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Part 8, 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
Tony walks down Breite Strasse, seeming rushed and agitated. She has fear in her eyes, and her face has taken on a sickly, yellow hue. At last, she reaches Thomas’s house and gets straight down to business. It’s Weinschenk: Moritz Hagenström has just demanded that Weinschenk be jailed unless he can post the bail fee of 25,000 marks courant. Tony pleads with Thomas to spot Weinschenk money for bail.
The sickly, yellow hue of Tony’s face reveals the toll Weinschenk’s probable imprisonment has caused her. Tony prides herself on keeping a brave face, but there are too many troubles now, and her worries are starting to rise to the surface. Adding insult to injury is the fact that it’s a Hagenström that has caused her such woe.
Active
Themes
Thomas asks Tony if she really still thinks Weinschenk is innocent. Tony begins to cry and admits that she doesn’t think Weinschenk is innocent. There’s too much evidence against him. Erika doesn’t think so either. And Weinschenk has been making their lives miserable throughout the entire trial—his temper has gotten even worse, and he’s often violent. Still, he’s family, isn’t he? Don’t the Buddenbrooks have an obligation to keep Weinschenk out of jail? To this, Thomas only shrugs. Thomas’s indifference flusters Tony, and she begs Thomas to think of how Weinschenk’s potential imprisonment would affect Erika and Tony. They have no money—Weinschenk never saves any of his salary, and Erika’s dowry is long gone. She laments her lifetime of misfortune.
Characteristically, Tony laments her misfortune as though it were caused by fate. In so doing, she conveniently ignores that it was she who brought Weinschenk into their lives in the first place, pushing Erika to marry a man they both knew little about and not bothering to learn from the mistakes her own parents made years before. When Thomas shows indifference to Weinschenk’s plight, it signals that he is growing tired of constantly getting pushed around and sought out for favors under the guise of family loyalty. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that Weinschenk is family—perhaps Weinschenk should suffer the consequences of his actions, as Thomas has done through every loss the firm has suffered under his leadership.
Active
Themes
One week later, Weinschenk is sentenced to three and a half years in prison. On the day of his sentencing, the courtroom is packed. Christian attends and is quite impressed that Weinschenk’s attorney’s closing speech that he later performs the speech for his friends at the Club. After Weinschenk is in jail and the family has sold everything necessary to pay for his legal fees, the Ladies Buddenbrook from Breite Strasse (Gotthold’s daughters) admit that they had a feeling all along that Weinschenk was no good—but they kept their thoughts to themselves, out of “consideration for others.”
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Themes
