Buddenbrooks: The Decline Of A Family

Buddenbrooks (German: [ËˆbÊŠdnÌËŒbÊoËks] (listen)) is a 1901 novel by Thomas Mann, chronicling the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseatic bourgeoisie in the years from 1835 to 1877. Mann drew deeply from the history of his own family, the Mann family of LÃbeck, and their milieu.

Mann began writing the novel in October 1897, when he was twenty-two years old, and completed it three years later, in July 1900. It was published in 1901. His objective was to write a novel on the conflicts between the worlds of the businessman and the artist, presented as a family saga, continuing in the realist tradition of such 19th-century works as Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir (1830; The Red and the Black). Buddenbrooks is his most enduringly popular novel, especially in Germany, where it has been cherished for its intimate portrait of 19th-century German bourgeois life.

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The exploration of decadence in the novel reflects the influence of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation (1818, 1844) on the young Mann. The Buddenbrooks of successive generations experience a gradual decline of their finances and family ideals, finding happiness increasingly elusive as values change and old hierarchies are challenged by Germany's rapid industrialisation. The characters who subordinate their personal happiness to the welfare of the family firm encounter reverses, as do those who do not.

In 1835, the wealthy and respected Buddenbrooks, a family of grain merchants, invite their friends and relatives to dinner in their new home in LÃbeck. The family consists of patriarch Johann Buddenbrook Jr. and his wife Antoinette; their son Johann III ("Jean") and his wife Elizabeth, and the latter's three school-age children, sons Thomas and Christian, and daughter Antonie ("Tony"). They have several servants, most notably Ida Jungmann, whose job is to care for the children. During the evening, a letter arrives from Gotthold, estranged son of the elder Johann and half-brother of the younger. The elder Johann disapproves of Gotthold's life choices, and ignores the letter. Johann III and Elizabeth later have another daughter, Klara.

As the older children grow up, their personalities begin to show. Diligent and industrious Thomas seems likely to inherit the business some day. By contrast, Christian is more interested in entertainment and leisure. Tony has grown quite conceited and spurns an advance from the son of another up-and-coming family, Herman HagenstrÃm. Herman takes it in stride, but Tony bears a grudge against him for the rest of her life. The elder Johann and Antoinette die, and the younger Johann takes over the business, and gives Gotthold his fair share of the inheritance. The half-brothers will never be close, though, and Gotthold's three spinster daughters continue to resent Johann's side of the family, and delight in their misfortune over the coming years. Thomas goes to Amsterdam to study, while Tony goes to boarding school. After finishing school, Tony remains lifelong friends with her former teacher, Therese "Sesemi" Weichbrodt.

An obsequious businessman, Bendix GrÃnlich, of Hamburg, introduces himself to the family, and Tony dislikes him on sight. To avoid him, she takes a vacation in TravemÃnde, a Baltic resort northeast of LÃbeck, where she meets Morten Schwarzkopf, a medical student in whom she is interested romantically. In the end, though, she yields to pressure from her father, and marries GrÃnlich, against her better judgment, in 1846. She produces a daughter, Erika. Later, though, it is revealed that GrÃnlich had been cooking his books to hide unpayable debt, and had married Tony solely on the hopes that Johann would bail him out. Johann refuses, and takes Tony and Erika home with him instead. GrÃnlich goes bankrupt, and Tony divorces him in 1850.

Klara marries Sievert Tiburtius, a pastor from Riga, but she dies of tuberculosis without producing any children. Tony marries her second husband, Alois Permaneder, a provincial but honest hops merchant from Munich. However, once he has her dowry in hand, he invests the money and retires, intending to live off his interest and dividends, while spending his days in his local bar. Tony is unhappy in Munich, where her family name impresses no one, where her favorite seafoods are unavailable at any price in the days before refrigeration, where even the dialect is noticeably different from her own. She delivers another baby, but it dies on the same day it is born, leaving her heartbroken. Tony later leaves Permaneder after she discovers him drunkenly trying to rape the maid. She and Erika return to LÃbeck. Somewhat surprisingly, Permaneder writes her a letter apologizing for his behavior, agreeing not to challenge the divorce, and returning the dowry.

