Thomas Mann Buddenbrooks analysis. Family and main characters of the novel

The summary of “The Blue Bird” tells us about an amazing story that begins on Christmas Eve. Two children, Mytil and Tiltil, already sleeping soundly in their cribs, wake up from the sounds of music coming from the house opposite. The rich neighbors are in full swing of the celebration. Suddenly there is a knock on the door, and an old woman in a green dress and a red cap appears on the threshold. The old woman is standing, leaning on a stick, she is hunchbacked and limps. In addition, she has only one eye, and her nose looks like an ominous hook. She turns to the children and encourages them to go look for the Blue Bird. Berilyune doesn’t like that the young heroes don’t see the obvious. “You need to be brave to see what is hidden,” says the old woman and hands Tiltil a green cap decorated with a diamond. According to her, by turning the diamond, the owner of the hat will be able to see “the soul of things.”

Seeing the world with different eyes is easy

Tyltil follows her instructions and turns the stone. And suddenly the boy’s eyes open amazing picture: a decrepit witch transforms into a magical princess before our eyes, and the poor furnishings of the hut come to life. Let's continue summary"Blue Bird" New characters are joining the action. These are the souls of the Hours, the Loaves. The flame turns into a fast-moving man dressed in a red tights. Cat and Dog also purchase human form, although they still wear cat and bulldog masks. The dog is extremely happy that he can finally put his feelings into words and with joyful cries of “My little deity!” gallops around Tiltil. The cat, maintaining its grace, extends its hand to Mytyl. Water begins to flow from the tap in a sparkling stream, and in the streams of liquid the figure of a girl with flowing hair appears in a seemingly flowing robe. Almost at the same moment she enters into battle with Fire, because this is the Soul of Water. Other Souls appear - Milk, Sugar, Light, Bread. However, this amazing moment is interrupted by a knock on the door. Frightened, Tyltil very quickly turns the diamond on the cap back. The fairy again appears before the children in the guise of a weak old woman, the walls of the hut fade, but the Souls do not have time to return to Silence again. The fairy instigates them to accompany the children during the search for the Blue Bird. However, no one wants to go except the Soul of Light and the Dog. The fairy uses a trick and promises to find suitable outfits for everyone, after which she takes everyone out through the window. The mother and father of the Tiley family open the door and see only the babies sleeping peacefully in their cribs.

Where did the journey of Mytyl and Tiltil lead?

Next, a brief summary of “The Blue Bird” tells how the children find themselves in the palace of the fairy Berilyuna. The souls of objects and animals have already dressed up in elegant fairy-tale costumes and begun to plot against the children. The main one at this meeting is the Cat. She says that souls have been enslaved, and, having found the Blue Bird, they will finally take possession of them. But the appearance of the fairy herself, accompanied by the Soul of Light and children, silences them. In order for the children to have a little refreshment before their long journey, Bread cuts off a couple of slices from its belly, and Sugar breaks off its fingers, which immediately grow back.

The first destination on the children's journey is the Land of Memories. Mytil and Tiltil go there unaccompanied. A brother and sister visit their deceased grandparents and see their deceased sisters and brothers. Here they learn that those who have passed on to another world seem to be immersed in sleep, but awaken when loved ones remember them. After having dinner with their family, the children gather to meet the Soul of Light. Grandparents give their grandchildren a blackbird that appears completely blue to them. However, as soon as the children leave the Land of Memories, the bird changes its color to black.

But our journey is just beginning. The summary of “The Blue Bird” tells about the events taking place in the Palace of Night, where the Cat is the first to reach. She warns the hostess that Tyltil and Mytil are heading towards her. However, the Night has no power to prevent a person from learning its secrets, and therefore she and the Cat can only hope that the children will not be able to catch the real Blue Bird. When the brother, sister, as well as Sugar, Bread and Dog appear in the palace, Night tries for a long time to confuse them so as not to give them the keys to unlock any doors in the building. But Tyltil, without listening to her, opens all the doors in turn. Diseases, runny nose, wars are hidden behind the first three. Behind the fourth door, Tyltil discovers his favorite Scents of the night, Fireflies, Will-o'-the-Wisps, the Nightingale's Singing, and Dew. Night strongly does not recommend opening the large middle door and convinces its guests that behind it are hidden such terrible visions that they were not even given a name. All the boy's companions, except the Dog, are hiding. However, Tyltil overcomes his fear. On the other side of the door opens a magical garden of night light and dreams, where fabulous blue birds flutter between planets and stars. The boy, his sister and each of their companions catch several birds and carry them out, but soon they die - they never managed to find the only one that can withstand

We continue the summary of Maeterlinck’s “The Blue Bird”. The characters will have to visit several more amazing places, where young heroes and their assistants meet both dangerous, insidious characters, and those who want to help them. Children have time to visit the ancient Forest, the cemetery, and the Garden of Beatitudes.

Particularly interesting was their stop at the Azure Palace of the Future Kingdom. Here they meet the Azure children - people who are yet to be born. Each of them has already prepared some kind of gift for the world. For one it is the Machine of Happiness, for another it is several ways to prolong life, for the third it is a machine that flies without the help of wings. Here Tyltil and Mytil meet their brother, who is just about to be born.

Homecoming

And now the fairy tale “The Blue Bird,” a summary of which you are now reading, takes us back to the green hedge, behind which is the Tiley hut. Here the children say goodbye to their companions. Bread gives Tiltil the cage prepared for the Blue Bird, which remains empty. And the Soul of Light says that perhaps the Blue Bird does not exist at all, or it changes its color when it is locked up.

In the morning, when the mother came to wake up Tiltil and Mytil, the children began to enthusiastically tell her about their nightly adventure. This scared the mother, she sent the father for the doctor. However, here Berlengo’s neighbor appears in the house, looking very much like the fairy Berilyuna. Having heard another retelling of the children's journey, she claims that they dreamed something while they were sleeping under the light of the moon. Berlengo talks about how her granddaughter is not feeling well - the girl doesn’t get out of bed, and the doctor puts it all down to nerves. The mother asks Tiltil to give the sick girl the turtle dove that she had long dreamed of. The boy looks at the turtledove, and it seems to him that in front of him is the same Blue Bird.

Children see their home with completely new eyes: a cat and a dog, fire and water - everything now seems alive to them, not the same as before. Soon Berlengo's neighbor appears on the doorstep, accompanied by an unusual beautiful girl, which clutches a turtle dove to its chest. To Tyltil and his sister, the girl seems like the Soul of Light. Tyltil himself wants to explain to his new acquaintance how to feed the turtledove, but, taking advantage of the moment, the bird slips out of human hands and flies away. The girl begins to cry, and Tiltil tries to console her and promises that he will soon find the bird.

This is how the summary ends. “The Blue Bird” (Maeterlinck is an author who managed to write a work that makes you take a fresh look at the world) - both adults and children will certainly like it.

The famous play by the Belgian symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck is called " Blue bird"The key theme of this work is the rather multifaceted concept of “happiness.” The symbol of happiness in this play is the mythical Blue Bird.

Analysis of the work

This is more of a generalized image of the happiness that all people seek, rather than a specific definition of this feeling. It is not for nothing that the writer chose the form of a fairy tale for such a work; it is in this way that the main theme can be revealed from a symbolic, mysterious side.

A fairy tale will help even a child understand what happiness is. But this play will also be interesting for adults - allegories and symbols make you think about the important moral and spiritual questions that Maeterlinck raises in his work.

This seemingly fantastic story talks about important problems in the life of every person, Maeterlinck tries to significantly reveal the true and false in a person's life. And he tries to show this through children, whose souls are still pure, and whose thoughts are kind and unprejudiced.

This is an important point for analyzing the play - after all, children are considered innocent and naive; they are most drawn to something good and bright. And it is children who are able to immediately comprehend and feel the true meaning of life and its mystery.

Heroes' search for happiness

The two main characters - Teltil and Metil - go in search of happiness, the Blue Bird. She lives in the Palace of Night, but what is remarkable is that she can only exist in the sun. This suggests that it is impossible to meet her... But the essence of the play is not this, but what the children had to experience and discover when they went in search of the bird.

They learn about the true values ​​of life, their long and adventurous journey teaches them to distinguish between the true and the false in life. The symbolism created by Maeterlinck subtly reveals the vices of a person and what leads him to virtue.

Teltil and Metil learn that there are different types of Pleasures - doing nothing, being rich, or the pleasure of loving parents, seeing stars, being kind and fair... They learn the very difference between selfish pleasures and happiness.

And it becomes clear that the main goal of the search for children was not illusory happiness, but life values ​​that lead a person to true happiness and help to realize it. On their way, they meet the Soul of Light, who helps them overcome many obstacles, but not only saves them, but teaches children important moral lessons.

A the most important lesson for both children and adults is an understanding of the essence of evil, which the Palace of Night personifies in the play. In this case, Night represents not only evil, it is, first of all, the inability of many people to distinguish evil from good.

On the path to happiness, children acquire the knowledge that helps a person form the meaning of life for himself. And only then can you feel true happiness, which is completely individual for each person.

Thomas Mann's first novel, Buddenbrooks, made him a world famous writer. The book was published in 1901, when the author was only 26 years old. However, despite his young age, he managed to offer the reading public a unique work.

"Buddenbrooks" is a family saga spanning the lives of four generations of a wealthy German family of merchants. The sheer scale of the concept alone made this book a notable phenomenon in the world of literature. But besides this, Thomas Mann revealed all his mature writing talent beyond his years. He vividly and interestingly described the picture of the gradual rise and fall of a trading family. After the first edition, the book became a bestseller and an object of critical praise. In 1929, thanks to this novel, Thomas Mann received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Main characters

The novel "Buddenbrooks", a brief summary of which briefly describes the plot of the book, tells the story of the Buddenbrooks family. It is known to every resident of the small town of Marienkirch. The head of the family is Johann Buddenbrook, who owns the company of the same name. He has a wife, Josephine, and a son, Johann (whose fiancée is named Elisabeth).

From this marriage, Johann has several grandchildren - ten-year-old Thomas, eight-year-old Antonia (among her relatives she is known as Toni) and seven-year-old Christian. The girl Clotilde, a distant and poor relative, also lives in the house with all of them. In addition, the Buddenbrooks have a teacher and housekeeper, Ida Jungman. She has lived with her family for so long that she is rightfully considered a full member of it.

Prodigal son

Throughout the entire narrative, the main characters are gradually joined by new heroes who complement and make more interesting novel"Buddenbrooks." A summary of this book cannot do without mentioning Gotthold, the eldest son of Johann, who lives separately from the family. Relatives try not to remember him, due to the fact that the young man married poor girl. The rich family did not approve of this union, considering it unnatural.

