Demian has a lot going on in the text; we know this. But I want to draw particular attention to the intertextual codes that aren’t accessible when an addressee is stuck only in the mimetic register. We need to take a closer look at the strange relationship between the apparently superior Demian and the infatuated Sinclair.
Using the hermeneutic code specifically, I’m attempting to trace a thread through the story that sets up and answers a question. What I want to know is why Sinclair and Demian never really discuss what went down with Kromer.
Thematization: I think it is understood that Demian is the mysterious one of the story in general, but also about the Kromer situation. He suggests for Sinclair that, “if there’s nothing else you can do, then kill him!” (32). Sinclair is horrified and says no.
Proposal of the enigma: Even though Sinclair does nothing to resolve the situation, Kromer suddenly stops bothering Sinclair.
Request for an answer: Demian approaches Sinclair to check if Kromer is done bothering him. Sinclair confirms, and asks how he made it happen. All Demian says is he “talked to him” (33).
Snare: Demian continuously avoids Sinclair’s question.
Equivocation: Probably when Demian says, “I just talked to him, the same way I talked to you. I was able to make him see that leaving you alone was to his own advantage” (33). This may be part of Demian’s truth, but I don’t think it’s the whole truth. That makes it a bit of a lie, then.
Jamming: Demian doesn’t give Sinclair an answer, eliciting in Sinclair “the same awkward feeling toward [Demian], a strange mix of gratitude and shyness, admiration and fear, affection and inner resistance” which in turn begins Sinclair’s lifelong infatuation with Demian (33).
Suspended answer: Demian doesn’t share with Sinclair how he stopped Kromer, and the subject of Kromer isn’t brought up again for a very long time.
Disclosure: I feel that there is no resolution to the situation between Kromer, Sinclair, and Demian. The subject is never brought up again until the very end of the story. Demian asks, “Do you remember Franz Kromer?” (135). We get no hint about what happens to Kromer or what Demian did to make him go away.
(Actual footage of Kromer and Sinclair.)
So, why do Demian and Sinclair never speak of Kromer again until the very end? I would argue that the Kromer situation at 10 years old is where Sinclair originally lost his former self. Between then and the very end of the novel, when Demian confirms that Sinclair has found who he is, Demian was a guiding light. They never speak of it until the very end because he has finally come of age and is able to understand things on his own.
But we could also read this code as a different kind of enigma. The mystery isn’t what Demian did to Kromer, but Demian himself. This character bends the rules as he goes without consequence or even acknowledgement. Demian is ascribed all of these power words in semic code:
“[Demian] dodged the question no matter how hard [Sinclair] tried to find out what happened. [Sinclair] was left with the same awkward feeling toward [Demian], a strange mix of gratitude and shyness, admiration and fear, affection and inner resistance” (33).
We see this again when the two boys are in communion school. Demian moves his seat back to where Sinclair sits, and says that he makes it happen by will alone, such that not even the teacher can acknowledge the transgression. Demian “dodges.” This could be partially ascribed to Demian’s discussion of the “Mark of Cain,” but that had a bit more to do with mind-reading and seizing one’s destiny than avoiding interrogation by will alone.
These could all be considered partial answers to the question of why Demian and Sinclair avoid talking about Kromer, and why Demian is more than a regular person, as they tie into the disclosure without fully answering the question for sure.
Maybe there really isn’t just one answer.
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