The tradition of family romance in Western European literature at the beginning of the 20th century (based on the novel by Thomas Mann "Buddenbrooks"). Family and main characters of the novel

"Buddenbrooks". In 1901, a work appeared in Germany, which, in all the necessary parameters, corresponded to the type of those works that were needed. These are Buddenbrooks. This writer was the young Thomas Mann, who was 25 years old. It was his second major publication, and this novel immediately made him famous. But at the age of 25, becoming a national genius is psychologically early, a big burden. And with the knowledge that he National genius. Thomas Mann lived the rest of his life, nothing prevented him from writing wonderful works. His relationship with his brother Heinrich Mann was complicated. Thomas had a rather talented son Klaus Mann, he is the author of a rather interesting novel ... (?), which was filmed. The views and positions of the life of the two brothers (Heinrich lived longer) differed on many points. I mention the name of Heinrich Mann because Thomas and Heinrich belonged to a generation of writers in a difficult time for Germany, life was difficult. because Germany throughout the 2nd half of the 19th century was in stagnation (Small Principalities), in literature - also stagnation. This fragmentation, of course, hinders the development of Germany very much: both economic and cultural. And therefore, already in the 20th century, the new generation had to solve the same problem: to look for some principles, parameters for restoring the level of German literature (17-19 centuries). After the Romantics, German literature was moving into a temporary decline, and the young people were faced with the task of restoring the reputation of German literature. Consequently, here, too, the situation is when a person enters a creative life, begins to write, the first thing he does is he begins to comprehend what is happening around him, what is the literary situation, "which path he should choose. And this one rationalistic approach typical for Galsworthy, Rolland, was in the highest degree in the young Mann.

There was another historical moment here: from the mid-70s of the 19th century, Germany began to gather into a single country, a new stage in the development of the state - a single state was formed, the development of the empire began. And the whole ego is pretty much stimulating too. That is, the emergence of a new generation of writers is connected with this. But the first step that they took - this is an understanding of this situation and the desire to restore the reputation of German literature, to give it the brilliance that it had at the beginning of the 19th century - leads to the fact that German writers begin to imitate and look for guidelines for creativity outside the national tradition. If a Heinrich Mann chose as an ideal and example for himself Balzac and the traditions of French literature (G. Mann's interest in France was constant), and his first novels were generally built on the model of Balzac's storytelling, then Thomas Mann found a landmark for himself again in Russian literature. He was attracted by the scale of the narrative, the psychological depth of the study, but at the same time the still gloomy German genius T. Mann was fascinated by the ability, the desire of Russian literature to get to what was seen as roots of life our desire to know life in all fundamental principles. This is characteristic of both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

At the same time, Thomas Mann was a man of his time in a nationally specific situation. Why is Buddenbrooks so popular? Because the readers who opened this novel when it was published found in it an exploration of the main tendencies of national life. "Buddenbrooks" is a work that is also distinguished by its large-scale coverage of reality, and the life of heroes, Buddenbrooks, is part of the life of the country. It's the same family history, the same epic novel, before us a story about the life of 4 generations of the Buddenbrook family. These are burghers from the city of Lübeck, a fairly wealthy family, and the time of the novel is most of the 19th century. Thomas Mann uses in the narrative some data and the realities of the life of his family, who also came from the city of Lübeck. This is a Hansel (?) city, a big city. There was an economic union of independent cities (Lübeck, Hamburg) - these were coastal, since the Middle Ages, free cities that did not belong to the dukes, which were controlled by the Senates, elected Councils, where the 3rd estate (burghers) felt like the 1st estate, the strongest. The free burghers of the free cities entered into this trade union, traded among themselves all over the world, and the position and self-consciousness of the burgher in many ways resembled the self-consciousness of a nobleman. The very essence of the nobility, its attitude to the world is a feeling, knowledge of one's kind, one's roots, traditions, continuity of one's kind. The family nobility is a series of generations who knew about each other, the descendants knew the ancestors of a certain tribe (Pushkin's "My Genealogy" is about this, there is continuity, behind him there is the time of his family). In the case of the Manns, they are the descendants of this kind of free burghers, they carry this feeling of belonging to the family. But in the case of the Manns, this tradition of the clan was very abruptly cut off; their father married the daughter of his companion, and when he died, the mother (their stepmother) of 2 more daughters decided that her sons would do anything but trade. She sold the company, her sons were prepared in a modern way, for a different life, they were oriented towards writing books, they were taken to Italy, to France from childhood. We will find all these biographical details in Buddenbrooks. The Manns received an excellent education.

Thomas Mann brought all this material about his family, including the situation with his brothers and sisters, into this novel in the 3rd generation, but this material is undergoing changes in interpretation, something is being added to it. Each representative of the Buddenbrook family is a representative of his time: he carries his time in himself, and somehow tries to build his life in this time. Old Johann Buddenbrock is a typical representative of a turbulent time, a man of rare intelligence, very energetic, accepted the firm. And the son? is a product of the holy union era, a man who can only keep what his father did. It does not have such inner strength, but there is a commitment to the foundations. And finally, the 3rd generation. He is given more attention in the novel: Thomas Buddenbrook becomes the central figure. It falls to the lot of Thomas and his brothers and sisters that period of time when these cardinal changes begin to occur in German life. The family and the firm must cope with these changes, and it turns out that this adherence to traditions, this conscious burgherness of the Buddenbrooks is already becoming a kind of brake. Buddenbrookn is more decent, perhaps, than speculators, they cannot quickly use new forms of relations that arise in the market. The same is true within the family. adherence to tradition is the source of endless drama, which absorbed the burgher spirit. And from which side we look at the life of the Buddenbrooks of the 3rd generation - they turn out to be out of time, somehow conflict with time, with the situation, and this leads to the decline of the family. The result of Ganno's communication with other children is painful for him: his favorite place of life is under the piano in his mother's living room, where he can listen to the music she plays, such a closed life. (The last representative of the Buddenbrooks is the son of Thomas, little Ganno, this weak boy falls ill and dies.) Full title of the novel"Buddenbrooks, or the history of the life of one family."

This book is an analysis of the family chronicle, one of the first seed chronicles the impact of the change of epochs on the fate of people. And this was after a long break in German literature, the first work of such a scale, such a level, such a depth of analysis. Therefore, Thomas Mann became a genius at the age of 25.

But gradually, when the first impressions and enthusiasm subsided, it began to emerge that this book has second bottom, second level. On the one hand, this socio-historical chronicle telling about the life of Germany in the 19th century. On the other hand, this work is built with other tasks. It was one of the first works of literature of the 20th century, designed for at least two reading levels. The second bottom, the second level is connected with the philosophical views of T. Mann, with the picture of the world that he creates for himself(Thomas Mann was interested in the highest level of comprehension of reality). If we look at the history of the Buddenbrook family from a different angle, we will see that some constants play an equally important role in their destinies as time and socio-historical changes. Mann's Buddenbrooks evolve from burghers to artists. Johann Buddenbrock Sr. is a 100% burgher. Ganno is a 100% artist.

For Mann, a burgher is not only a person of the 3rd estate, he is a person who is completely merged with the surrounding reality, living in an inseparable union with the outside world, devoid of what Thomas Mann denotes by the word "soul", but only not in the canonical sense of the word "soulless", but in the burgher there is absolutely no artistic principle according to T. Mann, but not in the sense that these people are illiterate, deaf to beauty. Old Johann is not only an educated man, but also lives by what he knows; but it's a man inextricably merged with the world in which he lives, who enjoys every minute of his existence, for him life in the physical plane is a great pleasure. All life plans. This is the type of people.