However, Gotthold himself remembers the Buddenbrooks. He is trying to get part of the family fortune paid to him. His younger brother Johann persuades his father not to pay the required amount. Businessmen do not want to share their wealth because they are afraid of losing hundreds of thousands of marks and incurring serious losses that could hurt the company.

Family tree

Two years later, Johann Jr. and his wife Elisabeth have a daughter, whom they decided to name Clara. This event became one of the most joyful for the family throughout the novel "Buddenbrooks". The summary of the chapter related to the birth of Clara is as follows: happy Johann writes down the news of the birth of his daughter in a special notebook. Family members filled it out over many generations, thus compiling a detailed genealogical collection.

Three years later, Johann Sr.'s wife, Josephine, dies. Large time gaps are due to the fact that the book is a long colossal chronicle. Thomas Mann wanted to publish a work of precisely this genre. “Buddenbrooks” (the summary tells about the main plot points of the novel) after the death of Josephine, undergoes the first serious plot twist. The head of the family decides to retire and transfers the company to his son. Soon after this, the elderly Johann dies. His namesake son, having met his older brother Gotthold at the funeral, refuses to transfer to him at least some part of the inheritance.

Tony's engagement

Meanwhile, the children continue to grow. Toni turns eighteen, after which the Hamburg businessman Mr. Grünlich proposes to her. The newly minted groom manages to enlist the support of the girl’s parents, and they put pressure on their daughter. However, Antonia does not like Grünlich at all.

Disagreement leads to scandal. His parents decide to send Tony to the seaside town of Travemünde near Lübeck. They believe that the girl should rest, put her thoughts in order and once again consider the merchant’s offer. At this point, an important plot twist in the novel "Buddenbrooks" occurs. The summary of the subsequent chapters is as follows: Tony settles in the house of the sailor Schwarzkopf and meets his son Morgen. The young people quickly became friends, and then completely declared their love for each other. However, soon the holiday at sea ends. Antonia returns home.

Difficult decision

Finally, Toni comes across a notebook with a family tree and realizes that she must continue the family line, connect her life with a rich man and not repeat the mistakes of her uncle Gotthold. The girl goes against her heart and agrees to marry Mr. Grünlich.

The life together of a new family is not planned from the very beginning. The husband quickly cools down towards his wife. Even the birth of their daughter Erica does not save the situation. The book Buddenbrooks continues with this unpleasant storyline. The summary of the novel on the pages dedicated to the Grünlich family is as follows: four years after the wedding, the husband becomes bankrupt. And it soon becomes clear that all this time he stayed afloat only thanks to the fact that the groom received his wife’s dowry. Johann does not want to help his son-in-law. He takes his daughter and granddaughter to their home and declares the marriage invalid.

Heirs

Johann Buddenbrook dies in 1855. The status of head of the family passes to his son Thomas, who from the very beginning early years helped his grandfather and father in the affairs of the company. His uncle Gotthold has been living with other relatives for many years. He managed to improve his relationship with his brother by selling his own business.

Now Thomas makes his uncle the fictitious head of the company, while he himself remains its de facto leader. His younger brother Christian has a completely different character. He does not like working in the family office and spends all his time in theaters and clubs. In the end, Christian quarrels with his older brother and moves to Hamburg, where he becomes a partner in another enterprise. However, his restless character makes itself felt in his new place. Christian fails to gain a foothold in Hamburg. After some time, he returns to his father’s house, even though his relations with his relatives are noticeably damaged. Christian's further behavior shows that he never learned anything from his mistakes.

New events

In Munich, Antonia meets Alois Permaneder and soon marries for the second time. This character is another new face introduced towards the middle of the novel authored by Mann. "Buddenbrooks" (summary) continues with Tony's failures in family life. She moves to her husband in Munich, but in the new city she is destined for the role of a stranger and a person unloved by everyone.

Additionally, Tony's second child is stillborn. Even such strong grief cannot bring her and Alois closer. After some time, Antonia accuses her husband of treason. After this, she returns to her mother and files for divorce. The second marriage ends in the same fiasco as the first.

The heyday of the family

But T. Mann writes not only about failures and grief. “Buddenbrooks” (the summary reflects this) are marked by a joyful event. Thomas gives birth to a son, who is named Johann in honor of his grandfather (soon a shortened version of the name is assigned to him in the family - Hanno). The boy becomes the heir of the entire family and its main asset - the company. Following this, Thomas wins the election and is elected senator. Having become a politician, he decides to build a new luxurious house, which quickly turned into a symbol of the power of the Buddenbrooks.

Thomas's sister Clara, shortly before the birth of her nephew, marries Pastor Tiburtius. A married couple moves to Riga. But some time after Ganno's birth, Clara dies of tuberculosis. According to the will, the woman transfers her entire estate (part of the Buddenbrooks' general budget) to her husband. Elizabeth's mother secretly carries out her will. When Thomas finds out about this, he becomes impotently furious.

Failure after failure

With each new chapter, the atmosphere of despondency and hopelessness becomes stronger, as Mann himself wanted according to the author’s plan. Buddenbrooks (summary) continues with 42-year-old Thomas falling into depression. It seems to him that his company is doomed, and any efforts to improve the situation are in vain. The first crack appeared after the story of Clara's inheritance. Now Tom decides to commit a big scam, but it fails and leads to new losses. The company's turnover is declining

All these vicissitudes of the gradual decline of a powerful family are described in detail by Thomas Mann. "Buddenbrooks" (summary) covers the lives of four generations. Little Hanno (belonging to the latter of these) has little interest in trade and company. He, like his mother, is interested in music, which depresses and annoys his father. A year later, Elizabeth dies at an already advanced age. So, character by character, the heroes leave the proscenium of the novel “Buddenbrooks”. Brief summary (reviews confirm this) only in general outline describes the catastrophe that is inexorably approaching the threshold of the family nest.

Gradual fading

Thomas is increasingly foreboding trouble. His intuition does not fail him. Tony's daughter Erica gives birth to a daughter (they name her Elizabeth). However, the woman's husband, Weinschenk, is arrested for numerous offenses related to his business. Meanwhile, the Buddenbrooks' house is sold to Hermann Hagenström, one of the company's competitors, whose business continues to go uphill.

Thomas is not getting any younger - his health is getting worse, he can no longer work as hard as in his youth. His son grows up submissive and indifferent. In addition, Tom begins to suspect his wife of cheating. All this together depletes his physical and moral strength.

At the beginning of 1873, Weinschenk was released. However, he does not return to the Buddenbrooks, but tells his wife that he will not return until he provides her with a decent existence. After this news, no one hears anything more about him.

Liquidation of the company

Despite any troubles, the course of events in the book “Buddenbrooks” continues. Summary, translations into Russian - all this is of great interest today due to the fact that even more than a hundred years after publication this book is popular among readers. The climax of the plot is the death of Thomas. According to his will, the remaining relatives liquidate the family company, the history of which goes back more than a hundred years.

That's what it is major tragedy novel "Buddenbrooks". A summary of the chapters shows how in just a year the results of the work of several generations of the family are destroyed. After the death of Thomas, there was not a single person left who would be able to continue the work of his ancestors. All that remains of the former greatness is memory and city stories.

last hope

Christian, having received a share of the inheritance, leaves for Hamburg, where he marries a lady of easy virtue, Alina Pufogel. Very soon she sends her husband to a hospital and becomes the owner of a lot of capital.

The actual status of head of the family passes to Antonia. The company has already been liquidated, but the legal procedure was carried out ineptly and hastily, which is why crumbs remain of the family wealth. However, Tony hopes that fifteen-year-old Hanno will eventually be able to return the Buddenbrooks to their greatness. Her aspirations are not destined to come true. The boy dies of deadly typhus. The male line of the family is interrupted there.

The end of the novel

Six months after Hanno’s death, Gerda, the wife of the late Gotthold, leaves the Buddenbrooks. She takes the remains of her family capital to her native Amsterdam. Housekeeper Ida Jungman also decides to move in with her relatives. From the formerly huge family, only Antonia, her daughter and their distant relative Clotilde remain.

The novel “Buddenbrooks” ends with this plot twist. The summary in German, as well as in Russian, can be summarized by the fact that from family memory All that remained was the same notebook that contained information about the genealogy of the family. Tony re-reads it periodically and continues to hope for the best. This is how the family chronicle in the novel “Buddenbrooks” is interrupted. The summary, translations into Russian and the book in the original are of interest to readers all over the world, thanks to the fact that Mann managed to recreate a grandiose picture of the gradual death of a powerful family of businessmen.

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Introduction

Thomas Mann, a writer and thinker, went through a difficult path. He grew up in an environment of wealthy, conservative burghers; considerable attractive force For a long time, philosophers of a reactionary, irrationalistic bent - Schopenhauer, Nietzsche - had for him. He perceived the First World War in the light of nationalist ideas, this was reflected in his book of journalism “Reflections of an Apolitical.” In the 20s, Thomas Mann - not without difficulty - revised his old views; he contrasted the approaching fascist barbarism with a noble but abstract preaching of humanism and justice. During the period of Hitler's dictatorship, Thomas Mann, having left his country, became one of the most prominent representatives of the German anti-fascist intelligentsia.

Thomas Mann loved Russian literature since youth, she participated in his ideological and creative quests throughout his entire intellectual life for a decade. Among Western writers of the 20th century. Thomas Mann is one of the best experts and connoisseurs of Russian classics. His reading circle included Pushkin, Gogol Goncharov, Turgenev, Chekhov, and later Gorky, as well as a number of other writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. And above all - Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

The history of the creative development of Thomas Mann cannot be seriously understood if one does not take into account his deep affection for Russian literature. Several works have been written about Thomas Mann's attitude towards Russian writers. The most serious view of this issue is the famous Czech scientist Alois Hoffmann. In 1959, he published the book “Thomas Mann and Russia” in Czech, and in 1967, in the German Democratic Republic, his extensive work “Thomas Mann and the World” was published in German. Russian literature". Both of these books, controversial in certain or other particulars, are rich in factual material and valuable observations. However, the topic is not exhausted, especially since thanks to the posthumous publications of Thomas Mann's letters, we can penetrate deeper into the laboratory of his thought.

Thomas Mann's letters contain many interesting, generalizing judgments about how he felt about Russian literature, how much it meant to him.

