Final Analysis on Dahlia Ravikovitch's "You Can't Kill a Baby Twice"

The poem "You Can't Kill a Baby Twice" by Dahlia Ravikovitch was a piece in direct response to the massacre at the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila during the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon. At its most literal level, it is a criticism of the event; it showcases what happened and how people were affected. It is very emotionally traumatizing and rousing. At its next level, it presents themes of loss of innocence over the loss of life: that the babies being killed are the young ones inside of all of us being lost to the cruelty of the world instead of actual babies being killed (of which, to be fair, there were plenty). These two levels were basically how far my depth of understanding went (besides maybe an ostensibly over-analyzed layer about the holocaust). But as my research continued and as I gathered more and more insight and perspective into the piece, a third level arose. This one exhibited the sentiment that the loss of innocence comes from the commanding to individuals by a state to perform  terrible acts, that the individual soldiers of the Israeli army were forced to act as an extension of the wishes of the Israeli government against their own wishes. These three layers of meaning in the poem are how my understanding of the poem developed with increased research and contemplation.

The first layer was the literal one: the historical analysis, the criticisms of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. It is a layer that can be understood completely merely by brief research on the first line of the poem, "By the sewage puddles of Sabra and Shatila," (Ravikovitch 1). This is where Ravikovitch first presents the setting and the focus, the massacres. Then she goes on, describing more about the event. "Night after night. / First they shot, / they hanged, / then they slaughtered with their knives" (Ravikovitch 6-9). This describes the methods of the killers in the massacre. The Phalangists (the killers) shot, lynched, and gruesomely stabbed and slashed the victims over the several days the massacre occurred. Ravikovitch also describes one of the things that happened during the massacre, when the Israeli soldiers on the outside lit the camps up with large searchlights to aid the Phalangists, "Our soldiers lit up the place with searchlights / till it was bright as day" (Ravikovitch 16-17). The most obvious layer was essentially a description of the events that took place, used to highlight the brutality and barbarism of the event. It's directness does not remove its meaning or its power. It is the most obvious layer, and still manages to hold such a powerful message in it.

The second layer goes beyond literal death. It focuses more on the loss of innocence rather than the loss of life. Each description of children's deaths, like this one, "And the children already lay in puddles of filth, / their mouths gaping, at peace" (Ravikovitch 22-24), is actually a symbol for innocence. Her focus on the children and emphasis on the fact that once they are dead, they cannot be removed again is a testament to this. "No one will harm them" Ravikovitch 25). Once innocence has been removed from a person, it cannot be removed again. You cannot lose innocence twice, which brings us to the title line, "You can't kill a baby twice" (Ravikovitch 26). While this statement is true on a literal level, it is also a symbol. Once the metaphorical baby has been killed, innocence has been removed, it cannot be 'killed' again. This layer exists to highlight the cost events like Sabra and Shatila have on all of us, not just the victims; brutality kills the babies inside everyone, hollows them out and shoves them into a world where innocence is dead.

The deepest layer focuses on the unwillingness of individuals to do things their overlords tell them. First it is important to note the identity of Ravikovitch; she is a lifelong resident of Israel and a Jew. So when she says "Our sweet soldiers" (Ravikovitch 29), she refers to the Israeli soldiers, the ones responsible for (in theory) guarding the refugee camps, but in reality the ones who encouraged, let in, and aided the Phalangist militia that carried out the massacre; the ones found responsible by hearing for the massacre later. But she still empathizes with them. Her view is that the soldiers were not responsible, that the Israeli state was. She maintains that everything done by the soldiers was done begrudgingly, under direct orders from the higher-ups. "a soldier yelled at / the screaming woman from Sabra and Shatila. / He was following orders" (Ravikovitch 19-21). she emphasises that what the soldiers did was done while being directly overseen by the state. She also emphasises the fact that the soldiers didn't want to be there, they just want to come home undamaged, "All they ever asked / was to come home / safe" (Ravikovitch 31-33). They were not there to kill Arabs of their own personal vendettas. They did not wish to witness the brutal murder of thousands. They just wanted to be safe and in their homes. But they were soldiers, who exist only as extensionsions of the evil wishes of their state, and so they partook in this heinous event.