The opposite type are artists. This does not mean that these are people who paint pictures. This is the man who lives the life of the soul for him inner existence, spiritual life and the outer world appear to be separated from him by a severe high barrier. This is a person for whom contact with this outside world is painful, unacceptable.

Very often geniuses, creatively very gifted - they are artists. But not always. There are creative individuals with a burgher attitude. II there are inhabitants with an artist's attitude, as according to Thomas Mann. His first storybook(it is called after the name of one of the stories included in it) - "Little Mr. Friedeman". This little Mr. Friedeman is a typical philistine, but this little philistine With the soul of an artist who lives within himself, his life of the spirit, he is completely at the mercy of this artistic principle, although he does not produce any artistic activity, he produces only the impossibility of existing in this world, the feeling of the impossibility of contact with other people. That is, for Thomas Mann, these words "burgher" and "artist" have a very special meaning. And who is professionally engaged in what, whether he owns a company or not - it does not matter. Writes pictures or not - it does not matter. Showing this transformation, tragedy, T. Mann also explains the death of the Buddenbrook family as a process of accumulation of artistic qualities in the souls of the Buddenbrooks. which makes their existence in the surrounding reality more and more difficult, and then painful for them and deprives them of the opportunity to live. As for their professional hobbies, this does not play a special role here. Thomas is engaged in trade, he is elected to the Senate. And his brother leaves the family, declaring himself an artist in the truest sense of the word. The important thing is that they are both half "burgher" and "artist" in the Mannian sense of the word. And this half-heartedness does not allow any of them to accomplish anything in this life. The state of unstable equilibrium in which both Thomas and his brother find themselves becomes excruciating. On the one hand, Thomas is captured by books. But when reading them, something repels him - this is a burgher beginning. And going to the Senate, starting to deal with the affairs of the company, he cannot deal with them, since the artistic principle cannot stand all this. The throwing starts. Thomas married Gerda, a girl belonging to another world, he felt in her spirituality, artistic beginning. Nothing succeeded. Ganno's son lives in his mother's world, and this isolation from the world allows Ganno to exist within himself. T. Mann makes Ganno fall ill with typhus, a crisis sets in. It consists of 2 elements: on the one hand, it approaches the bottom point, but from the bottom point it can start falling down. And Thomas Mann confronts Ganno with a choice, the predestination of the book comes to the fore, since neither Balzac, nor Dickens, nor Galsworthy could afford such an arbitrary treatment. Ganno lies in bed in the bedroom, straw spread out in front of the windows so that the carriages do not rumble. He is very ill, and he suddenly sees a sunbeam breaking through the curtains, hears the muffled, but still noise of these carts along the street. “And at this moment, if a person listens to the sonorous, bright, slightly mocking call of the “voice of life”, if joy, love, energy, commitment to the motley and harsh hustle and bustle awaken in him again, he will turn back and live. But if the voice life will make one shudder with fear and disgust, if in response to this cheerful, defiant cry he only shakes his head and waves it away, then it is clear to everyone - he will die. And here is Ganno, as it were, in this situation. This is caused not by the disease itself, by the crisis, not by typhus itself, but by the fact that Ganno at some point becomes frightened when he hears this voice of life, he has a return to this bright, colorful, cruel reality - it is painful. He does not want to experience the touch of the surrounding being again, and then he dies, not because the disease is incurable.

If we look at what is behind this concept of burghers and artistry, we will see that Schopenhauer stands behind them, primarily with his concept of the world as will and representation. And indeed, T. Mann at that time was very interested in the philosophy of Schopenhauer. And hence this principle -- they renounce the principle of objective evolution. In these philosophies (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer) the opposite tendency appears - the search for absolute swings. The world is built on certain absolute principles, they are very different, but the principle is the same. According to Schopenhauer's system, there are two: will and representation. Will generates dynamics, and representation generates statics. And the opposition "artist - burgher" is, as it were, a derivative of Schopenhauer's idea. These are also some absolutes that characterize the inner quality of the human personality; they are not subject to time. Old Johann Buddenbrook is an absolute burgher, not because he lives in his time, but because he is. Ganno is an absolute artist because he is. It's just that the qualities inherent in the human soul do not change, but the situation shown by T. Mann is internal changes that can occur; can also occur in the opposite direction. Then after that he wrote a whole series of stories, how a simple burgher turns into an artist. This transformation can also take place: from a burgher to an artist, from an artist and a burgher, whatever you like, but these are some absolutes that are realized in the human soul either completely or relatively, but they exist.

That is, the system of the universe thus acquires a certain static character. And from this point of view, the novel "Buddenbrooks" acquires a completely different quality - it is not so much a socio-historical chronicle, This is a work in which some specific philosophical idea is realized. And therefore, from this point of view, it is tempting to call T. Mann's novel philosophical. But it cannot be called philosophical, since it is not a philosophical narrative. This is an intellectual novel (analysis of philosophical ideas).

This is about the literary side. As for the place of this novel in the context of world literature, it is obvious that the Buddenbrooks they open a new stage in literary development not only with the type, form of narration, but also open the next page of world literature, which begins to consciously build itself on philosophical absolutes when creating its own picture of the world.

A group of writers appears, which bears the trait of the era of the end of the century, when the positivist, evolutionary approach is replaced in the philosophical understanding of the world by the process of searching, formulating some absolutes, some immovable principles that determine human existence. And on this ideological approach, a derivative of these philosophies, literature grows that creates such a picture of the world. This reflects yet another fundamental change, already of a purely historical-philosophical nature. A new wave of writers presents a different picture of the world. From this begins a new literary movement, which went down in history under the name

67. Genre and composition of the novel "Buddenbrooks" by T. Mann.
The novel ends with a chapter in which the old women - the remnants of the Buddenbrook family - mourn the death of the family. And the words of Christian consolation muttered by one of them sound like a powerless mockery of the inevitable law of life, the law of society, according to which the old is doomed to perish. If we recall that the novel begins with a scene of a solemn weekly evening, an image of Buddenbrook's "Thursday", when the whole large family gathered together, then the general composition of the novel will also be revealed.
At its beginning, the life of a family of many intertwined lines. This is a living portrait gallery, where the faces of old people, young people, children's faces flicker. T. Mann will tell about each of them in the course of the development of the novel, diligently tracing each of the individual lines and individual destinies in relation to the fate of the whole family. And at the end of the novel, we have a group of women in mourning, united by a common grief. None of them have a future, just as the deceased Buddenbrook family does not.
The revolutionary events of 1848 are consecrated in the novel not without irony. But it refers not so much to the people who demand their rights from the masters, but to the form in which these demands are clothed: the working people, talking about their needs with the "fathers of the Lord", are still full of patriarchal respect for all these consuls and senators who , however, are pretty frightened by the possibility of revolutionary indignation in their city.
The novelty of T. Mann was dominated by conciseness, a concentrated image with a combination of major social problems and individual aspects of private life.