Four years before his death, in 1951, Thomas Mann wrote to his Hungarian correspondent Jena Tamas Gemery: “I don’t know a word of Russian, and the German translations in which I read in my youth the great Russian authors of the 19th century were very weak. And yet I consider this reading to be one of the most important experiences that shaped my personality” (Doronin - p. - 58).

A few years earlier - on February 26, 1948 - Thomas Mann wrote to a friend from his school years, Hermann Lange: “You are right in assuming that I have long been devotedly grateful to Russian literature, which I called “Tonio Kröger” in my youthful short story “ holy Russian literature." At 23-24 years old, I would never have coped with the work on Buddenbrooks if I had not drawn strength and courage from constantly reading Tolstoy. Russian literature of the late 18th and 19th centuries. truly one of the wonders of spiritual culture, and I have always deeply regretted that Pushkin’s poetry remained almost inaccessible to me, since I did not have enough time and excess energy to learn the Russian language. However, Pushkin’s stories also provide sufficient reason to admire him. It is needless to say how much I admire Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev. But I would like to mention Nikolai Leskov, who is not known, although he is a great master of the story, almost equal to Dostoevsky... You can find traces of Maxim Gorky in my essay on Goethe and Tolstoy, which perhaps someday caught your eye. I have written about Tolstoy several times, most recently in the preface to the American edition of Anna Karenina. I also wrote the preface to the edition of Dostoevsky’s stories, which was published in New York in 1945...”

Russian literature evoked responses of various kinds in the work of Thomas Mann, in his novels and essays. Thomas Mann sometimes mentally consulted with his favorite Russian classics, sometimes argued with them, relied on their experience and example - at different times in different ways - explaining their works to Western readers and drew conclusions from these works that were relevant for himself and for others .

As we can see, we can say that Russian literature, in the person of its greatest masters, influenced Thomas Mann, based on his own testimony. He was a writer deeply German in spirit, traditions, and issues. And, of course, he - like all truly great writers - was an individually original artist. In an article written for the centenary of the birth of L.N. Tolstoy, he very subtly defined the nature of the influence that a great writer can have on his brothers in other countries:

“The impressive power of his narrative art is incomparable; every contact with it infuses into the soul of a receptive talent (but there are no other talents) a life-giving stream of energy, freshness, primitive creative joy... This is not about imitation. And is it possible to imitate force? Under its influence, works can arise, both in spirit and in form, that are very dissimilar to each other, and, most importantly, completely different from the works of Tolstoy himself.”

The influence of Russian literature on Thomas Mann (and on many others) foreign writers) cannot be measured and appreciated through the “chase of parallels,” as is often practiced in Western literary scholarship. The point is not at all to look for features in Thomas Mann's books. external resemblance with Russian classics, find coincidences or similarities of individual episodes, figures, details. Such coincidences sometimes actually exist and, so to speak, lie on the surface. But that's not the point. Our task is to, turning to the works of Thomas Mann, and to his statements and evidence, find out what and how he used realistic elements.

The work of T. Mann is of interest for research, especially because it has not been studied in detail. There are a number of works dedicated to Mann, but the structure of his works and his connection with real events and elements.

The purpose of this work is to study the realistic elements in “Buddenbrooks” by Thomas Mann.

1. identify the time and place where the work was written,

2. study the events that took place in Germany during the writing of the work,

3. explore realistic elements (place, time, etc.) that are present in the work.

This work consists of 3 chapters. Chapter 1 examined the time and place of writing the work of T. Mann. Chapter 2 examines the historical events that took place in Germany during the creation of Buddenbrooks by T. Mann. Chapter 3 reveals the realistic elements present in the work, in particular, the place where the action takes place, the family, as part of the real world.

As mentioned above, this topic is of interest due to its lack of exploration. Therefore, today it is quite interesting material that will help to understand the essence of the events that occur in the novel through consideration of details.

The following were used in the work literary sources: History of foreign literature of the 20th century; History of German literature; Kalashnikov A.A.; Literature of German writers; World history; Motyleva T.L.; Starostin V.V.; Tolstoy L.N.; Fadeeva V.S.; Reader on foreign literature. As well as information from the sites: http://www.eduhmao.ru.; http:// www.litera.edu.ru.; http://www.cultinfo.ru.; http://www.bookz.ru.

1 . Time and place of writing the work "Buddenbrooks"

In the eighties of the 19th century, when Thomas Mann and his older brother Heinrich were children, the reading public of Western Europe was just beginning to become widely acquainted with Russian literature. Crime and Punishment first appeared in German translation in 1882, “War and Peace” - in 1885.

In the nineties, when the Mann brothers - each in their own way - took their first steps in literature, the names of the greatest Russian novelists were already known to everyone in the West educated person. Books by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, as well as Gogol, Goncharov, Turgenev appeared one after another, causing lively responses in the press.

All or almost all major German writers who entered conscious life at the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century knew Russian literature, were keenly interested in it, and studied from it in one form or another. Gerhart Hauptmann wrote his first famous realistic plays under the direct influence of Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness. Bernhard Kellerman in the novel “Der Tor” (“The Fool” or “The Idiot”) created the image of a strange and beautiful-hearted preacher, in many ways close to Prince Myshkin. Rainer Maria Rilke was drawn to Russian culture, tried to write poetry in Russian, and visited Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. Leonhard Frank, who during the First World War created one of the first books of anti-militarist prose, “The Good Man,” considered Dostoevsky his teacher. However, we can safely say that Thomas Mann, in the depth of his perception of Russian classical literature and in the completeness of his spiritual connections with it, surpassed all German writers of his generation.

Heinrich Mann, to whom Russian literature was much less close than his brother, wrote in his book of memoirs “Review of the Century” several vivid pages about how the books of Russian writers were perceived in Western European countries at the end of the last century. Heinrich Mann talks here about the interaction between literature and the liberation movement in Russia.

Russian literature of the 19th century, writes Heinrich Mann, “is an event of incredible importance and such educational power that we, accustomed to the phenomena of decline and breakdown, can hardly believe that we were its contemporaries... How was Dostoevsky read, how was Tolstoy read?

They were read with awe. They were read - and the eyes opened wider to perceive all this abundance of images, all this abundance of thought, and tears flowed as a response. These novels, from Pushkin to Gorky, link by link in an impeccably welded chain, taught us to more deeply understand man, his weaknesses, his formidable power, his unfulfilled calling - and they were accepted as teaching.”

In another chapter of the same book, Heinrich Mann recalls how differently his and his brother Thomas' years of literary apprenticeship passed. “When my brother entered the twenties of his life, he was committed to Russian masters, and for me a good half of my existence was determined by French literature. We both learned to write in German - that’s why, I think.”

Heinrich and Thomas Mann both occupied an extremely important place in the history of their national culture. Both of them raised the art of German realistic prose to great heights, laid the foundations of the German novel of the 20th century, this became their common cause, one might even say a common creative feat. And at the same time, they were very different in their spiritual make-up - this was reflected in the choice of those artistic traditions which they followed. Heinrich Mann gravitated towards satire and at the same time - towards a concrete social study of Reality: he found a lot of value for himself in Voltaire, and in Balzac, and in Zola. Thomas Mann, as an artist, felt a penchant for psychological and philosophical prose; This is partly where his increased interest in the masters of the Russian novel stemmed (Motyleva 1982:12).

Heinrich Mann surpassed his brother in political radicalism; already in his youth he broke away from the burgher environment, its traditional views and morals. Thomas Mann remained closely associated with this environment for a long time.

Thomas Mann's early stories - "Disappointment", "Little Mister Friedemann", "Luischen", "Pagliacci", "Tobias Mindernickel" - studies on the theme of human suffering. They contain people who are offended by fate, physically or spiritually damaged, internally alienated from the world around them. From the very first creative steps, the young writer was attracted by acute psychological collisions: with their help, he revealed the hidden tragedy of bourgeois, bourgeois existence.

Already in the sketch story “Disappointment” (1896), a kind of “anti-hero” appears - an elderly lonely man: in a conversation with a casual acquaintance, he pours out his disgust for life, for society, for the “lofty words” with which people deceive each other.

A more clearly defined figure of the “anti-hero” appears in the story “Pagliacco” (1897). It is written in the first person, in that confessional manner that was first tried by Dostoevsky (in world literature of the 20th century, this manner was widely developed, but for the West late XIX V. it was still completely new) (Samovalov 1981:166).

In the “clown’s” story about himself, buffoonery is combined with genuine anger, uncertainty with narcissism, arrogance with humiliation; Before us is the image of a split, torn consciousness.

The “clown’s” horizons, the entire range of his experiences, compared to the tragic hero of “Notes from Underground”, are incomparably narrower. However, the story breathes with sincere hostility towards the world of successful “large-scale businessmen”: the restless “clown”, one way or another, is spiritually much higher than the environment from which he voluntarily broke away.

On the threshold of the new century, Thomas Mann was working on the novel “Buddenbrooks,” which was published in 1901. The book was originally conceived as the story of a burgher family, built on the material of household traditions - a novel about older relatives, nothing more. A beginner writer could not imagine that this book would mark the beginning of his world fame, and that the Nobel Prize (he received it in 1920) would be awarded to him precisely as the author of “Buddenbrooks” (Fadeeva 1982:154).

“Buddenbrooks” by T. Mann is written in the manner of a broad, leisurely narrative, with the mention of many details, with a detailed depiction of individual episodes, with many dialogues and internal monologues. The impetus for writing was my acquaintance with the Goncourt brothers’ novel “René Mauperin.” T. Mann was delighted with the elegance and structural clarity of this work, very small in volume, but full of significant psychological content. Previously, he believed that his genre was a short psychological novel, but now it seemed to him that he could try his hand at psychological novel Goncourt type. However, from the idea of ​​a small novel about modernity, about a “problematic” hero at the end of the century, weak and helpless in the face of a merciless life, a huge epic novel emerged, covering the fate of four generations (http://litera.edu.ru).

Many years later, in the essay “My Time,” Thomas Mann testified: “I really wrote a novel about my own family ... But in fact I myself did not realize that, in telling about the disintegration of one burgher family, I heralded much deeper processes of disintegration and dying, the beginning of a much more significant cultural and socio-historical breakdown.” The novel is based on Mann's observations of his family, friends, the morals of his hometown, and the decline of a family belonging to the hereditary middle class. Realistic in method and detail, the novel, in fact, symbolically depicts the relationship between the burgher world and the spiritual world.

Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy prompted the young writer to think about decay and dying as an inevitable fatal law of existence. But the sobriety of his artistic vision of life encouraged him to paint the decline of the Buddenbrooks family. in the light of specific, conditioned by the laws of history, destinies of the bourgeois, property-owning way of life.

