Emil Ernström
HUMS 407
Adrian’s Echo:
When Echo appears towards the very end of Doctor Faustus, his presence is
unprecedented. While most characters in the novel are gradually introduced and
developed through many chapters, Echo’s narrative arc is exceedingly swift: In Chapter
44 he is introduced, and by the end of Chapter 45, Echo’s life has already been cut short.
recalling the day when Nepomuk “was no longer with us” (495).
In a novel full of episodic excursions, the story of Echo feels out of place by its
brevity, as well as its sudden appearance near the close of the novel. By this point, Adrian
has already written one masterpiece, Apocalipsis cum figuris, which mirrors the
intellectual descent into barbarism conducted by the Kridwiss circle. If we take the
imaginatively recreating human beings whose very individuality lays bare the historical,
social and cultural substance of their age,” then surely this composition would have been
the climax in Adrian’s musical journey (Beddow, 82). This was almost the case, as
Beddow explains that Mann’s original intention was to have the Lamentation “remain a
It is through the character of Echo that Mann seems to answer that question.
While Echo’s death is what finally plunges Adrian into the despair necessary to complete
the Lamentation, Echo also serves a formal function within the narrative, as a sort of
apotheosis of themes and motives of the novel. This can be seen through Nepomuk’s
nickname, ‘Echo,’ which can be read in a variety of ways. Not only an echo of Adrian’s
character, Mann builds a web of associations: the echo is present in Adrian’s isolation, in
the formal construction of both his music, Serenus’ reflective narrative, and in turn,
Mann’s own novel. In Echo, and his subsequent refractions through the end of the novel,
Mann explores the relationship between art and artist, viewing Adrian as an echo of the
himself.
An echo is a reflection of sound waves, a return of an action that was sent out into
the world. An echo is not simply a repetition, but the sound of an echo is distinctly
different from that of the source sound. Serenus describes the echo as “the sound of the
suggesting the modulation and transformation of the sound (510). To Serenus, the echo
seems to represent the pull between the human and the natural, yet the two aren’t
antithetical, since in the echo the human voice is merely “revealed as a sound of nature”.
In this sense, the echo is able to reveal something hidden beneath the surface.
The revealing properties of an echo are perhaps most notable in the relationship
reflecting both the childlike innocence of his past as well as the disaster that looms in his
future. Serenus describes him as “inexpressibly sweet and pure,” yet capable of a “deep
and quizzical glance,” that reflects Adrian’s own innocent curiosities as a child (484). He
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speaks in a “slightly solemn and imposing Swiss drawl,” which mirrors Adrian’s
Yet, by the next chapter Echo’s innocence begins to deteriorate. He develops “an
intolerance of light and sound,” much like the symptoms Adrian experiences during his
“His heavenly eyes [dim],” his “sweet face” begins to look “horribly deformed,” and he
transformation, we see an echo of Adrian’s life before our eyes, from his innocence to his
At the start of the next chapter, the concept of the echo reappears. After hearing a
poorly fabricated story of a unit of “beserk boys” still fighting the allies, Serenus writes:
“And so, to the bitter end, the crudest fairy tale…is still invoked–not without finding a
familiar echo” (505). Immediately, the word ‘echo’ reminds us of Echo, his fall from
innocence to suffering now reflecting Germany’s fall. Mann also brings back the image
of fairy tales, recalling the scene where Adrian tells fairy tales to Echo, “his head nestled
against the storyteller’s chest” (493). This intimate scene is thus corrupted much like
Echo, the innocence of fairy tales repurposed as war propaganda. Echo thus reflects unto
the suffering and destruction to be wrought upon Adrian and Germany. Through Echo and
his ‘echo,’ Mann intensifies the connection between Adrian and his homeland, both
proclaim [man’s] solitude” (510). To hear an echo is to be alone with oneself, to hear only
the reflection of one’s own voice. Adrian’s isolation is made clear from the start of the
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novel. In Chapter 1, Serenus compares Adrian’s “isolation to an abyss into which the
feelings others expressed for him vanished soundlessly without a trace” (8). This concept
of the isolated genius is also echoed in Serenus discussion of Ludwig II, in which Serenus
defends Ludwig as not a madman, but a genius who created “golden solitudes” (451).
proclivities, nervous urges and revulsions, odd passions and lusts” a part of his
“monarchical form of life” (451). Serenus defends madness as a noble way of life, full of
Dionysian excess and irrationality. This is exactly how the Devil tempts Adrian,
promising genius in exchange for Adrian’s complete isolation, the condition that he “may
not love” (264). The echo pulls these conceptual strands together, connecting Adrian’s
Adrian’s relationship with Echo develops the motive of his solitude even further.