68. The system of images and symbolism of the novel "Buddenbrooks" by T. Mann.
"The story of the death of a family" - this is the subtitle of this novel. Its action is played out in one of those beautiful old houses about which T. Mann wrote so often.
Analyzing the process of impoverishment and decline of the burghers he loved as a natural and inevitable process, T. Mann created a realistic picture of German society from the first third of the 19th century to its end. The reader gets acquainted with four generations of Buddenbrooks. The elders gradually die, those who were the “middle generation” take their place, the younger ones grow up, their children, whose birth we learn in the course of the novel and whose fates go to the end of the novel.
In the eldest B. - Johann, who in 1813 darted in a carriage "train" through Germany, supplying food to the Prussian army, like his girlfriend "Antoinette B., nee Duchamp", the "good old" XVIII century is still alive. The writer speaks of this couple in a touching and loving way. T. Mann creates on the pages devoted to the older generation of B., a clearly idealized idea of ​​​​the patriarchal generation of the family and those who were the founder of its power.
The second generation is the son of the eldest B., "consul" Johann B. For all that he is a businessman, he is no longer like old B. It is not for nothing that he allows himself to condemn his free-thinking. “Papa, you are making fun of religion again,” he remarks about the very free quotation of the Bible with which old Johann amuses himself. And this well-intentioned remark is very characteristic: Consul B. not only lacks his own mind, inherent in his father, but also lacks his broad enterprise. "Patrician" by position in the burgher environment of his native city, he is already deprived of that aristocratic brilliance that his cheerful and cheerful father has. The prodigal son of the B. family, Gotthold, also belongs to the second generation. By marrying a bourgeois against his father's will, he violated B.'s aristocratic pretensions and broke an age-old tradition.
In the third generation - in the four children of the consul, in the sons Thomas and Christian, in the daughters - Tony and Clara - the beginning decline makes itself felt to a large extent. Close-minded, though highly appreciative of her origins, Tony, with all the external data that promises success in society, fails after failure. The features of Tony's frivolity are found in a much more pronounced degree in Christian, a talkative loser. Plus, he's sick. Taking advantage of his illness, in which, probably, T. Mann wanted to show a symptom of B.'s physical degeneration, his wife locks Christian in a mental hospital. Religious sentiments, to which the consul showed an inclination, turn into a religious mania for Clara. B.'s money is scattered in failed scams and unsuccessful marriages, goes to the side.
Only Thomas B. maintains the former glory of the family and even increases it by achieving the high rank of senator in the old city. But participation in commercial activities, maintaining the "case of B." is given to Thomas at the cost of the enormous effort he makes on himself. The activity, so loved by his grandfather and father, for Thomas often turns out to be a hateful webbing, an obstacle that does not allow him to devote himself to a different life - philosophy, reflection. Reading Schopenhauer, he often forgets about his duties as a businessman, a merchant.
These traits are exacerbated in Ganno B., the son of Thomas, representing the fourth generation of the family. All his feelings are given to music. In a small descendant of businessmen and merchants, an artist awakens, full of distrust of the reality around him, early noticing lies, hypocrisy, the power of conventions. But physical degeneration does its job, and when a serious illness falls on Ganno, his weak organism, undermined by illness, cannot resist it. The forces of destruction, the forces of decline are taking over.

A special place in the novel is occupied by Morten Schwarzkopf, an energetic commoner who dares to condemn the life of the German burghers in a conversation with Tony B.. Morten expresses the aspirations and traditions of the German radical intelligentsia of the middle of the last century. He is depicted by the author with obvious sympathy. If there is a drop of irony in his portrait, it is a friendly irony.
T. Mann was looking for ideals that he could oppose to the domination of the philistines. In those years, he found these ideals in art, in a life devoted to the service of beauty. Already in Buddenbrooks, T. Mann puts forward, next to the image of the little musician Ganno, the figure of his friend, Count Kai von Meln, a descendant of an impoverished northern family. Kai and Ganno were brought together by a passion for art. Count Meln prefers poetry, his favorite is Edgar Allan Poe. Together with Ganno, Kai formed a kind of opposition to other boys of his class, "who absorbed the warlike and victorious spirit of a rejuvenated homeland with their mother's milk."

69. The ratio of everyday life, psychologism and philosophy in the novel "Buddenbrooks".
The story of the death of the B. family is shown against a broad background of social and cultural life in Germany. Starting from the 30s of the 19th century - from the first "Thursday" that opens the narrative - and until the day of Hanno's funeral - this is the story of the rise of bourgeois Germany, vulgar, importunate, unscrupulous, the story of the death of everything that embodied German culture in T. Mann's understanding . Predators of Hagenstrem, speculators and suspicious businessmen replace decent, decent, impeccable B. The great historical events that shook Germany, however, remain beyond the writer's interest. For T. Mann, this is only an external manifestation of a complex and multilateral process that takes place in society and leads to the establishment of the power of the vulgar and merciless bourgeois.

The skill of T. Mann, who created a group of images traced in a complex living development, is especially evident in the structure of a literary portrait. The authenticity of the image is achieved by a harmonious combination of means used to describe the appearance of the character and reveal his inner life. The growing fatigue of Senator Thomas B. is felt especially acutely, as the writer speaks both of his physical withering and of painful moods clouding the ordinary train of thought. The further the vicissitudes of Tony B.'s unsuccessful family life unfold, the more ordinary and banal her appearance becomes, once attractive and poetic, the more vulgar her speech becomes; before the reader is no longer the patrician B., but the bourgeois Permaneder.

In the work of T. Mann, the image of an exceptional person is outlined, who discovered the world of art and therefore saved from the vulgarity and barbarism of philistine Germany. There is a theme of the artist, which was destined to play a big role in the work of the writer.
Philosopher: The decline of the family in the novel is not depicted in a naturalistic way - it is caused not by the influence of the environment, heredity, but by general patterns understood in terms of a certain philosopher. metaphysics, the sources of which are the teachings of A. Schopenhauer and, in part, F. Nietzsche. The movement of the burghers from a healthy life to illness takes on in Buddenbrooks not only disgusting and ridiculous forms (Christian), but also leads to greater spirituality, makes a person an artist (Thomas, Hanno).
Psychogism - revealing images
Life writing - in the details of life

