may lead the reader to sympathise with the fallen protagonist. Perhaps Herr Friedemann’s self-pitiful death is in keeping with the inner morality of his personality. His Apolline view of the arts, that appeals to the purity and melodrama of music, more specifically Wagner, is all part of a his ‘life sustaining lie’, as Frau von Rinnlingen discovers in the final chapter, such that his life as an ‘artist’ is in fact futile; shown fully by his self-destruction in the final Dionysiac moment of annihilation and self-disgust. I suppose this is the psychological paradox that causes Herr Friedemann such distress; T.J. Reed tells us that an artist’s “bacchantic howling only proves imcompetence”, who “merely vents [their feelings] in helplessly inarticulate sounds” . This seems to perfectly epitomise the character of Herr Friedemann, who drowns himself in water that is only deep enough to cover his face, leaving the rest of his body on the ground.
Mann’s narration of the final scene encompasses the Apollonian and Dionysian psychology of the protagonist as he commits suicide. The free indirect style of “was ging eigentlich in ihm vor, bei dem, was nun geschah?” is delivered with a critical, cold impassivity that destroys Herr Friedemann’s possibly ‘Wagnerian’ dream of a love towards Frau von Rinnlingen, and recapitulates in his almost grotesque, mental annihilation that appears in stark contrast to the ‘Wilhemine mundanity’1 in which the novel is set. Mann provides a compelling narrative from a distinctly extra-diegetic standpoint. This removes all form of sympathy from his narration and enables the novel to become an example of social impropriety and moral redundancy; how can Herr Friedemann expect that Frau von Rinnlingen will suddenly become adulterous in this social setting, and hence how is it possible that he cannot be aware of the fact that this romantic passion that he feels is incongruous. This Dionysiac attitude is what creates his internal chaos; what I mean by this is that Herr Friedemann search for pleasure is deeply irrational and ultimately causes his pain. Nietzsche described such fusion of Dionysiac and Apollonian psychologies as ‘Kunsttriebe’, or ‘artistic impulses’, which form the basis of tragedy. We are able to apply this to Herr Friedemann, as his mental struggle arises as a result of his apparent love for ‘Kunst’, or rather his Apollonian search for aesthetic beauty, coupled with his natural ‘Trieb’, a certain Dionysiac helplessness that is presented through his desperate self-destruction at the end of novel.
Mann may look to place Herr Friedemann’s suicide on nature, rather than an external factor, or the fault of Frau von Rinnlingen (she is certainly not to blame). The naturalist movement, that which Mann was a keen follower, grounded literature in scientific theory, whereby characterisation, hereditary disease, and psychology, are all linked by means of ‘biological determinism’. That is to say that Herr Friedemann’s fate is ultimately inevitable as a result of his degenerate life that he succumbs to, by being both physically and morally weaker. It is no coincidence that the hunchback he is fatefully given by the maid when he dropped in the first chapter, stunts his growth both in terms of stature and emotion. His misconstrued emotions therefore, tie in with his chaotic ‘Trieb’, that allows this naturalist, dete
