Published in 1906, Beneath the Wheel tells the story of young Hans Giebenrath, who is from a small village in the German state Baden-Württemberg. After spending his formative years dedicated to his studies, Hans takes and passes the state exams and is selected to continue his education for free at the Seminary of Maulbronn Abbey. Through Hans, Hermann Hesse depicts how such a path is anything but free. Not only does young Hans miss out on his childhood, but also, he is bound to work in the state-funded church for the rest of his life. Seen as vessels, the boys at Hans’s school are crammed with information; their social development is stigmatized until many of them crack. Hesse draws on his own time spent at Maulbronn Abbey before he ran away. Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed could easily be read in tandem with this Hesse novel.