What Does Water Represent In Siddhartha

In “Siddhartha,” Hermann Hesse uses archetypal literary elements to conceal hidden meanings inside the text. These ordinary characters, images, and situations are employed in this journey to foreshadow and represent certain, desired connotations. Hesse uses water, “Om,” and other symbols that have significant meanings that aid in delivering the message of each chapter and the story in general. These symbols are intentionally used as an important part of the short story “Siddhartha;” and these symbols are archetypes left for the reader to not only, discover the universal meaning that they represent, but they provide a clear pathway to follow. Hermann Hesse uses water throughout the three chapters: “Awaking,” “By the River,” and “Om” to convey

Throughout these three chapters, water is used in connection to the deepening sensations Siddhartha undergoes, and thus, every time he returns to the river, this marks a new stage of his awakening. In the story, Siddhartha compares the way he ponders deeply with that of diving into deep water as “he let himself sink down to the bottom of the sensation” (Hesse). In this chapter, the sensation of water acts as an archetypal image for how deep he is thinking. He also compares the sensation of water to how entangled he is in the Samsara as he “absorbed from all sides, as a sponge absorbs water, until he was full” (Hesse). The river symbolizes unity and the nature of one’s journey - following the flow as the water nourishes fertility and newness of life - growth. The river plays a large role in the story, as he gazes upon the river, “images appeared to him out of the moving water: his father appeared, and he was lonely and mourning for his son,” and then he sees “himself appeared, and he was also in bondage with yearning for his estranged son” (Hesse). The river represents a vortex where everything in the universe comes together as one, as through this river: “[a]ll was one, and everything was intertwined and connected, entangled”