Teeth Symbol Analysis

Throughout Buddenbrooks, teeth and poor dental health symbolize the decay of the Buddenbrook family legacy over time. This symbolism is tied to two characters: Thomas Buddenbrook and his son Hanno, and it takes on a slightly different meaning depending on which character it’s applied to. Hanno has inherited his poor dental health from his father, and his bad teeth become a stand-in for all the other things he has inherited with his legacy: a taste for the finer things in life, a tendency to overindulge, and an unearned sense of entitlement to all the good things the family’s wealth and reputation have allowed them to have. Hanno’s rotting teeth and all the pain and discomfort they cause ultimately reflect how his family’s good fortune—and an increasingly distant understanding of the hard work and discipline it took to achieve it in the first place—makes them lazy and self-indulgent, accustomed to a high standard of living but entirely ill-equipped to maintain it. As a result, the family’s decline becomes inevitable, just as a tooth will inevitably rot and become infected if it is not maintained.

Though he is not immune to the allure of luxury, Thomas is the least self-indulgent of all his family. He dutifully leaves school in order to prepare for the day he will eventually take over the family business, and he is forever trying (and failing) to keep his irresponsible younger brother Christian in check as he squanders the family’s fortune and flakes out on one ill-advised business venture after the next. Despite his efforts to keep the firm afloat, the firm continues its downward trajectory. Thomas’s bad teeth, which ultimately kill him after he collapses on the street following a botched extraction of a severely infected molar, symbolize his inability to halt the decline/decay of the firm despite his efforts. Though Thomas refrains from much of the decadence his relatives regularly indulge in, he nevertheless suffers the consequences their lifestyle and mindset have set into motion.