Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) Character Analysis in Buddenbrooks

Thomas’s wife Gerda Buddenbrook enters the story as Gerda Arnoldsen, Tony’s friend and roommate at Sesame Weichbrodt’s boarding school. She and her family come from Amsterdam. Like her father before her, Gerda is a talented musician. Though Thomas initially claims to love Gerda for her artistic temperament, which can make her rather aloof and unknowable, it eventually takes a toll on the marriage. For one, Thomas is deeply displeased when his and Gerda’s son, Hanno, inherits Gerda’s fondness and talent for music—and has no interest whatsoever in taking over the family business. If Gerda and Thomas’s marriage was ever happy (and all signs indicate it never really was), things take a turn for the worse as Hanno grows up, numerous financial setbacks leave Thomas aged and haggard by middle age, and Gerda grows increasingly unhappy and bored with Thomas. Eventually, gossip starts to spread that Gerda is having an affair with a Rhinelander named Lieutenant von Throta, though Thomas never confronts Gerda about the rumored affair. Following Hanno’s death from typhus, Gerda announces her plans to leave Lübeck to return to Amsterdam, a move that effectively severs Tony, Erika, and the other remaining Buddenbrooks’ remaining social connections.

Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) Quotes in Buddenbrooks

The Buddenbrooks quotes below are all either spoken by Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) or refer to Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

“What a beautiful day, Tom. I’m so happy, happier than I’ve been for years. We Buddenbrooks aren’t on our last legs yet. And anybody who thinks we are is making a very big mistake, thank God. And now that little Johann is here—it’s so wonderful that we have another Johann again—I feel as if a whole new era is beginning.”

Related Characters: Tony Buddenbrook (speaker), Thomas Buddenbrook, Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen), Hanno Buddenbrook

Page Number and Citation: 394

Explanation and Analysis:

“Pfühl,” she said, “be reasonable, just take it in calmly. His unusual use of harmony confuses you. You find Beethoven pure, clear, and natural in comparison. But remember how Beethoven disconcerted his contemporaries, whose ears were trained to the old ways. And Bach himself, good Lord, they accused him of being dissonant and muddy. […]”

Related Characters: Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) (speaker), Herr Pfuhl

Page Number and Citation: 488

Explanation and Analysis:

“You can’t believe how he looked when they brought him in. No one has ever seen even a speck of dust on him, he never allowed that, his whole life long. What vile, insulting mockery for it to end like this.”

Related Characters: Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) (speaker), Thomas Buddenbrook, Tony Buddenbrook

Related Symbols: Teeth

Page Number and Citation: 659

Explanation and Analysis:

She wept bitterly when the time came to say farewell to her little Johann. He embraced her: then, putting his hands behind his back and shifting his weight to one leg while balancing his other foot on the toe, he watched her depart; and his gold-brown eyes rimmed with bluish shadows had the same brooding, introspective look that they had taken on when he stood beside his grandmother’s corpse, when his father died, when their grand old home was broken up—or on so many other occasions, which had less to do with life’s external events. As he saw it, old Ida’s departure was consistent with the other instances of decline, dissolution, and termination that he had witnessed. That sort of thing no longer astounded him—had never astounded him, strangely enough. Sometimes, when he would raise his head with its curly brown hair and flair his nostrils fastidiously, his lips slightly twisted as always, it looked as if he were cautiously sniffing the air and the atmosphere of life around him, expecting to catch a whiff of that odor, that strangely familiar odor, which the fragrance of all those flowers beside his grandmother’s casket had not been able to overpower.

Related Characters: Elisabeth “Bethsy” Buddenbrook , Hanno Buddenbrook, Ida Jungmann, Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen), Thomas Buddenbrook

Related Symbols: Yellow

Page Number and Citation: 677-678

Explanation and Analysis:

“It is so!” she said with all her strength and dared them with her eyes.

There she stood, victorious in the good fight that she had waged all her life against the onslaughts of reason. There she stood, hunchbacked and tiny, trembling with certainty—an inspired, scolding little prophet.

