Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks tells the story of the eponymous family’s firm in mid-19thcentury Germany, when this country, like its neighbours, was experiencing the political and cultural convulsions of the liberal and nationalist ideas unleashed by the French revolution. The main focus of the novel is decay and decline, which Mann skillfully examines at four levels—the individual, family, firm, and nation (i.e. Germany). In so doing, Buddenbrooks enlightens the reader on the processes that underlie the cycle of rise, peak, decay, and death that all living things must face, while connecting this pattern, as it transpired in the Buddenbrooks family, to the fateful political direction of their country. Germany and the Buddenbrooks, Buddenbrooks shows, moved in different directions: in the mid- to late- 19thcentury, when the family’s decline reaches its final phase, Germany is industrializing and has accomplished its unification, consolidating is position as master of Europe. In terms of culture, however, Germany is regressing: Buddenbrooks highlights how, after unification, Germany takes a militarist and aggressive turn. Thomas Mann interweaves these complex dynamics while compellingly narrating the family’s demise; another, equally important, accomplishment is that the reader learns about some of the 19thcentury cultural trends in Germany which would eventually culminate in the disasters of the 20thcentury.
The Golden Age
The Buddenbrooks grain distributing firm began in the late 18thcentury and rose to prominence because of the commitment and determination of the firm’s founder. By the time that the reader encounters the Buddenbrooks family, several generations have passed since the founding, their firm is successful and the family is very wealthy. They live in a large house adorned with exquisite furniture and expensive works of art, and have devoted servants attending all their needs. They are part of the merchant class not the bourgeoisie or the traditional aristocracy; but they straddle the divide between the latter two, displaying the conservative, religious, and provincial features of the nobility as well as the enterprising spirit of the bourgeoisie. The patriarch whom the reader encounters and who plays a major role in the first half of the book is Johanne Buddenbrooks, a man who embodies the mentioned characteristics while being almost a caricature of the stereotypical German: stern, devoted, sober, decisive, reliable, and predictable (Angela Merkel might fit this mold as well).
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| The happy years |
As the text proceeds, the story quickly arrives to the year 1848, when liberal and nationalist movements, influenced by the French revolution, quickly spread around Europe, particularly in Italy, France, and Germany. In the short term, they failed; conservative monarchies implemented some progressive reforms, but their regimes remained intact. In some countries, however, the events of 1848 unleashed forces which could not be contained. In France, for example, an enduring republic was finally established in 1870, while Italy’s unification in 1860 was accompanied with republican and liberal features. In Germany, in contrast, the protests of 1848 were a failure, and Buddenbrooks documents them in a scene at the provincial Senate, a chamber which preserved old feudal practices such as seats being determined on a hereditary basis. Johanne Buddenbrook is member, and during one sitting in 1848 the protesters crowd out in front of the Senate. They are mostly workers who demand better wages and a republican constitution. But when the Senators, including Johanne, come outside to confront the protesters, their authority is seemingly sufficient to disperse and demobilize them. The latter appear to be almost mechanically repeating slogans associated with the French revolution (Freedom! Democracy!), while the Senators’ authority appears to be deeply rooted in the fabric of the culture and society. There is a sense that the movement lacks genuine commitment to democratic ideals and would be happy if it achieved minor reforms which improved working conditions; it quickly fizzles out and the old aristocratic order is preserved.
Johanne Buddenbrook is wealthy and enjoys the accoutrements of political power but it would be a stretch to say that he had an easy or happy life. His first wife, the one he genuinely loved, died while giving birth to his first son Thomas. He marries again but for reasons of compatibility, in this context meaning someone his family approved of, with shared socioeconomic origins and a large dowry, and who produced offspring which would ensure the continuity and success of the family firm. He has three more children with his second wife.
The Fall
This generation of the family brings to the fore the main theme of the book, namely, decay and decline. The oldest, Thomas, inherits his father’s seat in the Senate, position of head of the family and firm, and deep sense of duty and commitment to excellence in these various domains. But he is also dour, obsessed with work, and contemptuous towards those who do not meet his standards. His younger brother Christian, meanwhile, is an artistic, free thinking, promiscuous, irresponsible, and charming social butterfly; clashes between him and Thomas are frequent in part because, as head of the family and firm, Thomas is tasked with micromanaging and authorizing deeply personal decisions such as Christian’s income, or whether his latest lover is a suitable partner for marriage. Under these conditions, fruitful cooperation between the siblings is impossible, and there is a kind of mutual contempt. They lead very separate lives, with Thomas devoted to the firm and the Senate, Christian to the pleasures of life.
