreciate the spirit behind that phenomenon, and to laugh at everything else. (214).
Harry asks what happens if he refuses to obey Mozart's commands. Mozart answers gently that in that case, Harry should smoke the excellent cigarette that he provides from his vest. At the same moment, he is no longer Mozart, and Harry recognizes his friend Pablo. (214). Now Harry claims to have understood everything. He had his personality types in his pocket, and he was ready to once again and many times traverse the hell of his own self. One day he would be a better player with the elements of his personality. One day he would learn to laugh. Pablo and Mozart were waiting for him. (214-215).
There is a lot that could be said about the events that took place in the magical theater that are of interest from a Jungian point of view. I've already included my interpretations about some of the more minor events in the theater, but there remain some sequences I have not yet attempted to explicate. There are three questions that I would like to discuss in this regard, which I found to be most illuminating.
1 – What is the meaning of the magical theater?
According to Jung, analytical psychology tries to break down the walls of the so-called rationalistic attitude by enriching consciousness with a knowledge of man's psychic foundations. My interpretation is that it is these foundations that the magical theater illuminates. In Jungian analysis, this can be achieved through working with dreams or through active imagination, where one actively works with fantasy and strives for a relationship with the meaning those fantasies might have. Occasionally something akin to this happens spontaneously through mystical experiences or intentionally through the use of psychedelic drugs or other such methods. Pablo brings Harry to his theater, where he must leave his personality and his rationalistic attitude behind to directly engage with the events that happen in the theater. And Harry gets remarkably invested.
In Jungian psychology, the function that bridges the rational and the irrational is called the transcendent function. Jung writes that it represents a function founded on real and imaginary, or rational and irrational data; thus bridging over the yawning chasm between the rational and irrational functions of the psyche. The transcendent function has its methodological basis in a new way of treating the psychological material provided by dreams and fantasies ( Jung CW 7, 83). Pablo as a shamanic figure opens this transcendental function for Harry, which the magical theater represents. The foundations of the psyche are the source of both rational and irrational expressions of psychic activity, and therefore engaging with them can bring back a measure of harmony between different functions. The transcendent in this sense is that which offers the possibility of reharmonization.
2 – Why did Harry kill Hermine in such an unreasonable way – what is the meaning of this sequence?
I have already offered the interpretation of Hermine as representing the anima. Jung has written passages that may shed light on the symbolic value of her murder. At first, Harry is quite devoted to Hermine and she appears to open a new possibility of life for him. Harry obeys her orders and instructions, and there are verbal exchanges that point to a common identity between them. From a Jungian point of view, this identity is problematic, and needs to be overcome at some point, even though the initial appearance of anima is a sign that the psyche is already working to achieve a new equilibrium.
Jung writes that just as in respect to the goal of individuation, or self-realization, it is indispensable for a man to know how to distinguish between how he appears to himself and how others see him, so it is also necessary for the same goal, that he become aware of his invisible system of relations to the unconscious, namely, the anima, in order to be able to distinguish himself from her (CW7, 211). Harry needs to be able to distinguish himself from Hermine, and Harry is helped by her in this regard by, for example, pushing him to approach other women. But even while being with Maria, Harry is still reliant on Hermine. Without Hermine, Harry would also have exited the masquerade party without anything worthwhile happening. To some degree, Harry is possessed by Hermine, and for Harry's future growth, this needs to stop.
Jung writes that being possessed by an archetype converts one into a mere collective figure, a kind of mask behind which the human element can no longer develop, but is increasingly stunted and crippled (CW 7, 260). Thus it is important to remember that the dissolution of the anima means that insight has been won into the driving forces of the unconscious, but not that we have made these powers ineffective (CW 7, 261). With the help of these quotes from Jung, I interpret the murder of Hermine as a dissolution of the anima and the power that she has over Harry.
This means that Harry needs to awaken to his own responsibility on how to broaden his life, who to approach, and how to find his way back to a meaningful life, without the mystery girl being there to arrange things for his convenience. Harry needs to be ”helped” to achieve this result, as he does not appear to do the murder deliberately, it just kind of happens. His ”types” are replaced by a knife in the theater, and he uses the knife to make the sacrifice. While Harry finds the knife, we hear Mozart laughing, which suggests that the knife has been included in this sequence by the interference from the Self, the deepest part of Harry's psyche.