"You Can't Kill a Baby Twice" is an incredibly meaningful and evocative piece. It exists on many layers, each one more arresting and revealing than the last. It's most literal layer is a criticism on the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. This layer expresses the hideous deeds and repulsive actions carried out during it, highlighting the terribleness and loathsomeness of what happened. The next layer is hidden in the symbolism of dead babies and children, and carries the message that atrocities kill innocence in everyone, and once innocence is lost it cannot be lost again. The deepest layer is one that communicates that individual soldiers exist only as continuations of the wishes of their state, and the soldiers were not to blame for the massacre. They did not want to be there. They were forced to be where they were and behave how they did by their commanders. They, like everyone involved in events like the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, lost something that once lost cannot be lost again. They lost their innocence. Ravikovitch presents these distinct, and yet intertwining layers in her poem to show the faults and to criticize what happened at the massacre of Sabra and Shatila.

Interview

I sit alone in my room. The early-morning sunlight from the east-facing window filters in through the blinds. Half the room is lit, half is dark. I ensconce myself in the dark half of the room, surrounded by a notebook, open to a blank page, the numbers of the questions already written down in anticipation the previous day; a laptop, open to the draft that would eventually become this very post; and a trusty black pen whose precious ink is steadily and unavoidably running out. I am ready. The time has come and I dial the number into my phone. My mother's brother answers the phone. We exchange the pleasantries and smalltalk characteristic of a conversation with a relative you haven't spoken to in months. Turns out he's having another baby and he's bought a house. But all of the is irrelevant. We rocket into business. I had told him previously not to read the poem ahead of time so that his first impressions can be fresh and unadulterated from further reflection. I wait as he silently reads the poem, and we begin with the questions.

"What do you think of the poem? What is your initial reaction?" A short pause. "It's very evocative. It's very strong. I've heard of this massacre of Sabra and Shatila... very arresting." My pen sprints over the paper, desperately trying to keep up with the words spilling from my uncle's mouth, scratching and ripping paper in its singular urgent purpose. Documenting his complex answers will not get easier.

Finally I manage to transcribe his answer. "What specifically do you notice about the poem?" There is another pause, longer, and filled not with the absence of an answer but with a search for the correct terms to describe his answer. "It seems to be written... 'all they ever wanted to do was come home safe' ... the soldiers, they're not culpable... blameworthy..." His answer betrays a certain theme of innocence of the carriers out of atrocities in the name of their bosses and leaders, they are only 'following orders'.

After a long pause distinguishable from total silence only by the sounds of frenzied scribbling, I ask my third question, "Are you confused by anything in the poem?" There is another pause. This one is a search for an answer, as he struggles to come to a suitable expression of his thoughts in response to a question so devoid of one. "Let's see... no, I guess I'm not confused because I know the story... it's very context-specific... the poet writes for people who know the story." His answer carries a resounding note of accuracy, as Ravikovitch wrote this piece in direct response and analysis to an event, meaningful understanding of the piece can only be achieved by those familiar with the event.

My next question comes after yet another arduous silence. "What do you think of the poem in terms of the irony of Jewish soldiers massacring Arabs versus the holocaust?" "What do you mean?" I clarify, "as in, what do you think of the irony of the massacre and killing of the Jewish by German soldiers during the holocaust, against the acts committed by the Israeli (Jewish) military and people affiliated and aided by the Israeli military during the massacre?" His answer comes with almost a note of relief, of clarification and a respite from his confusion, "So they enabled it or encouraged it, which is obviously bad... You know that didn't even occur to me... I'm not sure that it makes me think about the holocaust... I don't think the Israelis aren't able to avoid atrocities... the state enables evil... I think that's capable of evil... the military acts as an arm for a state... to increase its sphere of evil influence." One can see his beliefs that they are exempt of guilt as they are forced as individuals to commit the acts and wishes of their evil state, losing their own individual innocence in the process, which is ironically a parallel to the holocaust he neglects to draw.