70. Themes and poetics of the novel "Death in Venice" by Mann.
In T. Mann's early work, his mature realism is most fully anticipated by the short story "Death in Venice" (1912). It is in this short story that it is most noticeable how the relationship between the artist and life begins to mean much more than what they seem to contain. A pair of opposing and at the same time related concepts "art" - "life", as well as many other oppositions that constantly arise under the writer's pen: order - chaos, mind - an uncontrollable element of passions, health - illness, repeatedly highlighted from different sides, in the abundance of their possible positive and negative meanings, they eventually form a densely woven network of differently charged images and concepts, which “catches” much more reality than is expressed in the plot. The technique of Mann's writing, which first took shape in "Death in Venice", and then masterfully developed by him in the novels "Magic Mountain" and "Doctor Faustus", can be defined as writing with a second layer, on top of the written, on the primer of the plot. Only on a superficial reading can one perceive "Death in Venice" simply as a story about an aged writer suddenly seized with a passion for the beautiful Tadzio. This story means so much more. “I can’t forget the feeling of satisfaction, not to say happiness,” Thomas Mann wrote many years after the publication of this novel in 1912, “which sometimes overwhelmed me then while writing. Everything suddenly converged, everything linked, and the crystal was pure.
Mann creates an image of a writer-modernist, the author of "Insignificant", striking in artistry and power of exposure. Characteristically, Mann chose just such a title for Aschenbach's masterpiece. Aschenbach is the one who “cast his rejection of boegma, the muddy depths of being, into such exemplary pure forms, the one who resisted the temptation of the abyss and despised the contemptible.”
The protagonist of the novel, the writer Gustav Aschenbach, is an internally devastated person, but every day, by an effort of will and self-discipline, he encourages himself to hard, painstaking work. Aschenbach's endurance and self-control make him look like Thomas Buddenbrock. However, his stoicism, devoid of moral support, reveals its failure. In Venice, the writer falls under the irresistible power of a humiliating unnatural passion. Internal decay breaks through the fragile shell of endurance and integrity. But the theme of decay and chaos is connected not only with the protagonist of the novel. Cholera breaks out in Venice. A sweet smell of decay hangs over the city. The motionless outlines of beautiful palaces and cathedrals hide infection, disease and death. In this kind of "thematic" paintings and details, engraving "according to what has already been written" T. Mann achieved a unique, sophisticated skill.
The figure of the artist turns out to be an indispensable focus, capable of bringing internal and external processes to unity. Death in Venice is not only the death of Aschenbach, it is a revelry of death, which also means the catastrophic nature of all European reality on the eve of the First World War. It is not for nothing that the first sentence of the novel refers to "19.. the year, which for such long months gazed at our continent with a menacing eye...".
Art and artist theme- the main one in the short story "Death in Venice" (1912). In the center of the novel is a psychologically complex image of the decadent writer Gustav von Aschenbach. At the same time, it is wrong to believe that Aschenbach is almost the quintessence of decadent moods. Aschenbach casts in "exemplary pure forms his rejection of bohemia." For Aschenbach, positive values ​​are important, he wants to help himself and others. In the form of ch. ger. there are autobiographical features, for example, in the description of his life habits, features of work, a tendency to irony and doubt. Aschenbach is a renowned master who claims to be spiritual aristocracy, and selected pages from his writings are included in school anthologies.
On the pages of the novel, Aschenbach appears at the moment when he is overwhelmed by the blues. And hence - the need to run away, to find some peace. Aschenbach leaves Munich, the center of German art, and goes to Venice, "the world famous corner in the gentle south."
In Venice, Aschenbach stays at a luxurious hotel, but pleasant idleness does not save him from inner turmoil and longing, which caused a painful passion for the handsome boy Tadzio. Aschenbach begins to be ashamed of his old age, tries to rejuvenate with the help of cosmetic tricks. His self-esteem comes into conflict with dark attraction; nightmares and visions do not leave him. Aschenbach is even pleased with the cholera epidemic that has begun, plunging tourists and townspeople into panic. Pursuing Tadzio, Ashenbach forgets about precautions and falls ill with cholera ("there are stinky berries" - note Z.) Death overtakes him on the seashore when he cannot take his eyes off Tadzio.
At the end of the novel, a subtle sense of anxiety, something elusive and terrible, is poured.

71. Features of the structure of Hamsun's story "Hunger"

Attention - the question intersects with No. 72, because structural features are subject to the tasks of psychological analysis

In "Hunger" we see a breakdown of the usual genre form. This story was called "an epic in prose, the Odyssey of the starving." Hamsun himself said in his letters that "Hunger" is not a novel in the usual sense, and even suggested calling it a "series of analyzes" of the hero's state of mind. Many scholars believe that Hamsun's narrative style in The Hunger anticipates the "stream of consciousness" technique.

The artistic originality of the novel, which was based on Hamsun's personal experiences, primarily lies in the fact that the narration in it is completely subordinated to the tasks of psychological analysis.

Hamsun writes about a starving person, but unlike the authors who addressed this topic before him (among them, he names Hjellanna and Zola), he shifts the emphasis from the external to the internal, from the conditions of a person’s life to the “secrets and mysteries” of his soul. The object of the author's research is the split consciousness of the hero, his perception of the events for Hamsun is more important than the events themselves.

The hero rebels against the humiliating conditions of life, recreated in the spirit of Zola with terrifying naturalistic details, angrily attacks God, declaring the misfortunes that haunt him "the work of God", but never says that society is to blame for his desperate need.

72. Psychologism and symbolism of K. Hamsun's story "Hunger"

Aesthetic principles of Hamsun:

Hamsun proposed his own program for the renewal of national art. He criticized Russian literature mainly for the lack of psychological depth. “This materialistic literature was essentially more interested in morals than in people, and therefore in social issues more than in human souls.” “The thing is,” he emphasized, “that our literature followed the democratic principle and, leaving aside poetry and psychologism, was intended for people who were spiritually insufficiently developed.”

Rejecting art focused on the creation of "types" and "characters", Hamsun referred to the artistic experience of Dostoevsky and Strindberg. Hamsun said: “It is not enough for me to describe the sum of actions that my characters perform. I need to illuminate their souls, examine them from all points of view, penetrate into all their hiding places, examine them under a microscope.

Hunger

Having found himself at the very bottom, at every step faced with humiliation and ridicule, painfully injuring his vanity and pride, he still feels himself, thanks to the power of his imagination and talent, a higher being who does not need public compassion, He is surrounded by a world that is extremely narrowed by possibilities his personal perception.

Chaos reigns in this mysterious incomprehensible world, which has almost lost its real outlines, causing the hero a feeling of inner discomfort, which erupts in his uncontrolled associations, a sharp change of mood, spontaneous reactions and actions. The hero's rare spiritual susceptibility is further exacerbated by the "joyful madness of hunger", awakening in him "some strange, unprecedented sensations", "the most sophisticated thoughts".

The imagination bizarrely paints reality: a newspaper roll in the hands of an unfamiliar old man becomes “dangerous papers”, a young woman she likes becomes an unearthly beauty with an exotic name “Ilayali”. Even the sound of names should help create an image, Hamsun believed. The hero is carried away by his imagination into marvelous and beautiful dreams, only in dreams he indulges in an almost ecstatic feeling of the fullness of life, at least for a while forgetting about that gloomy disgusting world that encroaches on his spiritual freedom and where he feels himself, like the hero Camus, an outsider.

73. THE THEME OF LOVE AND ITS FIGURATIVE SOLUTION IN HAMSUN'S STORY "PAN"

Heroes:
thirty-year-old Lieutenant Thomas Glan
local rich merchant Mak s
daughter Edward and
doctor from the neighboring parish
Eva (allegedly the daughter of a blacksmith, in fact, someone else's wife)
baron

The problems of love and sex are the most important problems of life for Hamsun; according to G. - love is a struggle between the sexes, a fatal and inevitable evil, because there is no happy love. She is the basis of life. “Love is the first word spoken by God, the first thought that dawned on him” (“Pan”).

In the story "Pan" Hamsun, in his words, "tried to sing the cult of nature, the sensitivity and hypersensitivity of her admirer in the spirit of Rousseau."

Thomas Glan, a hunter and a dreamer who changed his military uniform to "Robinson's clothes", is unable to forget the "unsunset days" of one short northern summer. The desire to fill the soul with sweet moments of the past mixed with pain makes him take up the pen. This is how a poetic story about love is born, one of the most incomprehensible mysteries of the universe.

The forest for Glan is not just a corner of nature, but a truly promised land. Only in the forest does he “feel strong and healthy” and nothing darkens his soul. The lie that has soaked through all the pores of society disgusts him. Here he can be himself and live a truly full life, inseparable from fabulous visions and dreams.

It is the sensual comprehension of the world that reveals to Glan the wisdom of life, inaccessible to bare rationalism. It seems to him that he has penetrated the soul of nature, found himself alone with the deity, on which the course of earthly life depends. This pantheism, merging with nature gives him a sense of freedom, inaccessible to urban man.

Admiration for nature resonates in Glan's soul with an even stronger feeling - love for Edward. Having fallen in love, he perceives the beauty of the world even more sharply, merges even more fully with nature: “What am I so happy about? A thought, a memory, a forest noise, a person? I think about her, I close my eyes and stand quietly and quietly and think about her, I count the minutes. Love experiences highlight the most secret, innermost in the soul of the hero. His impulses are unaccountable, almost inexplicable. They push Glan to unexpected actions for himself and those around him. The emotional storms raging in him are reflected in his strange behavior.