Christian gains control of his own share of his father's inheritance and then marries Aline, but his illnesses and bizarre behavior get him admitted to an insane asylum, leaving Aline free to dissipate Christian's money. Johann still hates school, and he passes his classes only by cheating. His health and constitution are still weak, and it is hinted that he might be homosexual. Except for his friend Count Kai, he is held in contempt by everyone outside his immediate family, even his pastor. In 1877, he takes ill with typhoid fever and soon dies. His mother, Gerda, returns home to Amsterdam, leaving an embittered Tony, her daughter Erika and granddaughter Elizabeth as the only remnants of the once proud Buddenbrook family, with only the elderly and increasingly infirm Therese Weichbrodt to offer any friendship or moral support. Facing destitution, they cling to their wavering belief that they may be reunited with their family in the afterlife.

Aspects of Thomas Mann's own personality are manifest in the two main male representatives of the third and the fourth generations of the fictional family: Thomas Buddenbrook and his son Hanno Buddenbrook. It should not be considered a coincidence that Mann shared the same first name with one of them. Thomas Buddenbrook reads a chapter of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea, and the character of Hanno Buddenbrook escapes from real-life worries into the realm of music, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in particular. (Wagner himself was of bourgeois descent and decided to dedicate himself to art.) In this sense both Buddenbrooks reflect a conflict lived by the author: departure from a conventional bourgeois life to pursue an artistic one, although without rejecting bourgeois ethics.

Before writing the novel, Mann conducted extensive research in order to depict with precise detail the conditions of the times and even the mundane aspects of the lives of his characters. In particular, his cousin Marty provided him with substantial information on the economics of LÃbeck, including grain prices and the city's economic decline. Mann carried out financial analyses to present the economic information provided in the book accurately.

In the conversations appearing in the early parts of the book, many of the characters switch back and forth between German and French. The French appears in the original within Mann's German text, similar to the practice of Tolstoy in War and Peace. The bilingual characters are of the older generation, who were already adults during the Napoleonic Wars; in later parts of the book, with the focus shifting to the family's younger generation against the background of Germany moving towards unification and assertion of its new role as a major European power, the use of French by the characters visibly diminishes.

All occurrences in the lives of the characters are seen by the narrator and the family members in relation to the family trade business: the sense of duty and destiny accompanying it as well as the economic consequences that events bring. Through births, marriages, and deaths, the business becomes almost a fetish or a religion, especially for some characters, notably Thomas and his sister Tony. The treatment of the female main character Tony Buddenbrook in the novel resembles the 19th-century realists (Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina), but from a more ironic and less tragic point of view.

However, a few days after reading Schopenhauer, "his middle-class instincts" brought Thomas Buddenbrook back to his former belief in a personal Father God and in Heaven, the home of departed individual souls. There could be no consolation if conscious personal identity is lost at death. The novel ends with the surviving characters' firm consoling belief that there will be a large family reunion, in the afterlife, of all the individual Buddenbrook personalities.

Notes from Encarta: Thomas Mann was a German novelist and critic, one of the most important figures in early 20th-century literature, whose novels explore the relationship between the exceptional individual and his or her environment, either the environment of family or of the world in general.