My pen struggles to stay synchronous with my uncle's grand introspections. "What do you think about the symbolism of babies?" This answer is almost instant: the relaively new father of two feels strongly about the young of his species, "I thnk that for me, it's the most arresting thing you can picture... people is bad but babies is so much worse... I took it quite literally, though, so I'm not sure I quite saw much symbolism there." This answer attests to the fact that this piece holds great power and meaning even at a literal level, but also retains layers and layers deeper and deeper that add to the entirety of its message.

I ask my final question before I finish writing, as I have become all too aware of the silences that follow each question, though I am the one responsible for them. "What do you think about the relevance that the author Ravikovitch is a lifelong resident of Tel Aviv and refers to the babies as 'our sweet soldiers'?" He answers again with a pause to organize his contemplation. His answer does not disappoint. "It's clear that the author's identity is very important... first person possessive 'our'... how can they be both things at once, the victimly babies and the terrible violent perpetrators... I think she felt sympathy to the soldiers... You could say the same thing about German soldiers in the holocaust... quite a disturbing little poem though, no question about it." He is not wrong.

I give him my thanks and we hang up. The paper that lies in front of me enveloped in frenzied scribbles and rips in the thin sheet. The trusty pen is running out of ink and is noticeably on its last legs. Its life would end later that day to a calculus assignment. In front of me lies a rich vein of knowledge, caked in experience and wisdom. It is worth its weight in gold. It is a worthy sacrifice for the pen. The light from the window creeps ever closer to my post. I sit again alone in my room.

Research on Dahlia Ravikovitch's "You Can't Kill a Baby Twice"

"By the sewage puddles of Sabra and Shatila" Sabra and Shatila was a massacre of Palestine and Lebanese civilians by a group of Israeli and Phalangist militants called the Lebanese Forces Militia Group in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon between the 16th and 18th of September, 1982. The Maronite militants entered the camps in the middle of the night, allowed to pass by Israeli forces surrounding the camps, who then fired illuminating flares over the campsite to allow the militants to see. The Israeli responsibility for the massacre was highly disputed until an independent commission, the chairman of which was Sean MacBride, determined the Israeli forces was either directly or indirectly responsible and to blame.
Several months previously, in early June of the same year, an attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador to Britain Shlomo Argov prompted an Israeli break in their ceasefire agreement with the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), despite the fact the PLO reportedly had nothing to do with it and condemned the actions of the attempted assassins, leading to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and surrounding of their capital, Beirut. On August 21, a US-brokered agreement allowed for the safe and overseen evacuation of Palestinian civilians in the city, guaranteeing their safety in the refugee camps. Then, on the 11th of September, the leader of the Lebanese Christian militia, Bachir Gemayel was assassinated in a giant explosion that destroyed his headquarters. The culprit was a man named Habib Tanious Shartouni, a Lebanese Christian and a member of the Syrian Social Nationalists Party and a Syrian intelligence agent. After the attack, public talks began, announcing the Israeli desire to invade Beirut, but to stay out of the refugee camps, sending in the Phalangist militia instead.

"there you transported human beings in impressive quantities from the world of the living to the world of eternal light."Victims of the massacre; the total number of victims of the massacre is highly debated, but different sources say any of the following: 800+, 1,300, 1,700, 3,000+, 3,000-3,500.  It was voted an official act of genocide by the UN General Assembly on the 16th of December.

