How we cite our quotes: (Preface if applicable, Paragraph)
Quote #4
What, however, occupied my thoughts more than all else was the hallucination, or vision, of the church wall. (78)
Steppenwolf is full of tricky moments like these, where it's hard to tell what's real and what's imagined. This is important because, in the end, it doesn't matter whether or not the experiences in the novel are real or imagined. They still have an effect on Harry's life and his understanding of the world, whether they were hallucinated or real.
Quote #5
"There I was, sitting with people as one of themselves and believing that they thought of Goethe as I did and had the same picture of him in their minds as I, and there stood that tasteless, false and sickly affair and they thought it lovely and had not the least idea that the spirit of that picture and the spirit of Goethe were exact opposites." (144)
Getting back to the idea of inexpressible experiences, Harry has an idea of the "spirit" of Goethe, and also his physical appearance. He believes that the two versions should be compatible and reflect each other.
Quote #6
"But in spite of this I know that my own picture of the Savior or St. Francis is only a human picture and falls short of the original, and that the Savior himself would find the picture I have of Him within me just as stupid as I do those sickly reproductions." (208)
Hermine's comment could tell us something about art in general. Is art always a reproduction, or another version of something else? Or can it be valuable in and of itself?