When Mann was working on the novel, he was asked what he was writing about. “Ah, this is boring burgher matter,” he replied, “but it’s about decline, and that’s why it’s literary.” The idea of ​​decline generalizes the entire vast everyday material of the novel. It traces the fate of four generations of wealthy burghers, whose entrepreneurial activity and will to live weakens from generation to generation. At the same time, the picture of gradual economic impoverishment and biological degradation, unfolded using the example of one family, turns out to be “typical of the entire European burghers” - an obsolete, unviable class.

As the author himself admitted, in order for his work to take place, “he had to carefully study and master the techniques of a naturalistic novel, with hard work winning himself the right to use them.” An indicative incident from Mann’s life at that time was that one of his acquaintances once noticed that the writer was watching him through binoculars. This is how - as if with the help of a magnifying glass - Mann studied the life of the burghers, composing an epic canvas from precisely noticed little things.

When the novel Buddenbrooks appeared, Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was only 25 years old. Its success was so impressive that in 1929 it brought Mann the Nobel Prize (http://www.eduhmao.ru.).

In his 1947 article “On One Chapter from Buddenbrooks,” Thomas Mann recalls how he relied in his work on the experience of writers from other countries and not only Russians. “The influences that determined the appearance of this book as a work of art came from everywhere: from France, England, Russia, from the Scandinavian North - the young author absorbed them greedily, with the zealous zeal of a student, feeling that he would not be able to do without them in his work on the work , psychological in its innermost thoughts and intentions, for it sought to convey the psychology of those who are tired of living, to depict the complication of spiritual life and the heightened sensitivity to beauty that accompanies biological decline.”

And - on the same page - T. Mann clarifies his thought: “...a social-critical novel hidden under the guise of a family chronicle arose under my gaze...”. The motif of “biological decline” is ultimately overshadowed in Buddenbrooks by a larger social-critical theme.

It is worth considering another important testimony of Thomas Mann - from his book "Reflections of an Apolitical". There, the memory of “Buddenbrooks” pops up for an unexpected reason - in connection with the name of Nietzsche. Thomas Mann treated this philosopher, so influential in Kaiser Germany, with great respect and highly valued his literary gift. However, in “Reflections of an Apolitical” T. Mann partially dissociates himself from Nietzsche. He claims that he never, even in his youth, shared the cult of brute force and aestheticization of “brutal instincts” coming from Nietzsche. Against - artistic references for him there were works generated by “highly moral, sacrificial and Christian-conscious natures.” Michelangelo's Last Judgment is named here, and then the novel Anna Karenina, “which gave me strength when I wrote Buddenbrooks.”

It can be assumed that Tolstoy’s work - both with its realism and its moral pathos - could “give strength” to the young Thomas Mann in his - not yet fully conscious - opposition to reactionary philosophical teachings.

Working on a story about the fate of one burgher family, Thomas Mann studied the rich experience of the European “family novel”. In this regard, he should have been attracted to “Anna Karenina,” a novel in which Tolstoy, in his own words, loved “family thought.” He should have been attracted by the fact that in Anna Karenina the history of personal destinies, personal relationships of the heroes is inextricably linked with the history of society - and contains a strong charge of social criticism directed against the very foundations of the proprietary way of life.

Thomas Mann did not feel inclined towards satirical grotesquery, sharp sharpening of characters and situations. The closer he should have found Tolstoy's method of depiction - impeccably reliable and at the same time uncompromisingly sober. In "Buddenbrooks" he - like the author of "Anna Karenina" - depicts that class, that social environment, which is vitally close to him. He loves his Buddenbrooks, he himself is their flesh. But at the same time, he is unpleasantly frank. Each of the main characters of the story is depicted in the “fluidity” of living inconsistency, the interweaving of good and bad (Mitrofanov 1987:301).

The Buddenbrook clan has its own cultural and moral foundations, its own strong ideas about decency and honesty, about what is possible and what is not. However, the novelist calmly, gently, without pressure, but essentially mercilessly demonstrates the underside of this Buddenbrookean morality - the latent antagonism that corrodes the relationships of parents and children, brothers and sisters, those common manifestations of selfishness, hypocrisy, self-interest that flow from the very essence of bourgeoisism. proprietary relations.

In T. Mann's novel, the action begins in 1835 and continues until the end of the 19th century - four generations of Buddenbrooks pass before the reader. However, with the greatest author's attention, the fate of the third generation - Thomas, Christian, Tony - is depicted in close-up. The decline of their lives occurred in the years that followed the reunification of Germany. In the first years of the Hohenzollern Empire, as in post-reform Russia, everything “was turned upside down and is just getting back into shape.” No matter how different the social situations depicted in “Anna Karenina” and in the last parts of “Buddenbrooks” may be, both here and there are talking about the rapid breakdown of old social foundations. Tolstoy recreated the collapse of patriarchal-landlord Russia; Thomas Mann, using the material of his national reality, showed the collapse of the ancient foundations of the German patriarchal-burgher way of life. That weariness of life, the feeling of doom from which Senator Thomas Buddenbrook, and then his fragile and gifted son Hanno, suffer, are explained not in some metaphysical laws of existence, but in the laws of German and world history.

Thomas Mann masterfully conveys in the last parts of the novel the atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty in which his characters live. Through the fates of his heroes, he senses and reproduces not only the collapse of the old burghers, the trading “patriciate” of the North German cities, but also something much more significant: the fragility of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the owners, the precariousness of the foundations on which capitalist society is built.

The theme of death comes up several times in Buddenbrooks. And here the creative connection between Thomas Mann and Tolstoy is very noticeable. Here we can recall not only “Anna Karenina” (and, in particular, the paintings of the dying of Nikolai Levin), but also “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”. Telling about last weeks the life of Senator Thomas Buddenbrook, T. Mann reveals the spiritual drama of this intelligent and energetic bourgeois, who, in the face of imminent death, faces new, painfully difficult questions about the meaning of existence, and doubts grow about whether he lived his life correctly.

However, the content of “Buddenbrooks” is in no way reduced to the theme of dying and decay, or to satirical motifs, which in some places, no matter how imperceptibly, are interspersed into the narrative. The artistic charm and originality of "Buddenbrooks" is to a large extent based on the fact that the author is mentally attached to his characters, to their way of life, their family traditions. With all his sobriety and irony, with all the social criticism that forms the ideological basis of the novel, the writer draws the passing Buddenbrook’s little world with sympathy and restrained sadness, “from the inside.”

“Buddenbrooks” showed the young novelist’s amazing ability to depict people and the circumstances of their lives clearly, visibly, with great artistic plasticity, in an abundance of aptly captured details. And in the colorfulness of everyday episodes, genre scenes, interiors, in the accuracy and richness of psychological characteristics, in the realistic full-bloodedness of the general family-group portrait of the Buddenbrooks, connected by a common family resemblance and yet so dissimilar from each other - in all this the original and mature talent of Thomas Mann.

“Buddenbrooks” by T. Mann is written in the manner of a broad, leisurely narrative, with the mention of many details, with a detailed depiction of individual episodes, with many dialogues and internal monologues.

The book was originally conceived as a history of a burgher family, based on the material of home traditions - a novel about older relatives, nothing more. A beginner writer could not imagine that this book would mark the beginning of his world fame, and that the Nobel Prize (he received it in 1920) would be awarded to him precisely as the author of “Buddenbrooks.

Through the fates of his heroes, he senses and reproduces not only the collapse of the old burghers, the trading “patriciate” of the North German cities, but also something much more significant: the fragility of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the owners, the precariousness of the foundations on which capitalist society is built.

2 . Historical events in Germany during the creation of "Buddenbrooks"

The collapse of attempts to suppress the labor movement and failures in foreign policy predetermined the resignation of Bismarck (1890). Disagreements between Bismarck and the new German Emperor Wilhelm II (acceded to the throne in 1888) also played a significant role in this. Bismarck's successor as Reich Chancellor, L. Caprivi, began to move away from the policy of agrarian protectionism in the interests of industrial magnates. Trade agreements were concluded with a number of states, which facilitated, thanks to the mutual reduction of duties, the sale of German industrial goods. This led to the penetration of foreign grain into the German market and caused strong discontent among the Junkers. In 1894, the post of chancellor was taken by H. Hohenlohe, who, like Bismarck, tried to use repression to stop the ongoing consolidation of the forces of the German proletariat.

An indicator of the maturity of German Social Democracy was its adoption in 1891 of the Erfurt Program, which was a step forward compared to the Gotha Program. This program contained provisions for the working class to seize political power and for the abolition of classes and class domination as the ultimate goal of the party. But even this program lacked even a mention of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the demand democratic republic as the immediate goal. In 1893, the Social Democrats elected 44 deputies to the Reichstag, and in 1898 - 56 deputies. The labor movement has become a serious factor in the political life of the country. German Social Democracy played a leading role in the international labor movement at that time. But already at the end of the 19th century. The opportunists, led by E. Bernstein, made themselves known with a revision of Marxism. The support of opportunism was the labor aristocracy, with whom the bourgeoisie shared part of the profits, and people from the petty-bourgeois strata (World History 16:256-258).

Germany entered the 20th century as an imperialist power with a highly developed economy. In terms of industrial production, Germany advanced by the beginning of the 20th century. to 1st place in Europe, overtaking the recent “workshop of the world” Great Britain. Under the sign of militarism, a restructuring of the entire economic and political social structure of Germany took place. The German imperialist bourgeoisie, which was late in its development, widely used dumping in the struggle for markets; at the same time, it sought to compensate for the “losses” by increasing prices on the domestic market. The dominant form of monopolistic associations in Germany were cartels; their number grew rapidly (in 1890 - 210, in 1911 - 550-600). Characteristic feature German imperialism had a wide coverage of monopolies throughout the country's economy. Large banks have become extremely important; this was explained by the primary role they played in the process of establishing monopolies. Therefore, the fusion of industrial and banking capital proceeded more intensively in Germany than in other countries. Along with this, in Germany, where the direct influence of the state on economic life was significant in previous decades; state-monopoly tendencies appeared early.

German imperialism was characterized by a class alliance between the Junkers and the big bourgeoisie. At the beginning of the 20th century. The export of capital in Germany intensified. In 1902, German investments abroad amounted to 12.5 billion francs, and in 1914 already 44 billion francs. The monopolies persistently pushed the government towards war to redistribute the world.

