What Is Admirable About Harry in The Steppenwolf?

Harry Haller of The Steppenwolf is often remembered for his despair, but his struggle was not meaningless. He embodies what Nietzsche described in the “Three Metamorphoses”—the camel who bears the heaviest burdens of truth, the lion who rebels against illusions and inherited moralities, and the child who alone can create what is new. Harry’s conflict reflects the deeper crisis of German intellectual life leading up to the First World War, a culture torn between idealism, nationalism, skepticism, and spiritual hunger. His divided self—human and wolfish—reveals the failure of bourgeois half-measures and the longing for authentic truth. Harry’s tragedy is that he came close to understanding himself but never broke through.