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Compare And Contrast Martin Luther King And Siddhartha

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Both Hesse's Siddhartha and Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from a Birmingham Jail both show that the good life is not purely materialistic pursuit as both Siddhartha and Martin Luther King Jr. both put either moral justice or spiritual wellness ahead of material possessions and comfort. However the Siddhartha and Martin Luther King Jr. differ in what they each hope to achieve by pursuing spiritual wellness and moral justice, Siddhartha simply wishes to achieve enlightenment and discover who he truly is, where as Martin Luther King Jr. wishes to help a large group of people achieve equality. Siddhartha of Hesse's Siddhartha in his quest to achieve enlighten will often forsake or outright reject material possessions and physical health (Hesse). …show more content…

are shown to want a good life not inherently connected to wealth or worldly goods; however their reasons for doing so differ, Siddhartha is trying to achieve enlightenment for himself and learn who he is (Hesse). Siddhartha is during his journey to be kind and caring and, excluding his time in the city of the child people, generally acts generously and even helped Govinda achieve enlightenment once he reached it himself; however unlike Martin Luther King Jr. helping others is not the purpose of his journey it is simply a byproduct of it (Hesse). Martin Luther King Jr. is trying to achieve social equability and help hundreds, possibly thousands, of people to have better lives, in fact it was much more important for him to help others than for him gain anything himself (King Jr.). This shows that while the good life is not inherently related to wealth or worldly goods, that does not mean that these pursuits are the same or they are always selfless (Hesse)(King Jr.). Martin Luther King Jr.'s goal is entirely focused on helping others and he himself is unable to achieve the good life himself until there is social equality and everyone in capable of achieving the good life and anything that he gains is a byproduct of his journey an inversion of Siddhartha's journey and goals (Hesse). However their journeys do have some parallels such as placing their physical health and comfort behind their mission and their values and when they do it seems to cause them inner turmoil (Hesse)(King

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