Imperialist Germany was continuously building up its armaments. From 1879 to 1914, military spending increased 5 times, exceeding 1,600 million marks, which amounted to more than half of the state budget. The size of the peacetime army increased every year; by 1914 it reached 800 thousand people; The German army was equipped with the most modern weapons of that time. Warship construction programs have been repeatedly revised upward. By the beginning of World War I, Germany had 41 battleships, including 15 super-powerful “dreadnoughts”. Ruling circles conducted intensive ideological indoctrination of the population in the spirit of chauvinism.

Early 20th century marked by a new upsurge in the labor movement. The Revolution of 1905-07 in Russia had a great influence on the German proletariat. In 1905-1906, over 800 thousand people took part in strikes in Germany, i.e. almost the same as in the previous 15 years. In Hamburg on January 17, 1906, the first mass political strike in the history of the German labor movement took place. The leaders of the left social democrats advocated the Russian revolutionary experience: R. Luxemburg, K. Liebknecht, K. Zetkin, F. Mehring and others. Right social democrats (E. Bernstein, K. Legin, G. Vollmar, F. Scheidemann , F. Ebert) promoted “class peace.” After the defeat of the Russian Revolution of 1905-07, the reactionary course in German politics intensified. In 1907, the Reichstag voted for loans to suppress the tribal uprising in South-West Africa and additional funds for the construction of the fleet. Under these conditions, enormous responsibility fell on the Social Democratic Party as a force that could prevent the onset of reaction and plans to start a world war. If at the beginning of the 20th century. German Social Democracy as a whole still stood in the position of class struggle, was “... ahead of everyone in its organization, in the integrity and cohesion of the movement,” then later right-wing opportunists gained more and more influence in its leadership. The centrist group led by K. Kautsky also caused enormous harm. Figures of the left wing of Social Democracy, to whom A. Bebel was close on a number of issues, defended the principles of Marxism, waged an active struggle against militarism, and exposed the opportunism of right-wing leaders. But even the left Social Democrats did not fully understand the tasks arising from the new conditions of the class struggle and did not dare to make an organizational break with the opportunists.

In the years preceding World War I, the labor movement began to grow in Germany again (in 1910-13, on average, 300-400 thousand workers went on strike per year). March 6, 1910 in Berlin under the slogan of introducing universal voting rights in Prussia there was a mass workers' demonstration, dispersed by mounted police ("German Bloody Sunday"). In September - October 1910, barricade battles between strikers and police broke out in the proletarian district of Berlin Moabit. In March 1912, a strike of 250 thousand Ruhr miners began; In the summer of 1913, large strikes took place in Hamburg, Kiel, Stettin, and Bremen. The indignation of the oppressed population of Alsace grew. It was brewing in Germany political crisis. However, the large Social Democratic Party (about 1 million people in 1912) and the trade unions (over 2.5 million people in 1912-13) were unable to lead the working class to storm imperialism and launch an effective struggle against the threat of war.

In preparation for war, the German government sought to undermine the Franco-Russian alliance and isolate France (Wilhelm II concluded the Bjork Treaty of 1905 with Nicholas II), as well as to liquidate the Anglo-French agreement of 1904. But Germany was unable to tear either Russia or Great Britain away from France; in 1907 these three countries created the Entente, which opposed the Triple Alliance. Overestimating its military power and believing that Great Britain would not support Russia, imperialist Germany started World War I. As a pretext, she used the murder of the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914 (the so-called Sarajevo murder) (http://www.cultinfo.ru).

Germany entered the 20th century as an imperialist power with a highly developed economy. A characteristic feature of German imperialism was the wide coverage of monopolies throughout the country's economy. Large banks have become extremely important; this was explained by the primary role they played in the process of establishing monopolies. Therefore, the fusion of industrial and banking capital proceeded more intensively in Germany than in other countries. Along with this, in Germany, where the direct influence of the state on economic life was significant in previous decades, state-monopoly tendencies appeared early.

Along with this, in Germany, where the direct influence of the state on economic life was significant in previous decades, state-monopoly tendencies appeared early.

3. Realistic elements in Buddenbrooks T. Manna

Family and main characters of the novel

The very title of the novel shows that it describes the life of an entire family. The fate of the Buddenbrooks family is a story of gradual decline and decay. “The Decline of One Family” is the subtitle of the novel. The fall of Buddenbrooks is not a continuous process. Periods of stagnation are followed by periods of new growth, but still, on the whole, the family gradually weakens and dies.

"Buddenbrooks" is a work that raises large social problems, giving a vivid and truthful picture of the historical development of the bourgeoisie as a class from the 18th century (from the time of the Napoleonic wars) to the end of the 19th century. This is a novel about 4 generations of a bourgeois family. The materials in this book are inspired by the history of the Mann family. The gradual destruction of the material well-being of the Buddenbrooks, from generation to generation, is combined with their spiritual impoverishment (Starostin 1980:4.)

Johann Buddenbrook Sr. is a typical burgher of the 18th century, an optimistic and moderate freethinker who optimistically believes in the strength of bourgeois existence.

Johann Buddenbrook the Younger is a man of a different type, his consciousness is shaken by the approach of the revolutionary events of 1848, he is overcome by anxiety and uncertainty, he seeks consolation in religion. With his ostentatious strictly patrician morality, he no longer manages to reconcile his commercial activities with purely human relations even with family members.

Thomas and Christian no longer feel like an integral part of their class, “the best part of the nation,” like their grandfather. Thomas, at the cost of terrible efforts of will, still forces himself to wear a mask of imaginary efficiency, imaginary self-confidence, but he no longer feels able to compete with entrepreneurs of the new predatory type. Behind his ostentatious restraint lies fatigue, a lack of understanding of the meaning and purpose of his own existence, and fear of the future.

Christian is a devastated man, a renegade, a man capable only of buffoonery. The degeneration of the Buddenbrooks marks for Thomas Mann the death of that seemingly indestructible foundation on which the burgher culture was based. The origins of the destruction of the family are in the objective appearance among the German burghers of “grunders” - unprincipled predatory businessmen who abandoned the notorious conscientiousness in matters that broke solid, established business ties. The strength and thoroughness of the way of life give way to the insatiable thirst for wealth, the cruel grip of entrepreneurs of the new formation.

Drawing the story of the Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann simultaneously shows the history of bourgeois thought, its evolution from the philosophy of the Enlightenment to reactionary decadent views. The Voltairian Buddenbrook the elder is replaced by the bigot Buddenbrook the younger, and his son Thomas is interested in the philosophy of Schopenhauer (Timofeev 1983:254).

From generation to generation, the spiritual strength of the family dries up. The rudely good-natured founders of the dynasty are finally replaced by refined neuropathic creatures, whose fear of life kills their activity, making them inevitable victims of history. The last offspring of Hanno Buddenbrook - the son of Thomas - inherited from his mother a passion for music alien to his ancestors, imbued with disgust not only for his father’s prosaic activities, but also for everything that is not music or art.
This is how Mann’s most important theme crystallizes: the sharp opposition of all art to bourgeois reality, all mental activity to the base practice of the bourgeois.

This is where it comes into play known influence on Thomas Mann Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Like the first, Mann believes that morbidity elevates a person above mediocrity, making his worldview sharper and deeper. The bearer of ill health - most often an artist - opposes the selfish and narcissistic world of the bourgeoisie. The pessimism of Schopenhauer, who praised the beauty of dying, seemed natural to Mann, who saw in the dying culture of the burghers the death of all-human culture.

Hanno, possessed by the “demon” of music, simultaneously symbolizes the spiritual exaltation of the Buddenbrooks family and its tragic end. The novel is invaded by the decadent idea that art is associated with biological degeneration.

So, the published novel “Buddenbrooks” marked a new phase in the creative development of Thomas Mann. It is based on a lot of autobiography. The writer carefully studied the family papers, got acquainted with the business correspondence of his father and grandfather, and delved into the details of the household environment and the home life of his ancestors. Mann's personal memories thus form the main outline of the novel, which gives it even greater concreteness.

The Buddenbrook family chronicle is an epic tale of the former prosperity and decline of the once powerful elite of the German merchant bourgeoisie. In this regard, the writer, on the one hand, continues the traditions of German realistic prose of the 70s of the last century, on the other hand, anticipates the emergence of the Western European, social chronicle novel of the 20th century. (Galsworthy - “The Forsyte Saga”, Roger Martin Du Gard - “The Thibault Family”). Thomas Mann begins the history of the Buddenbrook family in the mid-19th century. and traces her fate over three generations. The former economic power and spiritual greatness of this family are embodied in the image of old Johann Buddenbrook. His entire appearance, his spiritual physiognomy was formed in the atmosphere of the Enlightenment. Full of inexhaustible optimism in life, he is unshakably confident in his personal strengths and in the power of his class. His son, the consul Johann Buddenbrook, is already deprived of his father's optimism; The mature years of his life are already taking place in different historical conditions, in a turning point when the patriarchal burghers are being replaced by a new generation of capitalist entrepreneurs.

In the light of new social conditions The old Buddenbrook firm becomes for the consul Johann Buddenbrook, and after him for his son Thomas, not just a commercial enterprise, but a symbol of the greatness of the family, a kind of fetish to which the personal interests of each family member must be subordinated.

Representing the first generation, Johann Buddenbrook embodies the strength of the burgher way of life, which has not lost touch with the people's environment. He is energetic, assertive, proactive, and successful in business. His son, Consul Johann Buddenbrook, is a respectable and balanced man, does business well, but is less ambitious as a person. After the revolution of 1848, he is not so sure of the inviolability of traditional foundations. For representatives of the third generation, Thomas and Christian, the company becomes something internally alien. They develop a penchant for reflection - an unusual phenomenon in the Buddenbrook family. Senator Thomas Buddenbrook maintains a semblance of calm. But internally he is tired and broken. He tries to hide the decline of the company from those around him and from himself. Hanno, the only representative of the fourth generation, the son of Thomas, himself draws a line under his name in the family book as a sign that after him the family will cease to exist. The boy is in poor health, but he is musically gifted. Life fills him with horror and disgust.

Setting of the novel

In the first chapters of the novel, both chiefs of the company, old Johann and his son, are depicted with truly epic breadth. The narrative flows smoothly, unhurriedly, lingering for a long time on the material world surrounding the Buddenbrooks. The description of their new home, rich furnishings, and decoration emphasizes the solid wealth and ponderous life of the top of the patrician bourgeoisie. The “gold-edged notebook with an embossed binding”, in which outstanding events in the history of the family were recorded, should, according to Mann’s plan, personify the importance historical role German trading bourgeoisie.