"Night after night. First they shot, they hanged, then they slaughtered with their knives." Refers to the methodology and time frame of the militants' attack: it ranged from the 16th to the 18th of September. The massacre began on the night of the 6th, which involved the initial unit of militia, around 150 men, arranging in groups and executing them en masse with machine guns. Then, following 2 hours of group executions a group of Israeli and Phalangist officers at a forward command post overlooking the camps received a call questioning what they should do with a group of 50 or so prisoners. The commander, Hobeika, responded "This is the last time you're going to ask me a question like that; you know exactly what to do" followed by laughter. The following morning, on the 18th, the militia had withdrawn and allowed a number of Phalangist officials were let into the camp: they witnessed corpses shot to hell, castrated, scalped, and most with crosses carved into their flesh with knives. Many were hanging from posts around the camp. One American journalist wrote of the wreckage: "I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up against an alley wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been stabbed ot ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles."

"Our soldiers lit up the place with searchlights till it was bright as day." The Phalangist militia infamously used giant searchlights posted everywhere: one person described it as "a sports stadium during a football game". She uses "our soldiers" because it was allies of Israeli forces that committed these acts

"He was following orders." Reportedly, many of the onlooking Israeli forces were highly upset by the events, but were forced to stay by adamant orders from the higher-ups

"You can't kill a baby twice." Could refer to the literal babies that got killed, or the people that died that were so young they may as well have been babies

 "And the moon will grow fuller and fuller till it became a round loaf of gold. " Could refer to the moon changing to the sun, as the massacre lasted for 38 hours straight and the moon would rise and set and rise and set again before the massacre ended, so the moon becomes a loaf of gold, or the sun.

"Our sweet soldiers wanted nothing for themselves. All they ever asked was to come home safe." continuation of the last quote: another likely meaning of the line is that since it talks about "our" or Israeli, soldiers, the babies are those of the Israeli forces: referring to the innocence of the soldiers. They are killed, and one cannot lose innocence twice. They just wanted to go home without having seen that much death and horribleness, but they did: they did not want wealth, or to kill themselves, they just wanted to go back home.

Dahlia Ravikovitch was born on November 18, 1936 in a suburb of Tel Aviv, Israel. When she was 6, her father, a Chinese immigrant to Israel, an engineer, was killed by a drunk driver. Following his death, Dahlia's family moved to a kibbutz (a small Jewish community, primarily agrarian and very primitive in both social customs and potential education within), which Dahlia left at the age of 13 to live with a series of foster families. The education she received after she left the kibbutz was top-notch, she studied literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Early in her life she worked as a theatrical and television critic. She was married and divorced thrice. She has published somewhere around 20 volumes of works, including two poetry books and three children's stories. She also made a living for a while translating various literary pieces into Hebrew, and worked as a journalist for some time for the daily newspaper, the  Ma'ariv. After her retirement from journalism, she began to very seriously get into writing poetry, and quickly became well known as the only female Israeli poet of the time. Her works formed a stark contrast to her male counterparts of the time. Plagued by depression, her body was found in her Tel Aviv home by her son on August 21, 2005.

Analysis on You Can't Kill a Baby Twice: Following the horrors of Sabra and Shatila, there was an uproar of anti-war political poetry in response to the acts. Ravikovitch's poem uses allusions and similarities to the holocaust to show the irony of Jewish soldiers killing Arabs. The references and reminders of the styling and scale of the holocaust is seen through the transportation and methodology of the Nazis in the death camps, the fact that most Nazi soldiers blamed their commanding officers and were brutal and hostile to the prisoners is echoed in the interaction with an Israeli soldier in the poem. Calling memory to the killing of millions of children during the holocaust is also seen in the poem, as well as the symbolism of the innocence and wish to just leave it all behind of all involved. This poem represents a level of political and materialistic awareness not shown by any other of Ravikovitch's poetry, besides maybe "Hovering at a Low Altitude", as much of her other works deal with the fantastical and idealistic and spiritual of the earth, and very rarely indicate any relation to real-world events or relevant themes, showing the pure emotional toll that necessitated the mass response from artists all over the world to the massacre. 

