Sacrifice In Siddhartha

Siddhartha and Purple Hibiscus, Stories of Sacrifice “Great achievement is usually born in great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness” -- Napoleon Hill. Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse details the life of Siddhartha the son of a religious leader in India. Siddhartha struggles to find his path to enlightenment, bouncing from religion to religion, from place to place to reach his goal in life. To reach enlightenment, Siddhartha must make many sacrifices including leaving his father and his best friend, letting his child go, and exploring multiple religions. On the other hand, the novel Purple Hibiscus, the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illustrates the life of Kambili, who’s brother and mother struggle to live with an overpowering,

They show the lengths the protagonists will go to better themselves and in Jaja’s case those around him. These sacrifices were clear and direct but there are other sacrifices these characters made that are more subtle. For example, Siddhartha demonstrates to the audience the meaning of a goal and achieving that goal through suffering. "The teaching which you have heard...is not my opinion, and its goal is not to explain the world to those who are thirsty for knowledge. Its goal is quite different; its goal is salvation from the suffering. That is what Gotama teaches, nothing else."(27). Gotama’s teachings to Siddhartha was to reach enlightenment through suffering. That only through overcoming many years of physical and mental suffering one will be able to feel the pain no more and be one with the earth. Siddhartha must sacrifice his own well being of comfort, and relaxation for what is believed to take him to the goal that he wants. He is later faced with the fact that Gotama’s teachings are not working. As he looks around him at the others who have followed Gotama’s teachings for many years, he realizes that they still struggle to find enlightenment. So Siddhartha leaves which causes him to sacrifice more time for a goal in which time is a vital