Related Characters: Sesame Weichbrodt (speaker), Hanno Buddenbrook, Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen), Tony Buddenbrook, Erika Grünlich, Cousin Klothilde

Page Number and Citation: 731

Explanation and Analysis:

Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) Character Timeline in Buddenbrooks

The timeline below shows where the character Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) appears in Buddenbrooks. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...she is assigned a spot between Armgard von Schilling, the daughter of a squire; and Gerda Arnoldsen, an elegant and sophisticated girl from Amsterdam. Most of the girls play piano, while... (full context)

Personal Fulfillment and Self-Knowledge Theme Icon

...have got it all wrong. And besides, she’d marry a “country gentleman,” not “some teacher.” Gerda says she herself will probably not bother with marriage: she’ll just return to Amsterdam and... (full context)

...adds his own good news: at a banquet held in his honor, Thomas reconnected with Gerda Arnoldsen, Tony’s roommate from boarding school, who comes from a respected merchant family. Thomas liked... (full context)

...Tiburtius joins them upon his return from Russia, and then the Arnoldsens arrive. Thomas escorts Gerda into the landscape room to meet Bethsy, and it’s “a very beautiful scene” as the... (full context)

...two engagements in private. Nevertheless, word spreads throughout the town. Some townspeople are impressed by Gerda’s family wealth. Others find her odd and “pretentious.” But that’s fitting for Thomas, who is... (full context)

...one another. Tony enthusiastically shows everyone the landscape room. After a celebratory dinner one night, Gerda and her father take out their violins and play a duet. (full context)

...place at home, after Christmas. Thomas’s will take place in Amsterdam after the new year. Gerda and Thomas have already made plans to tour Italy for their honeymoon. Tiburtius and Clara... (full context)

In March, Thomas and Gerda return from their honeymoon in Italy. Tony waits at the front door of the couple’s... (full context)

...knowing himself well enough to know he’d be depressed and lonely as a bachelor. And Gerda is exactly the woman for him: she can be a bit picky, and she has... (full context)

Thomas usually rises early and eats his breakfast alone. Gerda often suffers from migraines and tends to sleep in, so he often only sees her... (full context)

Thomas and Gerda frequently host lavish dinner parties. They invite the important merchant families. Thomas praises his wife’s... (full context)

...the Buddenbrooks and Permaneder assemble at the gates of Meng Strasse to meet Thomas and Gerda for today’s outing to Riesebusch Inn in Schwartau—they intend to go for a hike, have... (full context)

Gerda and Thomas arrive shortly after. Gerda (who hates these kind of outings) tried to convince... (full context)

...into the evening, taking breaks only to have second breakfast with Bethsy and dinner with Gerda. At the same time, he makes it a point “not to neglect his social duties,”... (full context)

...birth. Bethsy is old now and can’t travel like she used to, so Thomas and Gerda travel to Munich to tend to Tony, who gradually recovers. Thomas is dismayed to find... (full context)

...she has felt in her new home in the south. It’s been awful. Thomas and Gerda didn’t catch on to Tony’s misery since she “know[s] something about tact” and has been... (full context)

In the spring of 1861, Gerda gives birth to her and Thomas’s firstborn, a son. The whole family attends the christening,... (full context)

...the evening of young Hanno’s christening, Christian Buddenbrook enters the sitting room, where Thomas and Gerda are reading together, and tells Thomas he must speak with him about an urgent matter.... (full context)

...Then without a second glance at Christian, he leaves the dining room and returns to Gerda, who is still reading. Christian follows Thomas. He bids farewell to Gerda and laments “the... (full context)

...of Thomas’s most ardent supporters, though that’s more due to his infatuation with Thomas’s wife Gerda than with Thomas’s potential as a senator. (full context)

...enthusiastically approves of the new home—and she’s delighted and honored that he values her opinion. Gerda is also on board with the new home. (full context)

...love it. Weinschenk gets along with Thomas well enough, but he struggles to interact with Gerda, finding they have nothing in common. (full context)

...house. She finds Thomas all alone this evening: Ida Jungmann is busy with Hanno, and Gerda has gone with Christian to see a violin concert. Gerda and Christian get along quite... (full context)

Gerda is playing music in the salon with Herr Pfuhl, the organist of St. Mary’s. In... (full context)

Hanno listens to Gerda and Pfuhl talk. He rubs his tongue across his molar, a habit of his. It’s... (full context)

...to end the piece with. But the minor chord was Hanno’s favorite part, and so Gerda insisted that the minor chord stay as it is. And that’s how Hanno plays the... (full context)

Thomas isn’t happy about Hanno’s growing passion for music. He married Gerda, the musician, because he thought “his tastes were more distinguished” than those of the Buddenbrooks... (full context)