Works Cited: 

Cohen, Zafrira L. "Dalia Ravikovitch | Jewish Women's Archive." Jewish Women; A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive, n.d. Web. 13 May 2014.

Neisser, Yvette. "Palestine-Israel Journal: The Dialogue of Poetry: Palestinian mid Israeli Poets Writing Through Conflict and Peace." The Dialogue of Poetry: Palestinian mid Israeli Poets Writing Through Conflict and Peace. Palestine-Israel Journal, 2012. Web. 13 May 2014.

"Sabra and Shatila Massacre." Princeton University. Princeton University, n.d. Web. 13 May 2014.

Shahid, Leila. "The Sabra and Shatila Massacres: Eye-Witness Reports." Journal of Palestine Studies 32.1 (2002): 36-58. University of California Press. Web. 10 May 2014.

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds."

Abstract thought is one of the most astounding things achievable by man. And not just conscious thought about events, the world, people around, and the like: the human mind's ability to ponder ideas and concepts not literally in front of them: to consider things beyond what can be seen and touched and experienced directly. There are an infinite number of quotable phrases on the subject: Socrates, Voltaire, Eleanor Roosevelt, Pablo Picasso, and Stephen Hawking, to name a few, have voiced some pretty profound lines on the subject. It is incredible, and strange, and frightening, and enticing, and wonderful: the ideas we can imagine using only the power of our brains, nothing else: not the real world, not a belief in some supernatural plane on which abstractions exist, just our brainpower, supplemented only by basic conceptions of 'sane' and 'insane' and a few logical presuppositions. It is incredible, and it is an ability that is necessary to exercise. It is absolutely fundamental to human society that all members may retain the ability to practice and voice abstract thought: freedom of thought in society lends itself to the resistance of fascist and other totalitarian regimes, the constant arisal of new ideas and innovations, beneficial modifications to the standard paradigms of science and technology, political hierarchy, literary advances, forming changes in the very fabrics of society. It is necessary to exercise freedom of thought in order to correctly practice the freedoms of assembly, religion, press, and speech. So arises the question: how does one actually LIMIT the freedom of thought, to change something so essential to the human brain such that so much of its potential is erased? As stated earlier, there are a few necessary presets to freedom of abstract human thought: notions of sanity and logic, which can be tainted and skewed by perspective. It is possible to limit the scope of human thought by containing the bounds from which the thought is observed and approached. The philosopher Slavoj Zizek says that the purpose of philosophy is to ask the right questions, as asking the wrong questions can narrow the field of possible speculation to the terms of the question. The approach to thought is incredibly important, and so just as asking the wrong question limits the possible field of answers, limiting the perspective of any person limits the field of possible thought, inhibiting the potential scope of contemplation. This becomes a theme of wisdom versus instruction: wisdom is attained through each individual's own conjecture, while instruction can quite easily become a monotonizing erasure of individual thought, a restriction to the approach to thought. This theme, an albeit huge and overstuffed one, lends itself to a much more practical and corporeal theme: loving someone enough to let them go; not only physically, but in thought. If one loves someone truly, they will not oblige a specific set of presuppositions on the other to limit their thought and experience to their own, but will let them go to find their own presuppositions. And so, in Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, one can see the themes of free thought and sufficient love.


The theme of instruction and wisdom lies underneath the blanket of letting those one loves go, so in order to see the themes of truly free thought, one must identify the themes of love. One can see where Siddhartha's father does not want him to go out on his own and become a Samana, "[Siddhartha's father] saw his son standing there unmoving, and his heart filled with anger, with disquiet, with trepidation, with sorrow" (Hesse 10). One can see that the father is not at the stage of love where he is able to let his son go off on his own pursuits, as he gets upset that his son wishes to pursue individualistic exploration. He maintains that the obedience of his son is what is important, " 'Siddhartha will do as his father instructs him' " (Hesse 10). He does not consider the restrictions he is putting on the experience of life of his son, and how that will affect his son's mind and power to think freely. Eventually, the father realizes how his son is an individual and must retain the experience and freedom of thought of an individual, "His eyes gazed into the distance straight before him. the father realized then that Siddhartha was no longer with him in the place of his birth" (Hesse 10). He realizes that Siddhartha is growing apart from the ideology of his father, and Siddhartha must be fully released in order to realize his full potential of thought; and here the father attains the level of love for his son that allows him to let him go, to pursue individual and free thought.

