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The Continuous Rebirth of Life : A Study of Hesse’s Siddharta Seung-Chong Lee (Yonsei University) Hesse’s Siddharta is a philosophical novel on the life of Siddharta, his awakening, and teaching. Siddharta’s thinking is expressed by the monologues or the dialogues in the concrete contexts to which Siddharta belongs. Even though the themes and theses of his thoughts are philosophical, they neither make arguments, nor theories but are merely scattered and fragmentary remarks on the various states of affairs encountered during human life. His remarks constitute a working notebook or albums full of trials, errors, revisions, and sketches made in the course of journey called life. There is no such thing as nirvana according to Siddharta. There is only a continuous rebirth of life. Achieving nirvana is not the aim of Siddharta. In the course of a continuous rebirth of life, the past does not remain as traces or shadows in the present. Rather, as it is exhausted or knotted by deconstruction, overcoming, or oblivion, the past prepares a new departure. The rupture and the discontinuity that a new departure entails are balanced in the text by the macro plot of return. The life of Siddharta proceeds with the dual flow of difference and repetition. The touching ending of Siddharta is to be understood neither as the final conclusion of his inquiry nor as his attaining of eternal truth or nirvana. It merely represents the tentative path mark that is reached by a finite being, i.e., Siddharta. After the text of Siddharta is over, the life of Siddharta will continue. Even though there may be no more awakening, he will devote himself to the keeping and practicing of what he has learnt.