Epic-genre description acquires a dramatic character only with the appearance eldest daughter Consul - Tony. The point, of course, is not about her. This cheerful young girl is infinitely devoted to her family and its traditions. An alarming beginning enters the novel along with Tony's fiancé, Mr. Grünlich, depicted by the author in a sharply grotesque tone. Yielding to the persuasion of people close to her, Tony makes a “profitable match”; she marries a man she dislikes, who in turn marries a rich bride to pay off his debts. Grunlich, this clever, unscrupulous businessman, who even indulges in falsifying the trade books of his office, undermines the former prestige of the Buddenbrooks company, destroys the aura of patriarchy that previously surrounded it.

IN emotional drama Tony weaves in another image that is completely opposite to Grünlich. This is Morten Schwarzkopf, the son of a pilot, a medical student. This simple and honest young man, alienated from the company of rich merchant sons, rises to a sharp protest against police-junker Germany. It is no coincidence that in his modest room in Göttingen, where he is studying medicine, he “puts” a policeman’s uniform on a skeleton. In conversations with Toni Morten, Schwarzkopf lifts the veil of a different life for the young girl, full of tireless work and struggle for existence. In this difficult but rich in content Morten's life calls Toni, whom he fell in love with dearly. Tony returns the feeling. But the power of tradition is so great that the girl is unable to overcome it. She breaks up with Morten and marries someone who was a good match in the eyes of her family.

Tonya's tragic fate also sheds light on the personal drama of her brother, Consul Thomas. This cultured, enlightened, sensitive person sees the approaching collapse of the Buddenbrooks company. Trying to keep up with the times, Thomas rushes into speculation, but, not possessing the qualities necessary for a capitalist of the new formation, he is forced to give way to predatory businessmen like Hagenström.

Thomas's death has little aesthetic value. Leaving the office of an ignorant dentist, he dies in the street, falling face first into the mud, which drenches his snow-white gloves and immaculate muffler.

From the writer’s point of view, the ugly and sudden death of Consul Buddenbrook is the completion of the internal process of decay to which his class, the class of the German patriarchal burghers, was doomed.

Thomas Mann perceives the death of the ancient burgher culture as the physical and spiritual degradation of the descendants of the patrician bourgeoisie. This degradation leads to a weakening of the will, a loss of optimism in life and, ultimately, to inevitable death. Consul Thomas and his son Hanno become the bearers of death in the novel. A painfully sophisticated, fragile young man, an esthete, a musician, far from real life, Hanno is associated with decadence with all his external appearance and inner essence. The stamp of decadence also lies on the last chapters of the novel. If the first part of the family chronicle is characterized by a deliberately old-fashioned style of epic writing, then last chapters The second parts are distinguished by a different style: convulsive impetuosity, a combination of lyricism and musicality, painful psychologizing, subtle grace of language (http://bookz.ru.).

The novel “Buddenbrooks” was of enormous importance for the entire further development of the problems of Thomas Mann. It contains, like a focal point, those vital problems for Mann, which he would then begin to develop in short stories about artists and in the novel “The Magic Mountain.” Thus, the image of the musician, esthete Hanno is the first link in a long chain of Mann’s artists, refined, decadent natures, painfully experiencing the tragedy of loneliness in the world.

In creating an image of reality, Mann is, in fact, realistic. Anyone who has read “Buddenbrooks,” when asked whether he can recognize the streets and houses described by the author in the novel, will answer this question positively. The author himself attaches great importance to the impression of reality of the events described in the novel. For example, in the report, T. Mann recalls the words of one of his technical assistants in Munich: “Now I know how it all really happened!” T. Mann took this remark as a compliment. The idea of ​​completeness and objectivity of the reality depicted in T. Mann’s novels is also inherent in many researchers of his work. J. Bonke notes, for example, that “the accuracy of spatial and temporal characteristics in T. Mann ... is supported by psychological observations, minute-by-minute depictions of gestures, clothes, speech patterns and typical habits of the characters, careful study“environment”, the use of dialects...” The researcher emphasizes precisely the minuteness, thoroughness of the image, its, so to speak, naturalism (Kalashnikov 2000:29).

Lübeck's old town is located on an island, with several bridges leading there. Perhaps the most famous of them is the bridge in front of the Holstentor Gate. The two massive gate towers, built in the 15th century, have become the symbol of Lübeck. The old town in Lübeck is extremely complete, without any modern inserts, and all made of red brick.

Lubeck also has non-medieval attractions. More precisely, one main attraction is the Buddenbrooks House from Thomas Mann's famous novel "Buddenbrooks", which was actually the family home of Heinrich and Thomas Mann. It is now the Mann Family Museum.

For example, let's look at the image of a landscape room. In the spatial structure of the novel, landscape plays exclusively important role: after all, “according to the established order, the Buddenbrooks gathered together every second Thursday” right here. Here they received guests, gave dinner parties, etc. The landscape room is thus the room where the idle life of the heroes takes place, devoid of the rigor and expediency to which their working, everyday life, the life of politicians and businessmen, should be subordinated. From the point of view of the completeness and reliability of the plot depiction of the events of the novel, the presentation of the characters’ characters, it would be logical to assume that the text of the novel contains equally detailed descriptions of those rooms in which the heroes work or spend hours of solitude. However, this is precisely what does not happen. In the text of the novel we find only references to the existence of office premises and private chambers of the heroes. From a quantitative point of view, the images of these premises are quite widely represented in the text, but in the absence of their more detailed description, they remain for the reader a kind of only marking signs of reality, a kind of mask, an external plan, the content of which is hidden and unclear. Office spaces and bedrooms are intentionally overlooked spaces.

An analysis of the plot of the novel also reveals the fact that the vast majority of events that are the key plot points of the story take place in the landscape room. The fateful visit of Grünlich for Tony Buddenbrook, who sought her hand and heart, the revolutionary unrest of October 1848, and finally, the death of the old consul Johann Buddenbrook - all these important events The heroes of the novel experience it in this room. The rest of the space of the house (for example, office premises or bedrooms) is, as it were, pushed aside from the main axis of the plot development of the narrative, deprived of its independent meaning: Consul Buddenbrook even experiences the presence of his wife Elizabeth and newborn daughter from the room adjacent to the landscape room - the dining room, which forms a functional space in the novel. semantic as well as spatial unity with the landscape. The impression of impenetrability, unpreparedness for self-revelation of the repressed space of the private life of the heroes is strengthened in the novel by the introduction of the motif of curtains, which always separate, for example, the heroes’ bedroom from the outside world: “Johann Buddenbrook ... quietly rocked a cradle with green silk curtains, pushed almost close to the high bed under the canopy, on which the consul was lying”; “The green curtains on the open windows in Mrs. Grünlich’s bedroom fluttered slightly from easy breathing clear July night”, “the walls of this room were upholstered in dark fabric in large colors... Light barely penetrated through the closed curtains”, etc. From the point of view of understanding the plot material, these spaces turn out to be closed to the reader; by themselves, they do not tell us anything new either about the characters or about the events that happen to them. They are an objective image of reality, which the artist, according to Mann, is called upon to subject to “subjective deepening” (Kalashnikov 2000:34).

As the narrative acquires more and more realistic details (new characters appear, old ones leave, the narrative space associated with the family’s acquisition of a new house even partially changes), the symbolic content that organizes them into a certain semantic unity - unity - deepens. catastrophes, family deaths. The landscape image gradually acquires the ability to reorganize the meaning of the events depicted in the novel and predetermine the course of their development.

"Buddenbrooks" is a work that raises large social issues, giving a vivid and truthful picture of the historical development of the bourgeoisie as a class from the 18th to the end of the 19th century. This is a novel about 4 generations of a bourgeois family. The materials in this book are inspired by the history of the Mann family. The gradual destruction of the Buddenbrooks' material well-being, from generation to generation, is combined with their spiritual impoverishment.

From generation to generation, the spiritual strength of the family dries up. The rudely good-natured founders of the dynasty are finally replaced by refined neuropathic creatures, whose fear of life kills their activity, making them inevitable victims of history.

Thomas Mann perceives the death of the ancient burgher culture as the physical and spiritual degradation of the descendants of the patrician bourgeoisie. This degradation leads to a weakening of the will, a loss of optimism in life and, ultimately, to inevitable death. Consul Thomas and his son Hanno become the bearers of death in the novel.

From a quantitative point of view, images of premises, which seem to be quite widely represented in the text, but in the absence of their more detailed description, they remain for the reader a kind of only marking signs of reality, a kind of mask, an external plan, the content of which is hidden and unclear. Office spaces and bedrooms are intentionally overlooked spaces. The space of the house is, as it were, pushed aside from the main axis of the plot development of the narrative, deprived of its independent meaning. But this only intensifies general impression realism.

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Novel "Buddenbrooks" (1901)

The work contains many genre characteristics reminiscent of a family chronicle: the story of several (four) generations of one family is told, the history of all of Germany for more than a century is depicted, biographical moments are reflected (Mann’s family even objected to the publication), and a leisurely epic narrative style prevails. At the same time, “Buddenbrooks” is not only a chronicle of the family and burghers in general, but also of the cultural turning point in Germany at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. To put it very briefly, the essence of this turning point is that stability and confidence are replaced by instability and anxiety. The spirit of business, calculation, and clear moral guidelines is being replaced by spirit of music - philosophical doubt about the meaning of life, interest in art, the invasion of a whirlwind of passions and at the same time despondency, sadness, dissatisfaction, vague impulses and dreams. It is not for nothing that Hanno, the last representative of the Buddenbrooks, a born musician, unable to conduct the affairs of the company, leaves the world at the age of only fifteen years. The apparent cause of his death is typhus, but Thomas Mann notes at the end of the story that he did not die of typhus, but because he did not answer the call of life.

The first generation (Johann the elder) and the second (Johann the younger) were still quite viable, physically healthy and morally stable. They died in old age from illnesses - it was a natural death. The turning point begins with the third generation (Thomas, Tony, Clara, Christian). And it is no coincidence that it is they who fall into the spotlight of the author and become the main characters of the story. Christian Buddenbrook is not interested in the affairs of the company, but in the theater; chooses a girl from outside his circle as his wife and, in fact, goes beyond the family; in addition, he is mentally unbalanced, obsessed with various phobias and manias. Toni is one of the most charming images, but she is also a representative of a new time, which bears the stamp of destruction: she is unlucky in her personal life, she is unhappy in love. Although Tony, more than many others, is aware of his duty to his family and tries to fulfill it. Clara is too correct and rather colorless; having married a priest, she determines her fate for the rest of her days - and happily disappears from view. The most interesting is Thomas Buddenbrook. The author put a lot of personal things into this image. Thomas has to be stoic: the company's business is going badly, and he is making enormous efforts to improve it. But not everything depends on him. New times and new people have come - these are the Haggenströmms, clever, unscrupulous businessmen who, for the sake of money, go to any deal and any speculation. Thomas is unhappy in his marriage: his wife Gerda lives in the world of music and has little interest in her husband's life; he feels lonely in his family. His son Hanno also does not live up to expectations; he probably will not go into business; from his mother he inherited detachment from everyday life and a passion for art.

