The world of good
Emil Sinclair considers the world where his parents live to be the world of “brilliance, clarity, and cleanliness, gentle conversations, washed hands, clean clothes, and good manners”. There is no place for contradictions in this world, everything is clear and obvious, what is good is good and what is evil is bad. His parents live in the world of “straight lines and paths led into the future”, which consists of “forgiveness and good resolutions, love, reverence, wisdom and the wisdom of the Bible”. If ones dreams about “unsullied and orderly life”, he or she will find this image extremely appealing. In spite of the apparent beauty of such a life, it is an illusion. This image gives an impression of a calm and convenient life.
The world of bad
The world of light, where Emil’s parents live, coexists with the world of darkness. “It smelled different, spoke a different language and demanded different things”. Unlike the first one, this realm fascinates Emil Sinclair, for it is a place, where “horrendous, intriguing, frightful, mysterious things” exist. If the first world is full of light, the second one consists of “slaughterhouses and prisons, drunk bars and screeching fishwives, horses sinking to their death, tales of robberies, murders and suicides”. The image of all these “wild and cruel, attractive and hideous things” gives an impression of a forbidden area.
An angel and Satan
Max Demian is an exceptional human being, who either attracts or frightens. It is impossible to be indifferent to him. In spite of the fact, that Emil meets him in a school, Max has never looked like a schoolboy. He has the”face of a man, of a scientist or artist, superior and purposeful, strangely lucid and calm, and with knowing eyes”. Emil sees him as a “as primeval, animal, marble, beautiful and cold, dead yet secretly filled with fabulous life” person. Max Demian is beautiful as an angel, but he leaves an impression of Satan. This image is used to show that Demian is an unusual type, that he is unique.