Despite his conceited efforts to appreciate music, Thomas has never truly understood it. Gerda has criticized Thomas for precisely this attitude, suggesting that he “will never see [music] as... (full context)

...after practicing piano and completing his schoolwork when he finds the family records sitting on Gerda’s writing desk—Thomas must have left them there. Hanno flips through the pages, which are by... (full context)

...theater, which has been at the top of his list since he saw Fidelio with Gerda. Ever since, he’s been obsessed with the theatre, and he envies people like his uncle... (full context)

...death, Tony, dressed in black mourning clothes, kneels beside Bethsy’s body to pray. Thomas and Gerda arrive to discuss the matter of Bethsy’s belongings. Thomas and Christian immediately get into a... (full context)

...the day of Bethsy’s funeral, Hanno, dressed in his sailor suit, walks between Thomas and Gerda toward the open casket. Staring “with brooding disgust” at the figure in the casket, he... (full context)

...Bethsy Buddenbrook. There are no choirboys this year. Sesame Weichbrodt reads the Christmas story, since Gerda doesn’t really like that sort of thing. No one feels particularly happy, even Christian. (full context)

One night, Tony goes to have dinner with Thomas and Gerda. Erika was supposed to come, but she visited Weinschenk in prison earlier that day and... (full context)

...was alive. Thomas decides that it’s time to start thinking about steering Hanno away from music—Gerda’s influence—and toward business. Though Thomas would have let one of his sons go off to... (full context)

In recent years, the Buddenbrooks have tended not to travel much over the summers. Gerda, Ida Jungmann, and Hanno always spend a month at the hotel in Travemünde, but that’s... (full context)

People still can’t wrap their heads around Thomas and Gerda’s relationship. They assume it must be rooted in love and that Gerda’s hefty dowry was... (full context)

...imagining what it means. One day, Thomas decides he’s had enough. He briefly considers confronting Gerda and von Throta, but in the end, he can’t do it. (full context)

Sometime later, while von Throta is over playing music with Gerda, Thomas wanders over to Hanno’s room, where Hanno is working on his schoolwork. They make... (full context)

Alone in his room that night (Gerda sleeps upstairs in Ida Jungmann’s room these days, to be closer to Hanno), Thomas ponders... (full context)

One day, Hanno overhears Thomas tell Gerda that he is arranging to meet with a lawyer to draw up his will. After... (full context)

Tony sprints up the main staircase of Thomas’s home. She finds Gerda upstairs, her face stricken and horrified. The women embrace. Ida appears in the doorway, holding... (full context)

...themselves that he’s sobbing, but they know that’s not what’s going on. In the end, Gerda sends him to bed. (full context)

...marks, it amounts to not even half that in the end. Soon, rumors spread that Gerda may be forced to sell her house to make up for the Buddenbrook family’s “dwindling”... (full context)

Gerda considers returning home with Hanno to live with her father in Amsterdam. One day, Gosch... (full context)

...is let go—Hanno is 15 now and no longer needs her care. More significantly, though, Gerda has never gotten along with Ida, whose air of self-importance Gerda doesn’t appreciate. Tony tries... (full context)

Whenever Tony visits Hanno at Gerda’s new home, she tells him stories about his ancestors. In Amsterdam, meanwhile, Christian’s “morbid fantasies... (full context)

...sound of his alarm clock. He recently finished a course of intensive dental procedures, and Gerda got tickets for a performance of Lohengrin the night before to celebrate. Now Hanno has... (full context)

...room. Then he practices harmonium. At four o’clock, he eats dinner with Fräulein Clementine and Gerda. Later, he and Gerda try to play a duet together, but Gerda isn’t happy with... (full context)

Sesame Weichbrodt sits in Tony’s living room with Gerda, Erika, Klothilde, and the ladies Buddenbrook of Breite Strasse. She insists that it’s “not right”... (full context)

...alive. They’ll have dinner together once a week, and they’ll “read from the family papers.” Gerda regrets that she won’t be able to say goodbye to Christian, who is still institutionalized.... (full context)

Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) Character Analysis

Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) Quotes in Buddenbrooks

Part 7, Chapter 1 Quotes

Part 8, Chapter 6 Quotes

Part 10, Chapter 8 Quotes

Part 11, Chapter 1 Quotes

Part 11, Chapter 4 Quotes

Gerda Buddenbrook (née Arnoldsen) Character Timeline in Buddenbrooks