Hamsun focuses on the tragic side of love, when accusations and resentments make it impossible for the union of two hearts, dooming those who love to suffering. The dominant theme of "love-suffering" in the novel culminates in the parting episode, when Edward asks to leave her his dog as a keepsake. In the madness of love, Glan does not spare Aesop either: Edward is brought a dead dog - Glan does not want Aesop to be tortured in the same way as him.

The original, working title of the novel was "Edward", after the name of the main character, but it did not reflect Hamsun's intention. And when the novel was already completed, in a letter to his publisher, he said that he decided to call it "Pan".

With Pan (the pagan "god of all") the hero of the novel is connected by many invisible threads. Glan himself has a heavy "animal" look, riveting the attention of women to him. The figurine of Pan on a powder flask - is it not a hint that Glan owes his success in hunting and in love to his patronage? When it seemed to Glan that Pan, shaking with laughter, was secretly watching him, he immediately realized that he could not control his love for Edward.

Pan is the embodiment of the elemental life principle that lives in each of the heroes: in Glan, and in Edward, and in Eve. This feature of the novel was noted by A. I. Kuprin: “... the main person remains almost unnamed - this is the mighty force of nature, the great Pan, whose breath is heard both in the sea storm and in the white nights with the northern lights ... and in the secret of love irresistibly connecting people, animals and flowers"

74. Themes and images of Rilke's early poetry.

The most significant role in Rilke's works belongs to two thematic complexes - "things" and "God". Under the “thing” (Ding), R. understands both natural phenomena (stones, mountains, trees) and objects created by man (towers, houses, a sarcophagus, stained-glass windows of a cathedral), which are alive and animated in his image. In his lyrics, Rilke gives a number of masterful images of the "thing". However, even in such emphatically “material” tendencies of the poet, his hypertrophied subjectivism is reflected: not a thing in its objective existence or in its significance for the practical needs of a person, but a thing in the subjective perception of an individual, in his emotional self-disclosure is the main value of this “gospel of things”. In his book

about Rodin Rilke theoretically defends such a subjective value of "things". However, in the cult of “things”, not only general individualistic, but also direct anti-social aspirations of the poet affected. According to R., "things", not opposing the subject themselves, the feelings of the subject - their "anti-feelings" (Gegengefühl), thereby arouse his trust and help him overcome loneliness (Nichtalleinsein). However, it is obvious that such overcoming of "loneliness" is only a fiction, only a way to get away from people, from their "counterfeelings", one of the types of self-closure of the subject. Another thematic complex of Rilke's lyrics - god - is closely connected with the first: for Rilke, god is "a wave passing through all things"; the entire Book of Hours (Das Stundenbuch, 1905), Rilke's finest collection, is devoted to this interpenetration of God and things. However, the theme of God is not a way out of R.'s individualism, but only a deepening of it, and God himself arises as an object of mystical creativity (Schaffen) of the subject: “With my maturation, your kingdom ripens,” the poet addresses his god. AT

Two strong external impressions will give particular sharpness to this poetic dilemma.
Until the spring of 1899, the poet lives mainly in the hothouse atmosphere of literary bohemia, now in Prague, now in Munich, now in Berlin. The spirit of the "end of the century" settles in the early lyrics with fashionable moods of loneliness, fatigue, longing for the past - moods so far mostly secondary, borrowed. But little by little, one’s own, unborrowed, is also developed: first of all, a fundamental orientation towards “silence”, towards introspection. This self-absorption did not mean for Rilke narcissism, an arrogant denial of the external world; he sought to remove from himself only what he considered vain, unreal and transient; first of all - the modern bourgeois-industrial urban world, this is the focus, so to speak, of existential "noise", to which he opposed the principle of "silence". As a poetic and life position, this principle took shape in the poet and quite consciously: Rilke was never a militant, “propaganda” nature. The complex of silence (up to silence, to silence), attention to the silent language of gesture - all this will become one of the most essential features of Rilke's poetics.

Rilke's early lyrics are typical of neo-romantic poetry. His collection Crowned with Dreams (1897), filled with obscure dreams with a hint of mysticism, revealed vivid imagery and an outstanding command of rhythm, meter, alliteration and melodic speech. A thorough study of the heritage of the Danish poet J.P. Jacobsen inspired and filled him with a strict sense of responsibility. Two trips to Russia, to his “spiritual homeland” (1899 and 1900), resulted in a collection of Books of Hours (1899-1903), in which a prayer addressed to the undogmatically understood God of the future sounds like an unceasing melody. Stories about a good God (1900) became a prosaic addition to the Book of Hours.

"Buddenbrooks". In 1901, a work appeared in Germany, which, in all the necessary parameters, corresponded to the type of those works that were needed. These are Buddenbrooks. This writer was the young Thomas Mann, who was 25 years old. It was his second major publication, and this novel immediately made him famous. But at the age of 25, becoming a national genius is psychologically early, a big burden. And with the knowledge that he National genius. Thomas Mann lived the rest of his life, nothing prevented him from writing wonderful works. His relationship with his brother Heinrich Mann was complicated. Thomas had a rather talented son Klaus Mann, he is the author of a rather interesting novel ... (?), which was filmed. The views and positions of the life of the two brothers (Heinrich lived longer) differed on many points. I mention the name of Heinrich Mann because Thomas and Heinrich belonged to a generation of writers in a difficult time for Germany, life was difficult. because Germany throughout the 2nd half of the 19th century was in stagnation (Small Principalities), in literature - also stagnation. This fragmentation, of course, hinders the development of Germany very much: both economic and cultural. And therefore, already in the 20th century, the new generation had to solve the same problem: to look for some principles, parameters for restoring the level of German literature (17-19 centuries). After the Romantics, German literature was moving into a temporary decline, and the young people were faced with the task of restoring the reputation of German literature. Consequently, here, too, the situation is when a person enters a creative life, begins to write, the first thing he does is he begins to comprehend what is happening around him, what is the literary situation, "which path he should choose. And this one rationalistic approach typical for Galsworthy, Rolland, was in the highest degree in the young Mann.

There was another historical moment here: from the mid-70s of the 19th century, Germany began to gather into a single country, a new stage in the development of the state - a single state was formed, the development of the empire began. And the whole ego is pretty much stimulating too. That is, the emergence of a new generation of writers is connected with this. But the first step that they took - this is an understanding of this situation and the desire to restore the reputation of German literature, to give it the brilliance that it had at the beginning of the 19th century - leads to the fact that German writers begin to imitate and look for guidelines for creativity outside the national tradition. If a Heinrich Mann chose as an ideal and example for himself Balzac and the traditions of French literature (G. Mann's interest in France was constant), and his first novels were generally built on the model of Balzac's storytelling, then Thomas Mann found a landmark for himself again in Russian literature. He was attracted by the scale of the narrative, the psychological depth of the study, but at the same time the still gloomy German genius T. Mann was fascinated by the ability, the desire of Russian literature to get to what was seen as roots of life our desire to know life in all fundamental principles. This is characteristic of both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