Johanne also sired two daughters, Clara and Antonie. The former appears almost as a background character, and the reader learns little other than that she was deeply religious like her mother, marries a pastor, and dies young of tuberculosis. Antonie, in contrast, is one of the main protagonists in the narrative and plays a central role in some of the book’s main themes. Like Thomas, she is utterly devoted to the survival and success of the firm, and major decisions, particularly on love, are refracted through that lens. Partly for this reason, she is profoundly unlucky in love. Early in the book, she has two suiters, one an ostensibly successful business man, Grunlich, and another, Morten, is a student who was radicalized by the ideas of the French revolution. She falls in love with the latter in part because she is seduced by his intellect. The former, meanwhile, although handsome, cuts a rather pathetic figure with his faux chivalry and utter servility to Antonie. Johanne Buddenbrook prefers Grunlich because, it seems, he will be better for the firm, and Antonie, with a deep sense of duty to the firm and family, reluctantly obliges. This disagreement between Antonie and her father is a microcosm of the broader cultural clash convulsing Europe: Antonie is motivated by individual happiness which leads her to prefer Morten, while Johanne prefers she marry Grunlich because, in his own words, “we are not born to pursue our own personal happiness, for we are not separate individuals but links in a chain” which indissolubly are connected, and create obligations, to ancestors and future generations. Her decision to follow her father’s council (and by implication, his worldview) turns out to be a major deception (in both the English and French meanings of the word “deception”): Grunlich is a swindler who uses the Buddenbrooks good family name to build up financially ruinous debts.
This fateful decision sets in motion the general pattern of her life characterized by repeated failed relationships. After divorcing Grunlich she has another failed marriage, this time to Permaneder, whom she also marries for compatibility not love. Her first and only love, meanwhile, remains in the back of the reader’s mind, in part because some passages hint at his possible reappearance, an effect which was clearly the author’s intention; when writing Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann knew that many readers would crave redemption for the unlucky Antonie. But—and this is a spoiler—it was not to be. Morten enters her life in the early part of the novel and then disappears. Perhaps it was Mann’s way of conveying to the reader the failure of liberal and republican ideas in mid-19thcentury Germany: ephemeral, shallow, and unenduring. Antonie’s life embodies the revolution’s failure in Germany in other ways. When she meets Morten and encounters republican ideas, she is convinced by them, and expresses these convictions frequently throughout the book. But her actions say otherwise, namely, an attachment to the material perks and privileges which accrue to her quasi-aristocratic class, and an utter devotion to firm and family that is, in practice, very conservative. Her disputes with her first husband were frequently about the lack of servants to manage the household; she is constantly preoccupied with the status of the family and firm (rather than, say, her compatriots); she is contemptuous towards her fellow Germans in Bavaria because of their Catholicism, slovenly habits, and lack of style. She is, in other words, a hypocrite par excellence: even while frequently professing belief in the egalitarian ethos of liberalism, her actions betray the elitist and privileged inclinations of her class.
While disputes between Thomas and Christian, and Antonie’s failed marriages, are weakening the firm’s future prospects, Mann frequently reminds the reader about that other aspect of decline, namely, aging and death. As the story proceeds, the reader is reminded of the visible manifestations of this unavoidable process. When we are introduced to Madame Buddenbrook (Johanne’s wife), for example, she is not quite in the bloom of youth but is still beautiful, with glowing skin, thick and voluminous hair, and a style that accentuates these features. She reaches and then passes middle age, and Buddenbrooks reminds us that her skin has become dull, her hair and her lips have lost volume, and she has less curvature around her hips and thighs. Her graceful style and manners are unchanged but they cannot disguise the underlying frailty and decay which, among other things, makes her more susceptible to disease. Her demise occurs because of a pneumonia that, earlier in life, her robust constitution would have easily overcome. Thomas ages even quicker (perhaps because he was a workaholic, constantly stressed out, and a chain smoker). By the time he is in his late thirties, he has already lost his youthful appearance, enterprising spirit, and has become profoundly bitter and cynical. Antonie’s physical decline is much slower—the reader learns that, at age 50 she was still attractive—but her misfortunes in love mean that this is not translated into anything that ensures the survival and success of the firm. Clara dies young, and Christian is sickly from the get go; but even if he had the robust constitution of his father, his libertine sexual appetite and creative, free thinking, and artistic spirit make him unsuited for leadership of the firm.