In his nephew Adrian finds a sense of love he seems to never have experienced before:
The scene where Adrian tells stories to a slumbering Echo is one of the most touching
moments of the novel. Thus, in the wake of Echo’s death, Adrian blames himself for
breaking his pact and as a consequence infecting Echo with his “poisonous influences,”
isolating himself completely (501). He rejects all feelings to others, declaring that “the
good and noble,” even the “human,” “ought not be” (501). He casts himself into the
“abyss” from Chapter 1, a pit of nihilism in which he finishes The Lamentation of Doctor
In his Lamentation, Echo is not only the emotional basis of the piece, but the very
form of the piece resembles that of an echo. Serenus describes the piece as the concentric
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ripples that form after the casting of a stone: A series of echoes stemming from a singular
action. The echoes of the piece are what lead Serenus to comment on the “undynamic”
nature of the piece (511). It is “without drama” since from the initial impact of the stone’s
(Adrian’s 12-tone motif) originating action, all the music that follows is a reflection. The
echo seems to symbolize consequence: Having forged a pact with the Devil years ago,
Adrian has now paid the price through the death of his nephew and his own madness.
Adrian’s “strictest work” and his most “purely expressive” one (512). Through the
each musical theme predicated on the last. Yet, having submitted to this echo, Adrian is in
a sense free from restraints of form, because they are no longer in his control. This
paradoxical sense of freedom echoes Adrian’s madness as well as the madness of Nazi
Germany.
Much like the formal echo of the composition, Mann highlights his own use of the echo
effect before the presentation of the piece, through the character of Nepomuk. The strict
order of ideas in the Lamentation mirrors Mann’s own balancing of motives and ideas in
the novel, as he tries to describe a series of echoes and distortions of German culture that
led to the rise of Nazi Germany. Like the H-E-A-E-Es motive, which forms the basis of
esmeralda) into the fabric of the novel, each echoing and reverberating throughout. By
this reading, Adrian’s Lamentation of Dr. Faustus is an echo of Mann’s Doctor Faustus.
In Adrian, Mann also echoes his own anxieties as an artist, his fears of failure and
search for perfection. The conceptual basis of Dr. Faustus, that of an artist selling his soul
to the devil in exchange for artistic success initially occurred to Mann in 1905, as he
struggled to write his next great work after Buddenbrooks (Reed, 361). Thus, in Adrian’s
artist lured by the devil’s promise of the freedom to “create with neither constraint nor
Through Adrian, Mann engages romantic notions of madness and creativity that
he saw in figures like Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, while also acknowledging the danger
within these ideas. Thus, Mann quotes his essay Dostoevsky–in Moderation, but puts his
words in the mouth of the devil as Adrian is tempted: “In their health they will gnaw at
your madness, and you will become healthy in them,”1 the devil says, promising that
Adrian “will break through the age itself…and dare a barbarism,” ominously echoing the
rise of Nazi ideology (259). By tempting Adrian with his own words, Mann both connects
and draws an even stronger parallel between his character and himself, while also
professing guilt in his fascination with the ideas that were the seeds of Nazism. Mann’s
This exploration extends through Serenus, who echoes Adrian through his
narration and interpretation of Adrian’s actions. Both echo parts of Mann’s psyche,
Adrian is the instinctual and Dionysian, while Serenus is the Apollonian ego, who
attempts to rationalize the behavior of the other, often with poor results. When Adrian
infects himself with syphilis from Esmeralda, Serenus sees it as “an act of compassion, an
1 Analogous line from Dostoevsky–in Moderation: “Their healthfulness feeds upon his
madness and in them he will become healthy” (xv).
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act…of love,” failing to understand Adrian’s fascination with madness and disease (165).
In general, it is the moralistic Serenus who fails to see the where the country is heading:
far too concerned with his own Kleistian breakthroughs to concern himself with German
nationalism (318). By the time Serenus notices the “deliberate rebarbarization” taking
place in the Kridwiss circle, it is too late. Through Adrian and Serenus, Mann critiques
both sides of himself, both his intellectual side for its fascination with madness and
irrationality, and his conservative and moral character for failing to see the danger in
these ideas.
In writing Dr. Faustus, Thomas Mann sought not to write pure fiction but to
reflect on the catastrophic state of Germany and his own intellectual part in that
destruction. Through Echo, Mann acknowledges how intellectual ideas not only spread
but can also distort in monstrous ways. Thus, Dr. Faustus becomes a novel of echoes, the
world of the novel constantly reflecting the world beyond it. In the final line of the novel,
the echo and its source become one, as Mann and Serenus merge in the image of “a