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Part 9, Chapter 4
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Buddenbrooks, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Sacrifice
Tradition, Modernity, and Change
The Protestant Ethic
Personal Fulfillment and Self-Knowledge
Pretense and Etiquette
Summary
Analysis
When Thomas feels blue, he considers the man he has become, and whether he is really any better than anyone else. His former “cheerful idealism of youth [is] gone.” He knows his best days are behind him. Still, Thomas has a good deal of money to his name between what he inherited from Bethsy and what he got from the sale of the house. Still, since the town joined the Customs Union, local businesses have prospered and grown—meanwhile, the Buddenbrook firm has stagnated. Thomas is a senator, but he won’t ever be mayor—he can’t, having not earned an academic degree. He’s just a merchant. He always thought all the reading he did made him smarter than those around him, and he’s annoyed now that he rushed into joining the family business without completing school. It’s closed a lot of doors for him.
Unlike many previous sections, Part 10 does not open on a scene of the Buddenbrook family gathered together. Instead, Thomas is alone. This shift signals just how far the family has sunk over the past decades. They are fewer now, and those who remain find fewer reasons to celebrate. Moreover, following the sale of Meng Strasse they no longer have a central meeting place to gather. Amid all these setbacks, time continues its unceasing forward march. Now middle aged, Thomas reflects on his life and is left feeling disappointment and remorse rather than pride. He sees himself as a witness to his family’s steady decline rather than a contributor to its prosperity.
Active
Themes
Now, Thomas is consumed by restlessness. He spends hours dressing in front of the mirror before starting his day. He spends hours locked in his closet before he can bring himself to be around other people who aren’t his immediate family. When he goes out in public, he feels that he is acting.
Thomas has always taken care to uphold the status quo and behave with tact in public, but there was at least a grain of truth to his social refinement before, when his family was doing well (or well enough). Now, as the firm continues to lose money and with the recent sale of Meng Strasse, it feels like an unconvincing act to appear mannered and upbeat in public.
Active
Themes
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 feels too tired. After dinner, Tony and Gerda are working on their needlework while Thomas reads the paper. Tony’s eyes happen to drift to several lines of an obituary notice, and she is suddenly overcome with emotion. The obituary is for the recent suicide of Ralf von Maiboom—Tony’s friend Armgard’s husband. He shot himself in the family home. As Tony feels deep grief for her friend, all Thomas can say is, “Yes, yes, there’s a country squire for you.” Then he goes silent, blocking out Tony’s words. He doesn’t notice that Gerda has looked up on him, fixing her eyes “firmly on him, searching his face.”
Active
Themes
