The Consul (Johann Buddenbrook III/Jean Buddenbrook) Character Analysis

“Bon appétit!” she said with a sudden, brief, cordial nod, while her eyes rapidly swept the full length of the table to the children at the far end.

“Father, I find this whole affair with Gotthold so depressing,” the consul said softly.

“Nonsense, Jean, no sentimentalities! What depresses you about it?”

“Would she, as Madame Grünlich, drink chocolate every morning?”

We are not born, my dear daughter, to pursue our own small personal happiness, for we are not separate, independent, self-subsisting individuals, but links in a chain; and it is inconceivable that we would be what we are without those who have preceded us and shown us the path that they themselves have scrupulously trod, looking neither to the left nor the right, but, rather, following a venerable and trustworthy tradition.

Tony gazed for a long time at her own name and the open space after it. And then, suddenly she flinched and swallowed hard, her whole face a play of nervous, eager movement, her lips quickly touching for just a moment—and now she grabbed the pen, plunged rather than dipped it into the ink well, and, crooking her index finger any laying her flushed head on her shoulder, wrote in her own clumsy hand, slanting upward from left to right: “Engaged on 22 September 1845 to Herr Bendix Grünlich, merchant from Hamburg.”

It would be difficult to describe the play of emotions on Johann Buddenbrook’s face. There was shock and sadness in his eyes, but he pressed his lips together hard, creating folds along his cheeks and at the corners of his mouth, an expression he usually reserved for the completion of a profitable business deal. He said softly, “Four years…”

Suddenly [Christian] said, “You know, it’s strange—sometimes I feel like I can’t swallow. No, now don’t laugh. I’m being quite serious. The thought occurs to me that I can’t swallow, and then I really can’t. What I’ve eaten is clear at the back of my mouth, but these muscles here, along the neck—they just won’t work. They won’t obey my will, you see. Or, better, the fact is: I can’t bring myself to actually will it.”

The fierce contempt in which Thomas held his brother—and the wistful indifference with which Christian bore it—found expression in all those trivial moments of life that can only manifest themselves among people thrown together in families. If, for example, conversation turned to the history of the Buddenbrooks, Christian could become wrapped up in a mood of high seriousness—which ill became him—and speak with love and admiration of his hometown and his forebears. The consul would immediately cut him off with an icy remark. He could not stand it. He despised his brother so much that he would not allow him to love the things he loved.

He was empty inside, and he could see no exciting project or absorbing task into which he could throw himself with joy and satisfaction. But he had a need to keep busy, and his mind never stopped working. He was consumed by his own restless energy, which for him had always been something different form his father’s natural and solid joy in work, something artificial, more like a nervous itch, practically a drug—like the pungent little Russian cigarettes he constantly smoked. That energy had never left him, he was less its master than ever; it had gained the upper hand, had become such a torment that he wasted his time with a host of trivialities.