Who is Siddhartha? (Protagonist Analysis)

"Siddhartha learned a great deal from the Samanas; he learned many ways of losing the Self. He traveled along the path of self-denial through pain, through voluntary suffering and conquering of pain, through hunger, thirst and fatigue. He traveled the way of self-denial through meditation, through the emptying of the mind through all images. Along these and other paths did he learn to travel. He lost his Self a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in non-being. But although the paths took him away from Self, in the end they always led back to it. " 

Quote Analysis:
Throughout the 25-75% portion of the text, Siddhartha explores his own identity by testing the strength of his abilities, such as self-starvation and deprivation by other means enforced by the ascetic group he has joined. As his abilities become greater and Siddhartha slowly stops feeling pain although completing painful feats, he becomes assimilated into the Samana culture. One of the aspects of their practice includes cutting themselves off from communication with others so that each individual can more effectively find Self. Siddhartha grows and changes as a character in this self-punishing society, because it forces him to focus on finding his own Self (it is the only thing he needs to do since he doesn't have to worry about eating, sleeping, drinking, or talking). 

"His face resembled that of another person, whom he had once known and loved and even feared. It resembled the face of his father, the Brahmin. He remembered how once, as a youth, he had compelled his father to let him go and join the ascetic, how he had taken leave of him, how he had gone and never returned."

Quote Analysis:

A connection between characters is drawn upon as Siddhartha simultaneously becomes less like his old self and more like his father, whom he previously shared no obvious similarities with other than ethnicity. Siddhartha experiences irony in the fact that running away from his original society, home, and father, has actually brought him closer to it by transforming him into a man who closely resembles his  father, the Brahmin. Siddhartha displays a face that he himself "once [knew] and loved and...feared." His unfamiliarity with his physical appearance as belonging to him proves that Siddhartha has become closer to finding his inner Self, because he has virtually forgotten what he looks like from the outside. While on his search for Self, Siddhartha has no real intentions of going back to his father, regardless of his promise in the past that he would return if he could not successfully find Self. He is determined to seek his purpose and meaning in the world no matter where this search leads him. The fact that this journey changes him as a character makes the statement "he had gone and never returned" true, since the naive Siddhartha of the past has disappeared.

Ability Degree of function for participation in particular physical, intellectual, or psychological activities
Assimilation The social process of absorbing one cultural group into another, more dominant cultural group
Characters Persons, animals, ideas, or abstractions around which a narrative is constructed; actors within a text
Communication A means of passing and maintaining social contact of ideas, information, and culture
Culture Shared ways of knowing and thinking about the world; reculturing occurs when members reject a paradigm of sameness; monoculture refers to one culture, or a dominant culture
Epistemologies How people know their worlds
Essence Attributes that create meaning and identity in an individual
Ethnicity Categorization and identification with a particular culturally developed group commonly descended from a set of ancestors; members of a group who share common traits such as language, religion, dress, foods

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hki9U5-g75g

Fortuna, Carolyn, Dr. "Quizlet." Dr. Carolyn's Language of Interpretation Flashcards. Quizzlet, n.d.   Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://quizlet.com/2861277/dr-carolyns-language-of-interpretation-flash-cards/>.