This is the next level of the theme of love: the level of acceptance, and gaining the ability to let someone go. The father finally lets go of Siddhartha in the beginning, "He took his hand from his son's shoulder and went out" (Hesse 11). The father literally releases Siddhartha into the world to seek his own philosophy and reaches the point of love where he does this, if begrudgingly. Then, Siddhartha finds himself facing the same situation with his own son. Vasudeva coaches him, "Or do you really believe that you committed your own follies so as to spare your son from committing them?" (Hesse 101). Vasudeva tells Siddhartha that Siddhartha cannot experience the world for his son, he must let his son go out and experience it for himself, so as not to be subjugated to Siddhartha's sole mindset, and form his own. Then, as Siddhartha muses over the knowledge that allowing his son to go out into the world will allow for terrible things to happen to his son, "Stronger than this knowledge was his love for the boy" (Hesse 101). Siddhartha's love for his son overcomes his overbearing fear of what will happen to the boy and Siddhartha allows himself to let go of the boy, to let his love form the break that will allow his son to finally go out into the world.

The final part of the theme is the direct moments of individualism seen in the boy, Siddhartha's son. Vasudeva still coaches Siddhartha through the evolution of his love. "Who saved the Samana Siddhartha from Sansara, from sin, from greed, from folly? Were his father's piety, his teachers' admonitions, his own knowledge, and his own searching able to protect him? What father, what teacher, was able to protect him from living life himself?" (Hesse 101). Vasudeva tries to highlight the need for each individual to learn their own lessons, rather than let those that went before them to learn on their behalf. He cites Siddhartha's own experience: his father once wished to let his own lessons teach Siddhartha rather than letting Siddhartha go out and learn for himself. He tries to get him to let his son go, talking about how his son is quite different than Siddhartha and Vasudeva, and must not be constrained to the experiences and thoughts of them, " 'Are you not forcing him, the arrogant and spoiled boy, to live in a hut with two old banana eaters for whom even rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts cannot be his, whose hearts are old and still and beat differently from his?' " (Hesse 100). He tells Siddhartha that he is forcing his son into a life of ideals that he does not share, and that his son must go out and learn and acquire for himself his own ideals. Finally, as Siddhartha lets go, he realizes that his son is going out to form his own path, "He is providing for himself, choosing his own path" (Hesse 104). Siddhartha finally manages to let his son go, finally achieves the level of love necessarily to truly let his son go, to go out and form his own ideas and to be free to think for himself.

Throughout Hesse's Siddhartha, the theme that states if someone loves someone else truly, they can and should let their love go. The theme then points to a deeper theme, a theme of free thinking. The theme that to let someone go is to allow them to experience for themselves, to acquire their own wisdom, rather than to be constrained to the perspective of their instruction. Free and abstract thought is one of the most incredible achievements of humanity, the ability to embrace and consider something that is purely an ideal, and is fundamental to all human society. It can only limited by the perspective from which it is approached, a limitation that can be placed by instruction. Therefore, one must accept that instruction must exist in a way that only shows the way to information, but is able to let go enough such that the learner may retain the freedom of thought necessary to interpret it in any way they choose; they must have the open mind and their own life experience in order to do it. And so true love allows a teacher to let their student go to experience for themselves, to allow for the development of their own ideals and to think freely and abstractly themselves.

"You Can't Kill a Baby Twice" by Dahlia Ravikovitch (Israel)

By the sewage puddles of Sabra and Shatila,
there you transported human beings
in impressive quantities
from the world of the living to the world
of eternal light.