At the same time, Thomas Mann was a man of his time in a nationally specific situation. Why is Buddenbrooks so popular? Because the readers who opened this novel when it was published found in it an exploration of the main tendencies of national life. "Buddenbrooks" is a work that is also distinguished by its large-scale coverage of reality, and the life of heroes, Buddenbrooks, is part of the life of the country. It's the same family history, the same epic novel, before us a story about the life of 4 generations of the Buddenbrook family. These are burghers from the city of Lübeck, a fairly wealthy family, and the time of the novel is most of the 19th century. Thomas Mann uses in the narrative some data and the realities of the life of his family, who also came from the city of Lübeck. This is a Hansel (?) city, a big city. There was an economic union of independent cities (Lübeck, Hamburg) - these were coastal, since the Middle Ages, free cities that did not belong to the dukes, which were controlled by the Senates, elected Councils, where the 3rd estate (burghers) felt like the 1st estate, the strongest. The free burghers of the free cities entered into this trade union, traded among themselves all over the world, and the position and self-consciousness of the burgher in many ways resembled the self-consciousness of a nobleman. The very essence of the nobility, its attitude to the world is a feeling, knowledge of one's kind, one's roots, traditions, continuity of one's kind. The family nobility is a series of generations who knew about each other, the descendants knew the ancestors of a certain tribe (Pushkin's "My Genealogy" is about this, there is continuity, behind him there is the time of his family). In the case of the Manns, they are the descendants of this kind of free burghers, they carry this feeling of belonging to the family. But in the case of the Manns, this tradition of the clan was very abruptly cut off; their father married the daughter of his companion, and when he died, the mother (their stepmother) of 2 more daughters decided that her sons would do anything but trade. She sold the company, her sons were prepared in a modern way, for a different life, they were oriented towards writing books, they were taken to Italy, to France from childhood. We will find all these biographical details in Buddenbrooks. The Manns received an excellent education.

Thomas Mann brought all this material about his family, including the situation with his brothers and sisters, into this novel in the 3rd generation, but this material is undergoing changes in interpretation, something is being added to it. Each representative of the Buddenbrook family is a representative of his time: he carries his time in himself, and somehow tries to build his life in this time. Old Johann Buddenbrock is a typical representative of a turbulent time, a man of rare intelligence, very energetic, accepted the firm. And the son? is a product of the holy union era, a man who can only keep what his father did. It does not have such inner strength, but there is a commitment to the foundations. And finally, the 3rd generation. He is given more attention in the novel: Thomas Buddenbrook becomes the central figure. It falls to the lot of Thomas and his brothers and sisters that period of time when these cardinal changes begin to occur in German life. The family and the firm must cope with these changes, and it turns out that this adherence to traditions, this conscious burgherness of the Buddenbrooks is already becoming a kind of brake. Buddenbrookn is more decent, perhaps, than speculators, they cannot quickly use new forms of relations that arise in the market. The same is true within the family. adherence to tradition is the source of endless drama, which absorbed the burgher spirit. And from which side we look at the life of the Buddenbrooks of the 3rd generation - they turn out to be out of time, somehow conflict with time, with the situation, and this leads to the decline of the family. The result of Ganno's communication with other children is painful for him: his favorite place of life is under the piano in his mother's living room, where he can listen to the music she plays, such a closed life. (The last representative of the Buddenbrooks is the son of Thomas, little Ganno, this weak boy falls ill and dies.) Full title of the novel"Buddenbrooks, or the history of the life of one family."

This book is an analysis of the family chronicle, one of the first seed chronicles the impact of the change of epochs on the fate of people. And this was after a long break in German literature, the first work of such a scale, such a level, such a depth of analysis. Therefore, Thomas Mann became a genius at the age of 25.

But gradually, when the first impressions and enthusiasm subsided, it began to emerge that this book has second bottom, second level. On the one hand, this socio-historical chronicle telling about the life of Germany in the 19th century. On the other hand, this work is built with other tasks. It was one of the first works of literature of the 20th century, designed for at least two reading levels. The second bottom, the second level is connected with the philosophical views of T. Mann, with the picture of the world that he creates for himself(Thomas Mann was interested in the highest level of comprehension of reality). If we look at the history of the Buddenbrook family from a different angle, we will see that some constants play an equally important role in their destinies as time and socio-historical changes. Mann's Buddenbrooks evolve from burghers to artists. Johann Buddenbrock Sr. is a 100% burgher. Ganno is a 100% artist.

For Mann, a burgher is not only a person of the 3rd estate, he is a person who is completely merged with the surrounding reality, living in an inseparable union with the outside world, devoid of what Thomas Mann denotes by the word "soul", but only not in the canonical sense of the word "soulless", but in the burgher there is absolutely no artistic principle according to T. Mann, but not in the sense that these people are illiterate, deaf to beauty. Old Johann is not only an educated man, but also lives by what he knows; but it's a man inextricably merged with the world in which he lives, who enjoys every minute of his existence, for him life in the physical plane is a great pleasure. All life plans. This is the type of people.

The opposite type are artists. This does not mean that these are people who paint pictures. This is the man who lives lifesouls, for him inner existence, spiritual life and the outer world appear to be separated from him by a severe high barrier. This is a person for whom contact with this outside world is painful, unacceptable.

Very often geniuses, creatively very gifted - they are artists. But not always. There are creative individuals with a burgher attitude. II there are inhabitants with an artist's attitude, as according to Thomas Mann. His first storybook(it is called after the name of one of the stories included in it) - "Little Mr. Friedeman". This little Mr. Friedeman is a typical philistine, but this little philistine With the soul of an artist who lives within himself, his life of the spirit, he is completely at the mercy of this artistic principle, although he does not produce any artistic activity, he produces only the impossibility of existing in this world, the feeling of the impossibility of contact with other people. That is, for Thomas Mann, these words "burgher" and "artist" have a very special meaning. And who is professionally engaged in what, whether he owns a company or not - it does not matter. Writes pictures or not - it does not matter. Showing this transformation, tragedy, T. Mann also explains the death of the Buddenbrook family as a process of accumulation of artistic qualities in the souls of the Buddenbrooks. which makes their existence in the surrounding reality more and more difficult, and then painful for them and deprives them of the opportunity to live. As for their professional hobbies, this does not play a special role here. Thomas is engaged in trade, he is elected to the Senate. And his brother leaves the family, declaring himself an artist in the truest sense of the word. The important thing is that they are both half "burgher" and "artist" in the Mannian sense of the word. And this half-heartedness does not allow any of them to accomplish anything in this life. The state of unstable equilibrium in which both Thomas and his brother find themselves becomes excruciating. On the one hand, Thomas is captured by books. But when reading them, something repels him - this is a burgher beginning. And going to the Senate, starting to deal with the affairs of the company, he cannot deal with them, since the artistic principle cannot stand all this. The throwing starts. Thomas married Gerda, a girl belonging to another world, he felt in her spirituality, artistic beginning. Nothing succeeded. Ganno's son lives in his mother's world, and this isolation from the world allows Ganno to exist within himself. T. Mann makes Ganno fall ill with typhus, a crisis sets in. It consists of 2 elements: on the one hand, it approaches the bottom point, but from the bottom point it can start falling down. And Thomas Mann confronts Ganno with a choice, the predestination of the book comes to the fore, since neither Balzac, nor Dickens, nor Galsworthy could afford such an arbitrary treatment. Ganno lies in bed in the bedroom, straw spread out in front of the windows so that the carriages do not rumble. He is very ill, and he suddenly sees a sunbeam breaking through the curtains, hears the muffled, but still noise of these carts along the street. “And at this moment, if a person listens to the sonorous, bright, slightly mocking call of the “voice of life”, if joy, love, energy, commitment to the motley and harsh hustle and bustle awaken in him again, he will turn back and live. But if the voice life will make one shudder with fear and disgust, if in response to this cheerful, defiant cry he only shakes his head and waves it away, then it is clear to everyone - he will die. And here is Ganno, as it were, in this situation. This is caused not by the disease itself, by the crisis, not by typhus itself, but by the fact that Ganno at some point becomes frightened when he hears this voice of life, he has a return to this bright, colorful, cruel reality - it is painful. He does not want to experience the touch of the surrounding being again, and then he dies, not because the disease is incurable.