Along with physical decline, late Buddenbrooks experience spiritual elevation: They are more interested in culture than their ancestors, think about death and search for the meaning of life. So Thomas buys a book from a second-hand bookseller (and this is a chapter on death from Arthur Schopenhauer’s famous work “The World as Will and Idea”), which changes his previous ideas and strangely calms him down. Schopenhauer convinces him that the essence of life is suffering, so it is pointless to seek happiness here. And after death we will get rid of suffering, since we will get rid of our individuality and unite with the world Will. Thomas dies stupidly, absurdly (“from a tooth”), right on the street, falling face first into a dirty puddle. His death is not like the death of a philosopher, and Schopenhauer does not have the last word.

In the finale of the novel we see the female representatives of the Buddenbrooks family: all the men (including young Hanno) are dead. However, faith and hope have not died; they are heard in the mouth of the “hunchbacked prophetess” Zezemi Weichbrodt, who is sure that after death each of us will meet with those we loved. This does not mean that this is precisely the point of view of Thomas Mann himself, but it is important that it is heard here, and at the very end of the story.

MATERIALS KSH E S T O M UZ A N Y T I

From Friedrich Nietzsche's "The Birth of Tragedy"

“What if the Greeks, precisely in the wealth of their youth, possessed the will to the tragic and were they pessimists? What if it was madness, to use Plato’s word, that brought Hellas largest blessings? And what if, on the other hand and vice versa, the Greeks, precisely at the time of their collapse and weakness, became more and more optimistic, superficial, more and more infected with acting, and also more and more ardently strived for logic and logicalization of the world, i.e. were at the same time “more joyful” and “more scientific”? What if, in spite of all the “modern ideas” and prejudices of democratic taste, victory optimism, coming forward dominance reasonableness, practical and theoretical utilitarianism, and democracy itself, contemporary with him, represent, perhaps, only a symptom of declining strength, approaching physiological fatigue?

“And morality itself - what if it is the “will to deny life”, the hidden instinct of destruction, the principle of decline, humiliation, slander, the beginning of the end? And therefore, the danger of dangers?.. So, he turned against morality then, with this dubious book, my instinct, as an intercessory instinct of life, and invented for myself a fundamentally opposite teaching and an opposite assessment of life, purely artistic, anti-Christian... I christened her with the name of one of the Greek gods: I named her Dionysian."

From the main part of the book -

“With their two deities of the arts, Apollo and Dionysus, is connected our knowledge of the enormous opposition in origin and purpose that we meet in Greek world between the art of plastic images - Apollonian - and the non-plastic art of music - the art of Dionysus; these two so different aspirations act side by side with each other...”

“To understand both of these aspirations, let us first imagine them as disconnected artistic worlds dreams And intoxication" In Apollo " full feeling measures, self-restraint, freedom from wild impulses, the wise peace of God - the creator of images." In Apollo, “all the great joy and wisdom of illusion, together with all its beauty,” speaks to us.

In Dionysian, “the subjective disappears to the point of complete self-forgetfulness.” “The reality of intoxication pays no attention to individual person, but rather seeks to destroy the individual and liberate him with a mystical sense of unity.”

“The Apollonian consciousness is only a veil hiding the Dionysian world.”

“...the chorus of satyrs reflects existence with greater completeness, reality and truth than a cultured person who usually imagines himself to be the only reality.”

“... the Dionysian Greek seeks truth and nature in its highest power - he feels enchanted into a satyr.”

«… mystery teaching of tragedy- the basic knowledge of the unity of everything that exists, a view of individuation as the original cause of evil, and art - as a joyful hope for the possibility of breaking the spell of individuation, as a premonition of a newly restored unity.”

“It will be enough to imagine all the consequences of Socrates’ propositions: “virtue is knowledge,” “one sins only through ignorance,” “the virtuous is also happy”—the death of tragedy lies in these three basic forms of optimism.”

“Optimistic dialectics drives with the scourge of its syllogisms music from tragedy, i.e. destroys the essence of tragedy."

“Socrates is the prototype of theoretical optimism, which, based on the above-mentioned belief in the knowability of the nature of things, ascribes to knowledge and knowledge the power of a universal remedy, and sees evil as such in error.”

“For music... differs from all other arts in that it is not a reflection of a phenomenon or, rather, of the adequate objectivity of the will, but a direct image of the will itself and therefore represents, in relation to every physical principle of the world, a metaphysical principle, and to every phenomenon a thing in itself. Accordingly, the world could with equal right be called both embodied music and embodied will.”

“...only as an aesthetic phenomenon do existence and the world seem justified.”

“Music and tragic myth are equally the expression of the Dionysian ability of the people and are inseparable from each other.”

From Thomas Mann's article "Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Light of Our Experience"

“Developing in line with Schopenhauer’s philosophy, remaining a student of Schopenhauer even after an ideological break with him, Nietzsche throughout his life essentially only varied, developed and tirelessly repeated one and only, the thought present everywhere in his mind...

What kind of thought is this?... Here are its elements: life, culture, consciousness or knowledge, art, aristocracy, morality, instinct... The dominant concept in this complex of ideas is the concept culture. It is almost equal in rights to life: culture is everything that exists in the life of an aristocrat; Art and instinct are closely connected with it, they are the sources of culture, its indispensable condition; consciousness and knowledge, science and, finally, morality act as the mortal enemies of culture and life - morality, which, being the guardian of truth, thereby kills all living things in life, for life is largely based on appearance, art, self-deception, hope, illusions, and everything that lives is brought to life by delusion.”

“Science is declared an enemy, because it does not see and does not know anything except becoming, except historical process... And therefore life under the rule of science is much less worthy of the name of life than life subordinate not to science, but to instinct and powerful illusions».

Nietzsche's moral criticism, according to Mann, lies not only in his personal preferences, but also in the peculiarities of the era. Mann compares Nietzsche to Oscar Wilde, finding many similarities between them.

“It seems to me that Nietzsche’s philosophy was most perniciously, even fatally influenced by two misconceptions. The first of them is that he decisively and, one must assume, deliberately distorted the real relationship of forces existing in this world between instinct and intellect, portraying the matter in such a way that it was as if the terrible times of the dominance of intellect had already arrived and it was necessary to save before it was too late instincts from him... Has the world ever been in the slightest danger of perishing from an excess of reason?..

Nietzsche's second error is that he treats life and morality as two opposites and thus completely distorts their true relationship. Meanwhile, morality and life are a single whole. Ethics is the support of life, and a moral person is a true citizen of life... The contradiction in reality does not exist between life and ethics, but between ethics and aesthetics."

“Before us is the story of Hamlet, the tragic fate of a man for whom his knowledge was not up to the task.”

“Nietzsche’s aestheticism is a frantic denial of everything spiritual in the name of a beautiful, powerful, shameless life...”

Excerpts from Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice"

Description of a random passer-by who gave Aschenbach a desire to wander - “Medium height, skinny, beardless and very snub-nosed, this man belonged to the red-haired type with his characteristic milky-white freckled skin. His appearance was by no means Bavarian, and the wide-brimmed bast hat that covered his head gave him the appearance of a foreigner, a stranger from distant lands... Raising his head so that his Adam's apple was clearly and sharply visible on his thin neck, sticking out from the turn-down collar of his sports shirt, he looked into the distance with his whitish eyes with red eyelashes, between which, in strange correspondence with his upturned nose. There were two vertical energy folds. In his pose - perhaps this was facilitated by his elevated and elevating location - there was something arrogantly contemplative, bold, even wild. And either he made a grimace, blinded by the setting sun, or his face was generally characterized by a certain strangeness, only his lips seemed too short, drawn up and down to such an extent that they exposed his gums, from which long white teeth protruded... Aschenbach, to his surprise, suddenly felt how incredibly his soul expanded; an inexplicable longing took possession of him, a youthful thirst for change of place, a feeling so alive, so new... that he froze in place...”

“But his favorite word was “hold out” - and in his novel about Frederick of Prussia, he saw first of all the apotheosis of this command word, which, in his opinion, personified the essence and meaning of heroic stoicism.”

“After all, perseverance in the face of fate, good behavior in torment mean not only passion-suffering; it is an active action, a positive triumph, and Saint Sebastian is a most beautiful symbol, if not of art in general. That, of course, is the art we are talking about. It is worth looking into this world... and we will see: graceful self-control, until the last breath hiding from human eyes its inner emptiness, its biological decay; a physically damaged yellow monstrosity that can fan its smoldering heat into a pure flame and ascend to full power in the kingdom of beauty; pale weakness, drawing its strength from the burning depths of the spirit and capable of plunging an entire arrogant people to the foot of the cross, to its own foot; a pleasant manner with an empty but strict service of form; a false life full of dangers, destructive melancholy and the art of a natural deceiver.

Anyone who looked closely at these and similar destinies could not help but doubt whether there was any other heroism in the world other than the heroism of the weak.”

“He didn’t know exactly where he was being drawn, and the question “so where?” remained open for him."

“Who has not experienced instant trepidation, secret timidity and mental embarrassment when boarding a Venetian gondola for the first time or after a long break? An amazing little boat, passed down to us without the slightest change from fabulous times, and so black, like coffins of all things in the world - it reminds us of silent and criminal adventures in the quietly splashing night, but even more of death, of the ditch, funeral service and the last silent journey."

“The boy entered the glass door and, in the midst of complete silence, crossed the hall obliquely... Aschenbach, seeing his clear profile, was again amazed and even frightened by the god-like beauty of this youth... from this collar... in incomparable beauty grew the flower of his head - the head of Eros in the yellowish shimmer of Parian marble , - with thin, stern eyebrows, with a transparent shadow on the temples, with ears covered with soft waves of curls falling at right angles.”

“The atmosphere of the city, the rotten smell of the sea and swamp that drove him away, he now inhaled slowly, with tenderness and pain.”

“His brain and heart were drunk. He walked forward, obeying the instructions of the demon, who knows no better fun than to trample underfoot the mind and dignity of a person.”