Had Germany experienced a successful liberal revolution, these dynamics might have been overcome by finding someone outside the family, based strictly on merit, to ensure the firm’s success. An outsider might have also been able to innovate so as to take advantage of the new opportunities afforded by the customs union (the pre-cursor to unification). But in the context of the Buddenbrooks family’s aristocratic and traditional society, only a male heir could preserve the family and firm. This, of course, made them susceptible to the lottery of life; one cannot choose the quality and character of offspring. And even the best efforts to shape and mold one’s children in accordance with one’s designs runs up against nature’s intransigent tendency to produce predetermined personalities which clash with parents’ expectations. Hanno, Thomas’s only son and hence the Buddenbrooks family’s only hope for an heir to take on the responsibilities of the firm, displays this clearly. His fragile health is an ominous sign, and as his adolescence proceeds, he does not display the attributes necessary to be a successful merchant and Senator, like his father and grandfather. He has little interest in the practical skills associated with buying, selling, investing, and managing clients, employees, and balance sheets; and he has little appetite for the classical education and public speaking expected of Senators. In one sense, he very much resembles his uncle Christian in that his natural inclinations are towards art and the abstract; this leads him to detest the attempts to force a role on him of which he is not suitable.
Poor little Hanno not only did not fit the role in which so much hope had been invested. He was also completely out of place in the direction that his country, Germany, was heading. As mentioned in the introduction, the story takes place while Germany turns into Europe’s hegemon. The customs union imposed on 1866 creates a larger market for German firms; at the same time, the country is adopting the technology of the modern age and industrializing. With great power comes great responsibility, and Germany’s new position might have been used to consolidate liberalism. Instead, the country took a militarist turn. By the time Buddenbrooks reaches 1871, the year that Germany officially unified and defeated and humiliated France in a major war which consolidated its leadership of Europe, the firm and family are close to their final collapse.
Around this time, little Hanno is an adolescent, and a significant part of the text documents his experience at school. Here, the reader observes some of the cultural dimensions of Germany’s failed liberal revolution. Hanno’s best friend is Kai, another whippersnapper with a noble lineage, and both display the artistic and free thinking qualities which are shunned at their school and, by extension, in the new Germany. During recess, while Hanno and Kai would recite plays or discuss music and art, the reader learns that their classmates almost all embraced a “crude virility”, expressing, in their gestures and activities, the new ethos of a “bellicose, triumphant, rejuvenated, Fatherland” (with a capital F). The school director, Mr. Wulicke, embodies, and imparts to his students, the spirit of service to the state, and obsequiousness to those in authority. Before unification, there was more—albeit limited—space for idealistic liberals. Now, Buddenbrooks shows, an authoritarian, militarist, and bellicose set of values reigned supreme which infused the nation’s culture.
Hanno would have thrived in a more liberal environment, where he would have been free to pursue individual happiness and his natural inclinations, perhaps becoming a musician like his mother. He was completely unsuitable in the new Germany, and this makes his early death from typhus somewhat bittersweet: as one of the only likable characters in the book, the reader wants him to thrive and succeed, but his circumstances—what with unrealistic expectations imposed on him to save the family business, and the failure of liberalism to take root in Germany—make such an outcome virtually impossible. Hanno’s early death also symbolizes the firm’s final and irreversible demise. And since neither Thomas nor Christian had other children, Hanno’s passing also meant the end of the transmission of the Buddenbrook family name to future generations. It is a rather ignominious end to what was, just a few generations prior, a relatively happy family with a successful business. The broader lesson is that nobody, not even those who reach the pinnacle of their endeavours, can escape life’s cruel vicissitudes over which they have little control. It is not only aging and death which will inevitably render their successes moot; we are also subject to the broader social, political, and economic trends which favour some and not others in ways that are not related to effort or talent. The Buddenbrooks’ family was destined to perish because it was not favoured by the lottery of life; and the firm’s demise was assured once Germany unified, industrialized, and militarized, trends which were also destined to have a devastating impact outside of Germany’s borders.
