The different pathsSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get an original essayIn the novels The Guide, by RK Narayan, The Harp of Burma, by Michio Takeyama, and Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, all The main characters encounter problems regarding their identity. In The Guide, Raju attempts to regain his identity by abandoning his old identity in search of a new one. In The Harp of Burma, Mishuzima also abandons his old identity to find a new one, although he does so because of his new beliefs. In Siddhartha, Siddhartha finds his identity through the experiences of his life. As Raju, Mishuzima, and Siddhartha struggle to explore their identities, Raju and Mishuzima attempt to find theirs by rejecting their old identities, and Siddhartha uses many experiences from his life to find his. How Siddhartha goes about finding his identity reveals the most about identity because he can learn from every experience he has. Every experience Siddhartha has faced that he finds doesn't bring him any closer to finding his identity, he shuts it out and moves on, like crossing off a list. Although the way Raju goes about finding his identity seems successful, it has multiple flaws and are issues with his commitment. Siddhartha's path is more successful than Raju's, and the author shows us that Siddhartha actually understands his identity when Siddhartha achieves enlightenment. Siddhartha's quest is to understand himself and the world around him, while Raju only changes his identity because he was ashamed and wanted to forget who he was. For most of the book, Raju pretends to be a "holy man" and is just there to get by. As stated in The Guide: “I am not a saint. Velan made many sounds of protest. Raju felt sorry for breaking his faith; but it was the only means by which he could hope to escape the ordeal” (Narayan, 87). Raju admits that everything he did since he "became" a holy man was wrong and that he was just an ordinary person. Everything Raju told them, he never really took the time to think about it carefully. He is never focused on finding his identity until the end of the book, when he is willing to sacrifice himself for the people of the town. It took a crisis for him to change his way of seeing things. An outside force forced him to focus on himself and what he could do to help the people he cared about. Raju's commitment to finding out who he was didn't come until the very end and it wasn't entirely on his own. The drought that was ravaging his town did. Siddhartha, on the other hand, finds his identity through his own will, but is helped along the way by the people he meets on his journey. As previously stated, Siddhartha's goal in life is to discover who he truly is, to be able to understand himself and the world, and to overcome his ego. "And Govinda saw that this mask-like smile, this smile of unity on the flowing forms, this simultaneous smile on the thousands of births and deaths - this smile of Siddhartha - was exactly the same as the calm, delicate, inscrutable, perhaps the gracious, perhaps mocking, wise and thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he perceived it a hundred times with admiration” (Hesse, 131). The author shows us that Siddhartha actually achieved enlightenment, he found his identity and understood his self. This was ultimately Siddhartha's goal: to achieve enlightenment and understand oneself. The path of Siddhartha.