Buddenbrooks is set in LÃbeck, near the Baltic coast, in N. Germany, straddling the border between Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg. Old Johann B. [JB2] and his French wife Antoinette (nÃe Duchamps) invite their family and friends to celebrate their move (Oct. 1835) into their new home & business offices on Meng Strasse. He is the son of the founder, Johann B. [JB1], who established the wheat and grain wholesale firm of Johann Buddenbrooks in 1768. Consul Johann B. (JB3) tells JB2 of the letter from his stepbrother Gotthold (JB2's son from his marriage, to Josephine) demanding his part of the inheritance. Gotthold has married beneath the family's standards to a shopowner (nÃe StÃwing) and is snubbed by JB2, who blames Gotthold for the death during his childbirth of Josephine. Antonie (Tony, 8 y/o), Thomas (c. 10) , and Christian (7) are the children of JB3. The guests discuss Napoleon and the French monarchy currently under Louis Philipp. The poet Hoffstede celebrates with a romantic verse. Christian takes sick. They debate the proposed Customs Union with Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein. JB3 advises his father against any further loss of capital to Gotthold.

JB3 and Elisabeth nÃe KrÃger have daughter Clara in 1838. Tony visits her wealthy grandparents (the Lebrecht KrÃgers) and repulses the crude advances of Hermann HagenstrÃm, thereby losing her friendship with Julie H. In 1841, JB2 and later his wife Antoinette die and Gotthold receives a cash settlement. Consul JB3 takes over the business and constantly worries about the cash flow. Christian courts a theater woman regarded as a courtesan. Tony is sent to Therese ("Sesame") Weichbrodt's boarding school, where she befriends Armgard von Schilling (an aristocrat from Mecklenburg), Gerda Arnoldsen (who plays the violin and is from Amsterdam), and Eva Ewers (now from Munich).

The commercial agent Bendix (Benedict) GrÃnlich courts Tony with her father's strong encouragement despite Tony's intuitive repulsion and objections. He claims to be doing well in his business. Tony is sent to summer in TravemÃnde (a resort town at the seashore), where she meets and falls in love with the pro-democracy, anti-aristocracy medical student, Morton Schwarzkopf. But her father favors Bendix, who has threatened suicide, and in 1845 she reluctantly consents to marry Bendix and live with him on the outskirts of Hamburg. Tom says goodbye to his secret lover, a salesgirl.

The ill-conceived revolution by the "rabble" of October 1848 in LÃbeck is suppressed by the paternalistic words of consul JB3 and the stress causes the death of Lebrecht KrÃger.

Tony has money problems with GrÃnlich, there is no love in the marriage, the banker Kesselmeyer demands repayment of his loans, and GrÃnlich is unmasked as a fraud. Her father consul JB3 takes Tony and her daughter Erika back into their home and refuses to help GrÃnlich, who announces that he only married her for the money. They divorce in 1850. Tom also moves back into the home. Lebrecht KrÃger's wife dies leaving an inheritance. Justus KrÃger, brother of Elisabeth, disowns his younger son Jakob and favors only his other son, Justus. Christian goes to Chile. Elisabeth becomes increasingly religious and has various religious meetings and hangers-on in her house.

In 1855, consul JB3 dies. Finances are in good shape and Thomas vows to do great things with the firm. Christian returns and is acting strangely and inappropriately and complains of various symptoms. He is made head clerk at the firm but loses interest and spends excess time drinking, smoking, visiting the Club, telling stories, and womanizing.

Uncle Gotthold dies and his children are spiteful. Pastor Sievert Tiburtius of Riga proposes (1856) and marries Clara. Tom becomes engaged to Gerda Arnoldsen (1856) and marry. They have a lavish dinner party.

Tony visits Eva Ewers in Munich and meets Alois Permaneder, a hops merchant. Christian is becoming a buffoon, the laughing-stock of his friends, and is despised by Tom. Christian heads for Hamburg (1857). Permaneder visits and proposes to Tony, which she accepts despite his coarseness. After receiving the dowry, he immediately decides to retire and displays no ambition. He increases his drinking. She has a miscarriage. One night he arrives home drunk and attempts to molest the maid Babette (1859). Tony flees with her daughter back to her mother's home. Tom unsuccessfully tries to persuade her to return to Permaneder. Tony describes how out-of-place and unappreciated she felt in Munich. Permaneder surprisingly consents to divorce Tony and return the dowry.