If we look at what is behind this concept of burghers and artistry, we will see that Schopenhauer stands behind them, primarily with his concept of the world as will and representation. And indeed, T. Mann at that time was very interested in the philosophy of Schopenhauer. And hence this principle -- they renounce the principle of objective evolution. In these philosophies (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer) the opposite tendency appears - the search for absolute swings. The world is built on certain absolute principles, they are very different, but the principle is the same. According to Schopenhauer's system, there are two: will and representation. Will generates dynamics, and representation generates statics. And the opposition "artist - burgher" is, as it were, a derivative of Schopenhauer's idea. These are also some absolutes that characterize the inner quality of the human personality; they are not subject to time. Old Johann Buddenbrook is an absolute burgher, not because he lives in his time, but because he is. Ganno is an absolute artist because he is. It's just that the qualities inherent in the human soul do not change, but the situation shown by T. Mann is internal changes that can occur; can also occur in the opposite direction. Then after that he wrote a whole series of stories, how a simple burgher turns into an artist. This transformation can also take place: from a burgher to an artist, from an artist and a burgher, whatever you like, but these are some absolutes that are realized in the human soul either completely or relatively, but they exist.

That is, the system of the universe thus acquires a certain static character. And from this point of view, the novel "Buddenbrooks" acquires a completely different quality - it is not so much a socio-historical chronicle, This is a work in which some specific philosophical idea is realized. And therefore, from this point of view, it is tempting to call T. Mann's novel philosophical. But it cannot be called philosophical, since it is not a philosophical narrative. This is an intellectual novel (analysis of philosophical ideas).

This is about the literary side. As for the place of this novel in the context of world literature, it is obvious that the Buddenbrooks they open a new stage in literary development not only with the type, form of narration, but also open the next page of world literature, which begins to consciously build itself on philosophical absolutes when creating its own picture of the world.

A group of writers appears, which bears the trait of the era of the end of the century, when the positivist, evolutionary approach is replaced in the philosophical understanding of the world by the process of searching, formulating some absolutes, some immovable principles that determine human existence. And on this ideological approach, a derivative of these philosophies, literature grows that creates such a picture of the world. This reflects yet another fundamental change, already of a purely historical-philosophical nature. A new wave of writers presents a different picture of the world. From this begins a new literary movement, which went down in history under the name

Thomas Mann's first novel, The 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 that spans the lives of four generations of a wealthy German merchant family. Already one huge scale of the idea made this book a noticeable 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 the trading family. After the first edition, the book became a bestseller and the object of praise from critics. In 1929, thanks to this novel, Thomas Mann received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

main characters

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

From this marriage, Johann has several grandchildren - ten-year-old Thomas, eight-year-old Antonia (among 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 governess and housekeeper, Ida Jungman. She has been living with the family for so long that she is rightfully considered a full member of it.

Prodigal son

Throughout the story, more and more new characters gradually join the main characters, which complement and make the Buddenbrooks novel more interesting. The summary of this book cannot do without mentioning Gotthold, the eldest son of Johann, who lives separately from his family. Relatives try not to remember him, due to the fact that the young man married a poor girl. In a wealthy family, this union was not approved, considering it unnatural.

However, Gotthold himself remembers the Buddenbrooks. He is trying to get him to pay part of the family fortune. His younger brother Johann persuades his father not to pay the required amount. Merchants do not want to share their fortune 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 Elizabeth have a daughter, whom it was decided to name Clara. This event became one of the most joyful for the family throughout the entire novel "Buddenbrooks". The summary of the chapter related to the birth of Clara is as follows: happy Johann writes down the news about the birth of his daughter in a special notebook. Family members filled it out for many generations, thus compiling a detailed genealogical collection.

Three years later, the wife of Johann Sr. Josephine dies. Large time gaps are due to the fact that the book is a long, colossal chronicle. The work of this particular genre wanted to publish Thomas Mann. "Buddenbrooks" (a brief summary tells about the main plot nodes of the novel) after Josephine's death, the first serious plot turn takes place. The head of the family decides to retire and passes the company to his son. Shortly thereafter, the aged Johann dies. His namesake son, meeting at the funeral with his older brother Gotthold, refuses to give him at least some part of the inheritance.

Tony's engagement

Meanwhile, the children continue to grow. Tony is eighteen years old, after which the Hamburg merchant Mr. Grünlich proposes to her. The newly-born groom manages to enlist the support of the girl's parents, and they put pressure on their daughter. However, Antonia Grünlich does not like it at all.

Disagreement leads to scandal. The parents decide to send Tony to the seaside town of Travemünde near Lübeck. They believe that the girl should take a break, put her thoughts in order and think over the merchant's offer again. At this point, an important plot twist in the novel "Buddenbrooks" takes place. The summary of the subsequent chapters is as follows: Tony settles in the house of the sailor Schwarzkopf and meets his son Morgen. Young people quickly became friends, and then completely confessed their love to each other. However, soon the vacation at sea ends. Antonia returns home.

Difficult decision

Finally, Tony stumbles upon a notebook with a family tree and realizes that she is obliged to 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. Grunlich.

The joint life of a new family is not set from the very beginning. The husband quickly cools down to his wife. Even the birth of Erica's daughter does not save the situation. The book Buddenbrooks continues on 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 kept afloat only because the groom got his wife's dowry. Johann does not want to help his son-in-law. He takes his daughter and granddaughter to his home and declares the marriage invalid.

Heirs

Johann Buddenbrock dies in 1855. The status of the head of the family passes to his son Thomas, who from an early age 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 build a relationship with his brother by selling his own business.

Now Thomas makes his uncle the fictitious head of the firm, 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 nature makes itself felt in a 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 relatives are noticeably spoiled. Christian's further behavior shows that he never learned anything from his mistakes.

New events

In Munich, Antonia meets Alois Permaneder and soon gets married for the second time. This character is another new face that appeared towards the middle of the novel, which was written 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 unloved by everyone.

Also, Tony's second child is stillborn. Even such a strong grief cannot bring her and Alois closer. After some time, Antonia convicts her husband of treason. After that, 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 has a son, who is named Johann in honor of his grandfather (soon the shortened version of the name Hanno is assigned to him in the family). The boy becomes the heir to the whole 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' sister Clara, shortly before the birth of her nephew, marries Pastor Tiburtius. The married couple moves to Riga. But some time after the birth of Ganno, Clara dies of tuberculosis. According to the will, the woman transfers her entire fortune (part of the total budget of the Buddenbrooks) to her spouse. Elizabeth's mother secretly does 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. The Buddenbrooks (summary) continues as 42-year-old Thomas falls into depression. It seems to him that his company is doomed, and any efforts to rectify the situation are futile. The first crack appeared after the story of Clara's inheritance. Now Tom decides on a big scam, but it fails and leads to new losses. The company is declining

All these vicissitudes of the gradual extinction of a powerful family are described in detail by Thomas Mann. "Buddenbrooks" (summary) cover the life of four generations. Little Ganno (belonging to the last of them) has little interest in trade and firm. He, like his mother, is fond of music, which depresses and annoys his father. A year later, at a respectable age, Elizabeth dies. So, character after character, the heroes leave the proscenium of the novel "Buddenbrooks". The summary (reviews confirm this) only in general terms describes the catastrophe that is inexorably approaching the threshold of the family nest.

fading away

Thomas is becoming more and more aware of trouble. Intuition fails him. Tony's daughter Erica has a daughter (called Elizabeth). However, the woman's husband, Weinshenk, is arrested for numerous offenses related to his business. Meanwhile, the Buddenbrooks' house is being sold to Hermann Hagenström, one of the firm's competitors, whose business continues to grow.