If we would define the anima as ”the interface that the psyche has with its own foundations”, the dissolution of the anima character means that Harry's relational abilities are liberated from being tied to the character, and he can instead relate with the anima to the world inside him, as well as with those people whom he might share a deep bond with. One way to put it is that instead of being in love with Hermine, he is now liberated to be in love through the function that she represents. Hermine's gifts are his, he only needs to learn how to be in touch with them.
Jung writes an illuminating passage that might help us understand what happens next. Jung writes that now, when this anima factor loses its mana [enchanting power] as a result of inclusion of previously unconscious contents and driving forces, what becomes of it? Clearly the man who has mastered the anima has gained her mana, according to the primitive idea that when a man kills the mana-person he assimilates his mana. (CW 7, 253). Here we can see Jung establishing a direct metaphorical link between an act of murder and assimilating the power of the one who was murdered.
Jung continues that it is the ego that has taken the mana, and thus the conscious ego becomes a mana personality. This psychic danger may endanger everything that has been won by coming to terms with the anima. It is important to know that the subjugation of the anima constellates another collective figure which now takes over her mana- the magician. ( Jung CW7, 253). As soon as Harry has killed Hermine and tries to understand what he just did, Mozart makes his appearance. This points toward a Jungian interpretation where the killing of the anima instantly constellates the magician – to Harry, Mozart is the ultimate form of powerful intellect and wisdom made flesh.
3 – What is the connection between the characters of Mozart and Pablo?
At the very end of the novel, Mozart suddenly changes into Pablo. There is a great deal of contrast between their characters, especially if we interpret them through Harry's initial estimations: Pablo can hardly think at all, and Mozart is an intellectual demigod. Pablo plays jazz, which is inferior and contemporary music, simply a trend in Harry's eyes. Mozart is an immortal composer. Pablo is sensual and deals with strange things like women and drugs, whereas Mozart is a star in the icy heavens, laughing mightily at puny mortals and our silly games.
In short, Pablo represents the instinctual side of life that Harry despises, but later learns to appreciate. Pablo feels like a humanized, perfected version of what the ”wolf” represents for Harry. Mozart is an embodiment of high culture, intellectualism and artistic genius. These are attributes that Harry longs for, but cannot truly connect with. Mozart is like the idealized version of the ”human” side of Harry, if he were to be free of his lingering bourgeois sentimentalism and his over-serious attitude to life.
Harry's dichotomy of his internal world being split into human and wolf is a representation that reveals the degraded condition of his humanity, and the character of Pablo-Mozart represents the direction where he could grow as an integrated human, who is both sensual and intellectual at the same time. At its culmination, the activity of the transcendent function symbolized by the magical theater achieves a harmony between seemingly opposing forces, and shows how they are both essential aspects of a unified totality.
This connection between Pablo and Mozart points to an important principle in Jungian psychology, the coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of the opposites. What Harry learns in the magical theater is that he does not have to choose between the human and the wolf, to play a win-lose game where one of them must be subjugated. He can grow toward both directions at once, and these different aspects can inform each other and help each other manifest. The more they are perfected, the more they appear as a unity. By approaching the sensual dimension of life with a joyous appreciation, he can learn that it is possible to enjoy life's pleasures without taking life too seriously.
Through learning to laugh at the games we humans play and to approach the bourgeois society with humor instead of a combination of sentimentalism and judgment, he can orient himself in both standard and non-standard environments. He can hang around confidently with wild drug dealing jazz musicians and seductive swingers, but he might just as well drink a cup of tea with the old lady who has rented him a room to live in. Thus Harry is made more capable and flexible to deal with different situations as they arise, and his energy and focus no longer flows to feed his perpetual inner conflicts.
What is the meaning of the last expression that Harry makes, the one about Mozart and Pablo waiting for him? I think this stands for the fact that Harry can now see those characters metaphorically as representing directions toward which he can grow, that there is hidden unity between the supposedly opposing trajectories. They are complementary in their functions, and Harry can move simultaneously toward both of them. Tool formulated a similar attitude in their most excellent song Lateralus: ” Swing on the spiral of, our divinity, and still be a human.... We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been...Spiral out, keep going...Spiral out, keep going...”.
References:
Hesse, Hermann: Steppenwolf (1925). Translated into Finnish as Arosusi (1952).
Jung, C.G: Modern Man in Search of a Soul. 1933.
Jung, C.G: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. CW 7. 1928/1935.