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Part 6, Chapter 8
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
One day in November, Thomas enters the breakfast room to find Bethsy reading a telegram at the table, a concerned look on her face. The telegram is from Tony, writing from Berlin to say that she and Erika will be returning to Meng Strasse “in short order.” She also says, “All is over.” The telegram doesn’t go into detail, and Bethsy and Thomas are concerned and confused: for one, what is Tony doing in Berlin? And what does she mean by “All is over”?
Tony’s home with Permaneder is in Munich, so the detail that she is sending her telegram from Berlin strongly indicates that the telegram’s message (“All is over”) refers to the state of her marriage. It seems that her second marriage hasn’t been much of an improvement from the first, but for now it remains a mystery what, specifically, has caused Tony to flee her second husband.
Active
Themes
Bethsy sleeps poorly that night and spends the next day anxiously awaiting word from Tony. At last, Tony and Erika arrive. Tony runs to her mother, leaving Erika at the door with Ida Jungmann. Her face buried in Bethsy’s skirt, Tony begins to weep. Bethsy instructs Ida to take 13-year-old Erika upstairs. Alone with Tony now, Bethsy urges her daughter to compose herself. Through Tony’s tears and garbled words, Bethsy discerns that Permaneder has been having an affair with the cook, Babbit. Tony apparently awoke to a “scandalous noise” and caught the lovers in the act.
Tony’s story of catching Permaneder together with the maid has obviously caused her considerable pain, but one also gets the sense that she feels relieved as well: the affair gives her justification to leave her unhappy marriage, even it doesn’t completely absolve her of the social scandal of being twice-divorced.
Active
Themes
Bethsy sympathizes with Tony’s plight, but she reasons that Tony ought to hold herself together, for Erika’s sake. She also suggests that Permaneder merely made a mistake and that Tony ought to forgive him. Tony insists she’ll never return to Permaneder, who has disrespected Tony—and the Buddenbrook name. Bethsy, giving up, tells Tony that she and Erika are of course welcome at Meng Strasse. She calls to Ida to ready extra places at the dinner table.
Active
Themes
