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Emil Ernström

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Adrian’s Echo:

Reflections and Refractions in Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus

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.

This brevity is heightened even further by Serenus’ narration, ending Chapter 44 by

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

purpose Mann’s project to “[elucidate] historical forces and circumstances…

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

fragment, unfinished at the moment of Leverkühn’s collapse” (Beddow, 63). Perhaps at

first Mann doubted Adrian’s ability to complete this monumental work?


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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

human voice returned as a sound of nature, revealed as a sound of nature,” clearly

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

between Adrian and Nepomuk (“Echo” himself). Nepomuk is an echo of Adrian,

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

preference for preference for archaic language (484).

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

migraines. Moreover, as Echo’s disease grows worse, Nepomuk’s innocence is corrupted:

“His heavenly eyes [dim],” his “sweet face” begins to look “horribly deformed,” and he

suffers “fits of teeth-gnashing” as if “possessed” (499). In this vivid and shocking

transformation, we see an echo of Adrian’s life before our eyes, from his innocence to his

madness and collapse.

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

destroyed by madness and obsession.

Serenus also ties the echo to isolation, referring to it as nature’s “attempt to

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).

Madness, Serenus argues is a “shaky concept,” Ludwig’s “latitude of fantastical

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

fall into madness to his solitary existence.

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

Faustus. As a result, the Lamentation is a rejection of the human, a negation of

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and the celebration of humanity it represents.

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.

It is through the concept of the echo that Lamentation paradoxically becomes

Adrian’s “strictest work” and his most “purely expressive” one (512). Through the

repetitive structure of the echo, “a formal arrangement of ultimate rigor” is established,

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.

We can also interpret Adrian’s Lamentation as a reflection of the novel itself.

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

Adrian’s composition, Mann weaves a number of motives (including that of haetera

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.

We can go even further and explore Adrian as an echo of Mann himself.


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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

struggles we see a reflection of Mann’s own experience, his sympathetic portrait of an

artist lured by the devil’s promise of the freedom to “create with neither constraint nor

forethought” based on his own desire for artistic liberty (255).

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

echo becomes an investigation of the self, and often an accusatory one.

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:

He sees Germany’s declaration of war in WWI as a “sacred necessity,” while Adrian is

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

lonely man,” praying for the future of his homeland (534).

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