Night after night.
First they shot,
they hanged,
then they slaughtered with their knives.
Terrified women climbed up
on a ramp of earth, frantic:
"They're slaughtering us there,
in Shatila."

A thin crust of moon
over the camps.
Our soldiers lit up the place with searchlights
till it was bright as day.
"Back to the camp,
beat it!" a soldier yelled at
the screaming woman from Sabra and Shatila.
He was following orders.
And the children already lay in puddles of filth,
their mouths gaping,
at peace.
No one will harm them.
You can't kill a baby twice.

And the moon will grow fuller and fuller
till it became a round loaf of gold.

Our sweet soldiers
wanted nothing for themselves.
All they ever asked
was to come home
safe.

(Translated from Hebrew by Chana and Ariel Bloch)

"The first duty of a man is to think for himself"

One thing that really caught my attention in Herman Hesse's Siddhartha was the themes of Wisdom vs. Instruction. Those themes I really like, as individualism is a strong personal belief of mine. I believe that lessons and true knowledge and wisdom can't be taught; that people must go out to the world and experience and think and interpret the world for themselves in order to glean any amount of wisdom from it. It is the responsibility of every teacher and every individual to be in the mindset "The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see" (Alexandra K. Trenfor). People must decide the world for themselves. Freedom of thought must be the most fundamental staple of all society: above the freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion. Thought is the most basic, most identifying action of all humans, and all individualism and distinction from the masses is completely dependent on thought: one cannot speak, believe, or come together freely, truly, without thought. And experience goes hand in hand with thought. The experiences and lessons taught by the world are the fundamental basis our thought springs from: therefore, to avoid thinking in the exact same conformist way as our teachers or those around us, we must experience the world on our own and our own thoughts will emerge in conjunction.
So the themes presented in Siddhartha about how Siddhartha Jr. must go out to make his mistakes on his own and learn for himself the ways of the world, rather than staying in the thought that Siddhartha could protect his son from the world are themes I would like to focus on. As Siddhartha is musing about the impossibility of his having learned the lessons of the world for his son, "Or do you really believe that you committed your own follies so as to spare your son from committing them?" (Hesse 101).  He believes that since he did whatever mistakes, he can impose those wisdoms on his son via lessons alone, rather than his son actually learning for himself: to think and learn for him. But his son needs to be saved from the evils of the world by himself, just as Siddhartha before him learned for himself learned the ways of the world, and not from his teachers and his father.  "Who saved the Samana Siddhartha from Sansara, from sin, from greed, from folly? Were his father's piety, his teachers' admonitions, his own knowledge, and his own searching able to protect him? What father, what teacher, was able to protect him from living life himself?" (Hesse 101). So just as Siddhartha learned his own lessons for himself, he learns his son must learn these lessons for himself as well, and be able to think and interpret on his own as an individual, rather than being told and taught what to think and what lessons to learn.

"One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time."

One thing I absolutely love about Hesse's writing is the pure beauty and eloquence of his writing. Almost everything he says is so ardent and powerful, everything is meaningful and stirring. "Life was a torment" (Hesse 13). His writing is just incredible, and I guess his beginnings as a poet definitely help the robustness of his writings. I do suppose that some of it could be attributed to the translator as well, though. "How beautiful the world was when one looked at it without searching" (Hesse 41-42). Either way, Bernofsky and Hesse create a wonderful tapestry of words in the novel that is amazing.

Another thing that probably helps with the intense beauty of the writing is the subject matter. "To become empty empty of thirst, empty of want, empty of dream, empty of joy and sorrow" (Hesse 13). Beautiful! The whole idea of finding self in the sea of suffering in the world is definitely just a giant basin of provocative writing just waiting to be written. And the lessons being taught themselves are beautiful as well, "How beautiful the world was when one looked at it without searching" (Hesse 41-42). It's all just a very intriguing family of thought processes and phrases that Hesse has managed to take and perfectly relate to the world via his writing, and I love reading it.