The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Klaus Mann's Input into Doctor Faustus

Abstract

An uneasy literary relationship existed between Thomas Mann and his son Klaus. Despite their many differences (Thomas regularly acknowledged an obligation to uphold traditional values, Klaus snubbed bourgeois mores by turning to drugs and prostitution), they produced remarkably similar political novels in which the predicament of twentieth-century Germany is reviewed in the light of Faust's pact. In Klaus's Mephisto no less than in Thomas's Doctor Faustus, the central figure is an artist who places his career above all else and ignores his social responsibilities. A comparison of the two novels reveals not only a host of thematic parallels, but, more importantly, biographical details that show how closely Thomas modelled Leverkühn's life on that of his son. Leverkühn's self-imposed mission to succeed, his personal coldness, his refusal to marry, his venereal infection and his flouting of convention can all be related to Klaus's alternative life-style. Leverkühn's biographer, the plodding narrator of Thomas Mann's text, owes many of his personal idiosyncrasies to Klaus's little-known volume The Other Germany, while also representing the anxious parent figure who must watch his offspring destroy himself. Such is the significance of Klaus as a key to understanding Doctor Faustus that Thomas felt unable to mention his influence in the companion volume Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus. The author's reluctance to speak about this important source may be read as a sign of a postmodern approach.