From Thomas Mann's novel Buddenbrooks

“The guests and hosts sat on heavy chairs with high backs, ate heavy, good food with heavy silver forks, washed it down with thick, good wine and slowly exchanged words.”

The precepts of old Johann - “My son, eagerly begin your daily tasks, but take on only those that will not disturb your peace at night.”

About Tony Buddenbrook - “She perfectly understood her responsibilities towards the family and the company, moreover, she was proud of them... Her purpose was to, by entering into a profitable and worthy marriage, contribute to the brilliance of the family and the company.”

Toni's explanation with her father after receiving the news of Grünlich's bankruptcy -

“... for my part, I must openly admit that the step that four years ago seemed so good and reasonable to me now seems to me to be wrong... But you don’t blame me, do you?

Of course not, dad! And why are you saying that? You're taking all this too much to heart, my poor daddy... you've turned pale!.. I'll run upstairs and bring you some stomach drops. “She threw her arms around her father’s neck and kissed him on both cheeks.”

“...Tony had the happy gift of quickly and inspiredly, rejoicing from the heart in novelty, adapting to any change in life.”

“The Christian is too busy with himself, too listening to what is happening inside him.”

“...Thomas Buddenbrook began to think, delve into himself, test his attitude towards death, towards the other world. And as soon as he made this attempt, he realized the hopeless immaturity and unpreparedness of his soul for death.

Ritual faith, sentimental traditional Christianity... was always alien to Thomas Buddenbrook; all his life he regarded the beginnings and ends of things with the secular skepticism of his grandfather. But, being a man of deeper needs, a more flexible mind and gravitating toward metaphysics, he could not be satisfied with the superficial love of life of old Johann Buddenbrook.”

Thomas Buddenbrook about Schopenhauer's book “The World as Will and Idea” - “An unknown feeling of joy, great and grateful, took possession of him. He experienced incomparable satisfaction when he learned how this powerful mind had conquered life, an imperious, evil, mocking life - conquered in order to condemn. It was the satisfaction of a sufferer, still bashful, like a man with a bad conscience, hiding his suffering in the face of the cold cruelty of life, a sufferer who, from the hands of a great sage, suddenly received the solemnly justified right to suffer in this world...

What is death? The answer to this question did not appear to him in pitiful, imaginary words: he felt it, this answer, internally possessed it. Death is a happiness so deep that it can even be measured only in moments overshadowed, as now, by grace. She is a return after an unspeakably painful journey, the correction of a grave mistake, liberation from vile bonds and shackles. She will come - and the whole fateful combination of circumstances will be as if it had happened.

End and collapse? Pity is the one who is afraid of these insignificant concepts! What will end and What will it fall apart? This is his body... His personality, his individuality, this is ponderous, difficult to move, erroneous and hateful an obstacle to becoming something different, something better!

Isn't every person a mistake, the fruit of a misunderstanding? Doesn't he end up in prison as soon as he's born? Jail! Jail! There are shackles and walls everywhere! Through the barred windows of his individuality, a person looks hopelessly at the ramparts of external circumstances, until death calls him to return to his homeland, to freedom...

Individuality!.. Ah, what we are. What we can and what we have seems pitiful, gray, insufficient and boring to us; and at what is not us, at what we cannot, what we do not have, we look with melancholy envy, which is called love. - at least out of fear of becoming hatred...

Organism! Blind, thoughtless, pathetic flash of struggling will! Really, it would be better for this will to soar freely in the night, not limited by space and time, than to languish in a prison, poorly lit by the flickering, trembling light of the intellect!

I hoped to continue life in my son? In a personality even more timid, weak, unstable? Childishness, stupidity and extravagance! What is my son to me? I don't need any son! ..Where will I be when I die? I will be in everyone who has ever said, is saying or will say “I”; and above all in those who say this “I” stronger, more joyfully...

Somewhere in the world a young man is growing up, talented, endowed with everything needed for life, capable of developing his inclinations, stately, not knowing sadness, pure, cruel, cheerful - one of those whose personality makes the happy even happier, and destroys the unhappy in despair - this is my son! It's me soon, soon - as soon as death frees me from the pathetic, insane delusion that I am not so much he as I am...”

The ending of the novel (female representatives of the Buddenbrooks family remember the departed dear people) - “Ah, there are moments when nothing consoles me, when - Lord, forgive me, a sinner! - you begin to doubt justice, goodness... everything. Life breaks many things in us, even our faith... Meeting! Oh, if only this could come true!

But then Zezemi Weichbrodt soared over the table. She stood on her tiptoes, craned her neck and banged her fist so that the cap shook on her head.

It will come true! - she said at the top of her voice and looked defiantly at her interlocutors.

So she stood - the winner in a righteous dispute, which she waged all her life with the sober arguments of her mind, experienced in the sciences - a tiny, trembling with conviction, inspired hunchbacked prophetess.

About the work of Thomas Mann

From the Preface to the collected works of T. Mann in 10 volumes

(Moscow, GIHL, 1959) / ed. Boris Suchkov

“He felt himself the heir to the great humanistic tradition nurtured by Goethe and Schiller, and - at the same time - a triad of names stood above his spiritual horizon - Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wagner...”

“Thomas Mann's prose has a clearly expressed analytical character. Artistic image arises in him as a generalization of what is conscious, is born on soil already deeply plowed by the work of thought. Mann is primarily a thinking writer, for whom the intellect is always a guide in wandering through the unknown labyrinths of life.”

About the novel “Buddenbrooks” - “The atmosphere of the novel is permeated by a gloomy melancholy, brought into it not only by the experience of life. Thomas Mann repeatedly pointed out that he received the “right to pessimism” from Schopenhauer, whose admirer he was. But it was a dangerous right.”

“A sober mind and a sense of reality saved Thomas Mann from deifying the Buddenbrooks, but the pessimistic concept of existence as a process of dying rather than development, which he borrowed from Schopenhauer, forces him to give the passing fact of history - the death of the bourgeois class - the features of some kind of cosmic catastrophe.”

“In short stories, Thomas Mann appears primarily as an epic artist. He deliberately neglects the main genre feature of the short story - plot - and builds it on a different basis - on a detailed description of the characters characters, upon opening them internal drama- a consequence of discord with life, the cruelty and inhumanity of which is hidden behind the colorless prosaicness of bourgeois existence.”

“The non-bourgeois nature of the heroes of his short stories manifests itself in an extremely paradoxical form. They are separated from ordinary people or the curse of talent or illness... The idea that illness brings liberation from dull everyday life, Mann borrowed from Nietzsche.”

About the short story “Death in Venice” - “Thomas Mann likens Aschenbach and people of his type to Saint Sebastian, who by the power of faith and conviction overcomes the torment of torture.”

From an article by T.L. Motyleva “Thomas Mann (before 1918)” (“History of German Literature” in five volumes.

Publishing house "Science", Moscow, 1968, T.4).

“The comparison and conflict of two socio-psychological types - the “burgher” and the “artist” - run through the entire work of Thomas Mann.”

“Buddenbrooks are burghers. Thomas Mann always put a very serious, not only social, but, perhaps, philosophical meaning into this concept. The burgher, according to the writer, is not just an owner, but also a bearer of certain, very valuable traditions of German culture, the color and foundation of the nation. T. Mann associates with this concept the idea of ​​impeccable honesty, the strength of family and moral principles, hard work, a sense of duty... The term “burgher” is not associated in his mind with either greed, predation, or obscurantism... The concept of “burger” for Thomas Mann was a positive concept."

“The decline of the family is interpreted to a certain extent as the effect of fatal hereditary doom.”

“Pictures of family celebrations form key points in the plot of the novel, and the “secret crack” that is revealed each time gives these episodes a taste of haunting bitterness. Thus, the very plot of the novel reveals the fragility of the foundations on which the happiness and power of the Buddenbrooks are based. The theme of decline, which unfolds especially in the second half of the novel, is prepared, in essence, by the entire development of the action.”

“Thomas Mann has repeatedly noted his penchant for leitmotifs. They are for him not just a means of characterizing characters, but also something more significant: they are an integral element of his artistic style. In “Buddenbrooks” we find an exceptional abundance of portrait and speech leitmotifs.”

About the short story “Death in Venice” - its construction - “increasing psychological tension and an unexpected denouement-catastrophe, revealing the hidden tragedy human destinies and relationships... A painstaking analysis of the hero’s irrational, vicious feelings partly brings Thomas Mann’s novel closer to the literature of decadence. But the main thrust of the novella is sharply hostile to decadence.”

Questions for discussion

Why does Nietzsche hate Socrates? What is Thomas Mann's attitude towards Socrates?

Nietzsche's aestheticism and Thomas Mann's aestheticism. Are there any similarities?

What is Thomas Mann’s attitude to Christian values ​​(based on the example of the story “Death in Venice” and the novel “Buddenbrooks”)

Why did Gustav Aschenbach die?

Why is the third generation of Buddenbrooks chosen as the main characters in the novel Buddenbrooks?

Current aspects of the topic (for term papers and dissertations)

Dialogues of Socrates and the dialogism of Thomas Mann's works

Oscar Wilde as one of the prototypes of the hero of the story “Death in Venice” by Gustav von Aschenbach

The city as a symbol (Death in Venice by Thomas Mann)

The theme of antiquity in Thomas Mann's story "Death in Venice"

The theme of music and youth in Thomas Mann's novel "Buddenbrooks"

Apollonian and Dionysian in Thomas Mann's story "Death in Venice"

Key words for this lesson: APOLLONISTIC, DIONYSIAN, SOCRATIC, DEMONIC, DEATH, BEAUTY, ART, SYMBOLICS, VENICE, SCHOPENHAUER, NIETZSCHE, FAMILY CHRONICLE, BURGERSHIP,

L I T E R A T U R A

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The birth of tragedy from the spirit of music. St. Petersburg, “Azbuka”, 2000.

Sokolov B.G. “Passion” according to Nietzsche // ibid., pp. 5 – 30.

Mann, Thomas. Nietzsche's philosophy in the light of our experience // Mann, Thomas. Collection Op. in 10 volumes. Moscow, GIHL, 1959. T.10.

Mann, Thomas. Buddenbrooks // ibid., T.1.

Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice // ibid., T.7.

Suchkov B. Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955) // ibid., T.1. P.5 - 62.

Motyleva T.L. Thomas Mann (before 1918) // History of German literature in 5 volumes, M., “Science”, 1968. Vol.4. P.477 – 495.

Kurginyan M. Novels of Thomas Mann. Forms and method. M., “Higher School”, 1967.

XX century. And suddenly... literature? - -Already in the phrase “entertaining” literature" ...