Harry Haller, or Steppenwolf, is a man divided against society and himself. He despises bourgeois society and everything it represents: empty values, petty pleasures, intellectual stagnation. However, he is incapable of separating himself completely from the bourgeoisie. Instead, he rents rooms from the aunt, thereby immersing himself within a middle-class environment. He also engages in bourgeois activities, such as mindless reading, checking the mail, and at one point prior to the beginning of the text, even working at a job. Steppenwolf's contempt of society, plus his recurring realization that everyday will be just like the one before, prompts him to contemplate suicide.
Steppenwolf experiences two turning points within the text — his discovery of the Treatise on the Steppenwolf and his visit to the Magic Theater. Both experiences lead to self-discovery and enlightenment. Up until the moment Steppenwolf reads the treatise, he feels like a divided individual. He even describes himself as an individual whose nature consists of a man and a wolf. He rarely feels at peace because these two natures are competing for control. When Steppenwolf reads the treatise, he is overwhelmed by a variety of emotions. The treatise states,
In him the man and the wolf did not go the same way together, but were in continual and deadly enmity. One existed simply and solely to harm the other, and when there are two in one blood and in one soul who are at deadly enmity, then life fares ill.
This statement describes Steppenwolf's situation perfectly, so he is immediately convinced that he was right all along about his divided nature. The treatise goes on to state that "Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two," and as a result, Steppenwolf feels relief and liberation because every individual has a fractured nature, and this is normal. Finally, the treatise acknowledges that "his freedom was a death and that he stood alone. . . . For now it was his wish no longer, nor his aim, to be alone and independent, but rather his lot and his sentence." Steppenwolf feels justification for his suicidal tendencies because the treatise establishes his inevitable loneliness and isolation.
