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Part 1, Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Buddenbrooks, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Sacrifice
Tradition, Modernity, and Change
The Protestant Ethic
Personal Fulfillment and Self-Knowledge
Pretense and Etiquette
Summary
Analysis
The party continues. Later in the evening, Bethsy Buddenbrook notices that Dr. Grabow, Ida, and Christian aren’t there. Bethsy leaves to search for the missing partygoers. She finds them in the kitchen, where Christian is groaning in agony. Ida informs Bethsy that Christian is very ill. Dr. Grabow laughs and reassures them all that Christian is only suffering from indigestion. Privately, though, he laments the young man’s self-indulgence, knowing that Christian—like his father and grandfather and all the Buddenbrooks—will recover again to eat another week’s worth of rich, decadent meals.
Christian’s painful indigestion, the direct result of his regular overindulgence in rich foods, makes clear that a decadent lifestyle has consequences. Though theoretically Christian’s regular bouts of indigestion could be stopped if he changed his diet and lifestyle, Dr. Grabow is certain (presumably based on experience) that Christian will do nothing to change his behavior, indulging in life’s pleasures as liberally as ever. It's how he’s been raised to behave—Grabow notes that Christian is merely repeating the patterns of his father and grandfather before him—and the narration gives the sense that Christian and the rest of the Buddenbrooks are doomed to their fate.
Themes