Tom and Gerda's son Johann (JB4, "Hanno") is born 1861. Christian has an illegitimate daughter Gisela through the courtesan Aline in Hamburg. Tom defeats Hermann H. in the race for senator (1862). He and Gerda build an elegant new home 1863. Hanno is developing slowly. Clara dies of brain TB, Christian has rheumatic fever, and Tom becomes depressed. Tiburtius receives Clara's inheritance from her mother. Business is bad. In 1864, war breaks out between Denmark and Prussia (Bismarck is Prime Minister; wins Shleswig-Holstein from Denmark) and in 1866 with Austria [National unification 1866-71, N. German confederation 1866-7, the 2nd reich of unified Germany incl. Bavaria under Prussian hegemony 1871 begins with Wilhelm I emperor].

Erika marries Hugo Weinschenk, a crude manager of an insurance company. Christian shares the mistress of his friend Andreas Giesenke. Tony's friend Armgard's husband Ralf von Maiboom has financial problems and Tom foolishly agrees to prebuy their crop (which is later destroyed by hail). Hanno has nightmares and seems overly sensitive. Tom is exhausted at 42 and is smoking too much, has a case of nerves. He reluctantly agrees to a celebration of the firm's centennial (1878). There he berates his wimpy son and receives the bad news about Armgard's crop damage from hail.

His wife Gerda makes music and with organist Edmund PfÃhl. Hanno shows an interest in music and Gerda enlists PfÃhl for lessons, about which Tom disapproves. Tom resents Gerda's cruel exclusion of him from her passion for music and sees it as a force separating him from his son. Hanno has poor health and dental problems. Hanno's friend Count Kai MÃlln is a dirty but kind remnant of the aristocracy.

Hugo Weinschenk goes to jail for insurance fraud, prosecuted by Mortiz HagenstrÃm, brother of Hermann-- the H.'s are having great success in town as the B.'s decline. Christian acts increasingly inappropriate. Hugo and Erika's belongings are sold off and she moves in with her mother & grandmother Elisabeth's in the Meng Strasse home.

Elisabeth dies a painful death of pneumonia (1871). The servants plunder her clothing. Christian announces he wants to marry Aline and adopt her children-- Tom forbids it and has control over his inheritance. Tom decides to sell the family home at Meng Strasse and Hermann H. buys it, turning part of it into profitable shops. The family's Christmas customs decline.

Tom becomes increasingly depressed and withdrawn, obsessed with his clothing and appearance. Raif von Maiboom, Armgard's husband, kills himself after his business failure. Hanno is bullied by the HagenstrÃm kids and remains a sickly, anemic weakling. A summer vacation (1872) at the TravemÃnde seashore does not improve his health. Hugo gets out of prison early but is rejected by the family.

Gerda frequently receives a visitor, musically-inclined Lt. RenÃ von Throta, and Tom and the townsfolk wonder if she is having an affair. Tom's health is declining. He has a flash of inspiration and insight reading a metaphysical tome but lapses quickly back into conventional Christianity in all its incomprehensibility. He and Christian travel to TravemÃnde in fall 1874 for a rest. In 1875, he has an abscessed molar extracted and afterwards collapses, dying soon thereafter.

Christian moves to Hamburg and marries Aline but eventually ends up in a sanatarium (asylum). Gerda sells their elegant home and the firm disadvantageously and dismisses the long-faithful attendant Ida Jungmann. Hanno is 15 and is doing poorly in school. His friendship with Kai is thought to be "foul and hostile", perhaps with homosexual undertones. Hanno laments that Pastor Pringsheim says that he comes from a degenerate family and that he has lost all hope, will never amount to anything, and wants to die.

Hanno dies of typhoid or typhus (Feb. 1877 or 78) and Gerda resolves to sell all her possessions and abandon her LÃbeck life and move back with her father in Amsterdam. Christian remains institutionalized. Sesame rejects Tony's skepticism about Christian beliefs and insists she will see Hanno in heaven.

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