Thomas is not getting 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 treason. All this together depletes his physical and moral strength.

In early 1873, Weinshenk 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.

Company liquidation

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

This is the main tragedy of the 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 crumbling. After the death of Thomas, not a single person remained who would be able to continue the work of their ancestors. From the former greatness, only the memory and urban tales remain.

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 the hospital and becomes the owner of a large capital.

The actual status of the head of the family passes to Antonia. The company has already been liquidated, but the legal procedure is done clumsily and hastily, which leaves crumbs of the family wealth. However, Tony hopes that the fifteen-year-old Ganno will eventually be able to restore the Buddenbrooks to their greatness. Her aspirations are not destined to come true. The boy dies of deadly typhus. It interrupts the male line of the genus.

End of the novel

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

At this plot twist, the novel Buddenbrooks ends. A summary in German, as well as in Russian, can be summarized by the fact that only the very notebook that contained information about the genealogy of the family remained from family memory. Tony periodically re-reads it 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 merchants.

By the end of the 19th century, when outstanding examples of the romantic genre had already been created in the literature of Russia, England, and France, the achievements of German literature in this area remained very modest. Only at the beginning of the 20th century did a work appear here that became a phenomenon of a truly international scale. This was the first novel by the young writer Thomas Mann "Buddenbrooks", written in the genre of family narration and signifying the expansion of the social range of German literature and at the same time an increase in the role of the intellectual, ideological element in it, a craving for problems and great generalizations. There is no such immediate topicality in Buddenbrooks. The action here ends long before the unfolding and collapse of the Wilhelmine period. Yet this novel contains deep social criticism, albeit in a complex, intricate form. The artistic form of the Buddenbrooks is closely connected with this special form of public criticism and is also extremely peculiar: in all German literature of the pre-war years there is not a single novel so complete, calm and monumental in form. But not only in German - in the entire world literature of this period there are not many works that could be compared with this novel in artistic terms.

In his novel, Thomas Mann decided to describe the environment familiar to him since childhood. Not limited to memories of childhood and adolescence, he carefully collects family documents, asked his mother and other relatives.

Thomas Mann portrays the decline of the old bourgeoisie as an internal process. He shows in his novel four generations of an old merchant family from Lübeck. He perfectly individualizes the characters and skillfully draws both the difference and the family resemblance: “Old Johann Buddenbrock unexpectedly burst into laughter, or rather, giggled loudly and sarcastically; he had long kept this laugh at the ready. - the purpose for which, probably, this whole home examination was carried out. "Everyone began to echo his laughter - presumably out of respect for the head of the family. Madame Antoinette Buddenbrook, nee Duchamp, giggled just like her husband." "Elisabeth Buddenbrook, nee Kroeger, laughed with that Kroegerian laugh, which began with an indefinite hissing sound; laughing, she pressed her chin to her chest." We have before us the bodily and spiritual traits characteristic of all Buddenbrooks; at the same time, we see, on the one hand, how new properties, new character traits, appear in each new generation, and, on the other hand, how old, inherited properties acquire a new meaning in a new social environment and in connection with the individuality of each person: "Little Antonia, a fragile eight-year-old girl in a dress of the lightest iridescent silk, slightly turning her blond head away from her grandfather's face and peering intensely into the void with gray-blue eyes, repeated once more: "What does this mean?" - then slowly said: "I believe that the Lord god." - suddenly with a clearer face quickly added: ". created me along with other creatures, "and, having entered the habitual track, all beaming with joy, she blurted out the entire term of the catechism in one spirit, exactly according to the text of the 1835 edition, which had just been published with the permission of the wise senate." Thomas Mann wrote: "I really wrote a novel about my own family ... But in fact, I myself did not realize that, telling about the collapse of one burgher family, I heralded much deeper processes of decay and dying, the beginning of a much more significant cultural and social -historical breakdown.

The story about the life of a merchant family became a story about the era. First, the vicissitudes of family life for Mann are closely connected with the course of history. Signs of the times, the rhythm of historical and social changes are continuously felt in the development of the action: “The Buddenbrooks were sitting in the “landscape room”, on the second floor of a spacious old house on Mengstrasse, acquired by the head of the Johann Buddenbrock company, where his family had recently moved. , separated from the walls by a small hollow space, varied landscapes were woven in the same faded colors as the slightly worn carpet on the floor - idylls in the taste of the XVIII century, with cheerful winegrowers, zealous farmers, shepherds in coquettish bows, sitting on the banks of a transparent stream with clean lambs on their knees or kissing languid shepherdesses.

Thomas Mann shows how the real events of German life had an impact on the private life of the Buddenbrooks - the establishment of a customs union, the revolution of 1848, the reunification of Germany under the auspices of Prussia: "Well, yes, Koeppen, your red wine, and also, perhaps, Russian products. not I argue! But we don't import anything else! As for exports, of course, we send small consignments of grain to Holland, to England, and that's all. Oh, no, things, unfortunately, are not so good at all. God knows, they at one time they went much better. And if there is a customs union, Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein will open for us. It may very well be that trade at your own peril and risk. "

The motif of a genealogical tree runs through the entire narrative - a "family notebook", in which all the most important facts of a family's life are recorded: marriages, births, deaths. The notebook becomes a symbol of the continuity of generations. Stability and stability of the life of the Buddenbrooks: “She took the notebook in her hands, leafed through it, began to read - and got carried away. For the most part, these were unpretentious records of events familiar to her, but each of the writers took over from his predecessor a solemn, although not pompous, manner presentation, instinctively and involuntarily reproducing the style of historical chronicles, testifying to the restrained and therefore all the more worthy respect of each family member for the family as a whole, for its traditions, its history.For Tony there was nothing new here, it was not the first time she had read these pages.But never had what stood on them made such an impression on her as this morning. The reverent reverence with which even the most unimportant events of family history were treated here shocked her.

The second reason why "Buddenbrooks" became a narrative about the era was that. That the history of the family in Mann is subject to the idea of ​​decline, which very accurately coincided with the dominant worldview at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Important plot milestones in the novel are pictures of family festivities, rhythmically, progressively expressing the idea of ​​degeneration.

Buddenbrooks are burghers. Thomas Mann invested a special meaning in this concept: he had ideas about impeccable honesty, the strength of family and moral principles, diligence, and a sense of duty associated with it. The code of burgher morality is precisely expressed in the family motto of the Buddenbrooks: "Do your business with pleasure during the day, but only such that we can sleep peacefully at night."

Thus, in his work, Thomas Mann showed the dramatic fate of the burghers in the imperialist era. He realized that the burgher, intelligent environment can create not only a refined, attractive, but only capable of breaking Thomas Buddenbrook, or a talented, but doomed Hanno. The idea of ​​the novel corresponds to its poetics, its artistic logic. The composition of "Buddenbrooks" is strikingly harmonious, the narration is detailed and at the same time internally dynamic, saturated with irony, symbolic images and collisions, it is distinguished by structural integrity and completeness. That Thomas Mann, in his own words, who wrote a book "purely German in form and content", managed to create a book that is interesting not only for Germany, but also for Europe - a book that reflects an episode from spiritual history European burghers. The writer showed the crisis of the family, the fall, the danger, its complete destruction.