AP PREP POST 1: SIDDHARTHA

1.)  What purpose does self-denial serve in Siddhartha? What about self-indulgence?

See original here.

If I remember correctly from reading the book a couple of years ago, self-denial, most prominent when Siddhartha becomes an ascetic, reminds him that he is living and that he has enough self control to deny himself daily pleasures.  Self-indulgence serves as a protagonist to Siddhartha and his choices as an ascetic.  Self-denial is more important in Siddhartha because it is Siddhartha denying himself any pleasure, even life eventually, that leads him to disillusionment.

2.)  Siddhartha concerns the quest for spiritual enlightenment, and by the end of it four characters have achieved this goal: Govinda, Gotama, Vasudeva, and Siddhartha. Is the enlightenment achieved by each of these characters the same? Why or why not? What distinctions and similarities exist between the paths these characters use to reach their final goal?

See original here.

To answer this question, I would definitely need to reread the entire book and not simply the excerpt on the class blog in order to draw parallels between the journeys of those four characters.

3.)  What does enlightenment look like in Siddhartha? Is it a feeling? An attitude?

See original here.

Enlightenment in Siddhartha is an entire change in his state of mind and how he views the world, as any enlightening experience can be.  For this reason, it is both an icy cold feeling as described in the excerpt, as well as an attitude against returning home and continuing on with the past.  The feelings and the attitude form the basis for Siddhartha's enlightenment.

4.)  If you were the river, would you be enlightenment or would you know enlightenment? In other words, what’s up with the river? What is it’s relation to enlightenment?

See original here.

If I remember correctly, Siddhartha tried to drown himself in the river before reaching a state of enlightenment.  The river knows enlightenment, it isn't enlightenment itself.  Knowing enlightenment is the only way that it could teach Siddhartha (in a personified way), just as knowing what was outside the cave was one of the only ways that the enlightened prisoner in Plato's Allegory of the Cave would want to share with the other prisoners to bring them out of their mental and physical darkness.  If the prisoner was enlightenment in the first place, then he would not teach the others in the cave about the outside world because he wouldn't see the enlightened state as anything out of the ordinary.

5.)  The main purpose of the first-person point of view in the passage, “I am no longer what I was, I am no longer an ascetic, no longer a priest, no longer a Brahmin” is to make clear?

a. The change in Siddhartha’s physical lifestyle, in order to follow his spiritual one
b. Show Siddhartha’s anger at the corruption present in his father’s position
c. Reveal the frustration in Siddhartha’s journey toward enlightenment
d. The views and beliefs of his family and his religion
e. Draw attention toward the excitement that Siddhartha feels now that he has less responsibility

See original here.

My answer is a.  I believe that Siddhartha is ascertaining that he is leaving the past behind due to his new state of enlightenment and so he lists off every physical thing he can think of that represents the abstract concept of his past.