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Part I: Ambiguity and the Volk

Ambiguity is a concept that people prefer not to spend time ruminating over. This

idea of vagueness is unsettling and undesirable. People crave the easily definable and

reject anything that defies immediate classification. That is why an open-ended question

such as “what is German?” is difficult to explain; the answers are infinite. Adorno in his

essay, “On the Question: What is German?” makes it a point to never disclose an answer.

Instead, he discourages an answer at all. Ironically, the characters in Thomas Mann’s

Doktor Faustus spend a small portion of the novel trying respond to the very same

question Adorno refused to answer. Both Adorno’s essay and Thomas Mann’s novel

relate to one another through the unanswerable, ambiguous question, “what is German?”

They also share an idea of societal narcissism caused by stereotyping. Individually,

however, Adorno's essay addresses the danger of answering the question of “what is

Germany?”, whereas Doktor Faustus provides an example of the dangers of expressing

the national pride that follows.

Adorno does not give a straight answer to the question of “what is German?”.

Rather he begins his explanation of the question with the comment, “it is necessary to

reflect upon the question itself. It is encumbered with those complacent definitions that

presume that the specifically German is not what really is German, but what one would

like it to be” (Adorno 205). In other words, one needs to consider the question itself and

what presumptions it delivers. To ask, “What is German” is to assume there are German

traits or qualities uniquely inherit to Germans. Stereotypes are developed where the good

qualities are reserved for the group itself and the bad qualities are displaced to outside

groups, promoting a unified identity for both parties (Mann 205).

These stereotypes, collected and held onto, can lead the state into a narcissistic

condition, which promotes a feeling of elevation above other nations. These stereotypes

evolved into the idea of the “volk” in Germany, which was used as a political mobile to

bring about conformity and a revival of national unity. Adorno writes, “One might learn

what is true in this stereotype by studying the case of Houston Stewart Chamberlain,

whose name and development [is] linked to the most disastrous aspects of modern

German history, the völkisch” (Adorno 207). Houston Stewart Chamberlain, so taken by

the German culture and folk, began to write about and laud the culture he admired. He

contributed to the creation of the German stereotypes and became a Völkisch author, but

his pieces did no more than perpetuate the narcissism and racial superiority of Germany.

The concept of volk is therefore dangerous. It allows for a collective identity, which

people adapt to in favor of, rather than maintaining their individuality. This lack of

individuality, a marker of the Enlightenment period and pre-modernity, is a manner found

in the Middle Ages, which is a reoccurring theme in Doktor Faustus.

In chapter six of Doktor Faustus, the narrator, Serenus Zeitblom, introduces volk

to the reader as, “the fact is … that the volk is always the volk, at least at a certain level

of its being, the archaic level” (Mann 40). The concept of volk, according to Zeitblom, is

an old one and what is old is stagnant. It has no ability to grow, or to change, and is stuck

in a medieval form. Kaisersaschern, the hometown of the characters Zeitblom and Adrian

Leverkühn, is such an environment: medieval and völkisch. In regards to the people living

in the town, in their simplest nature, they can be very intelligent, but will still fall back

onto dated ideas, such as the colorful “characters” seen about in Kaisersaschern (Mann

40) that seemed to step out from the Middle Ages. The residents, influenced by these
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ideas, refrain from any occurrence of change or progression, which would include a lack

of self-thought. As a sample of Germany then, a völkisch town, it is easy for them to

succumb to contended idleness of the individuals that come into power. This was the case

of Germany during the Weimar period to the end of World War II.

The result of these two pieces compared side by side is a stark commentary on

Germany’s rise and fall as the Third Reich. Adorno’s essay and Thomas Mann’s novel

are connected through their ambiguity to the question, "What is German?" and they touch

upon the collective narcissism caused by the volk. Adorno indirectly warns against

answering such a question and in the case of Doktor Faustus, the novel acts as a response

to what occurs when that question is answered. When an entire group of people is

brought together and an attempt is made to fit stereotypes to them, their individuality is

forfeited. Moreover, when that individuality is gone, people cease to think for themselves

and instead opt to function as a collective. The Kantian spirit, thinking for the self, is then

lost to the concept of volk. In regards to Doktor Faustus, though, the forfeiting of

Adrian’s soul is analogous to the German people’s forfeiting their Kantian soul. The best

way to combat this loss, however, is to maintain an ambiguous definition of what is

German; a vague, unclear answer keeps the individual questioning and lets them come to

their own conclusions, separate to others.

Part II: Demonic Genius

In Doktor Faustus, the protagonist Adrian is an extremely arrogant and gifted

individual who took to music at an early age. Upon dedicating his life to music, he found

there was one problem; there was nothing original left to compose. To combat this
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obstacle, Adrian evokes the old Faustian myth: an attempt to transcend the ordinary or to

obtain something desired through the surrender of one's soul. In the scene between

Adrian and the devil in Chapter Twenty-Five, the dialog between the two reveals a

suggestion to Adrian that an afflicted state of mind will give him the heightened genius

he wants.

At the beginning of Chapter Twenty-Five, Adrian recounts his late-night visitation

that despite his later admonishments, he actually earnestly desired. Adrian writes, “yet I

did see Him at last, at last … all unexpected and yet long since expected” (Mann 238).

“Him” is referring to the devil, the figure he had hoped to invoke upon infecting himself.

Even the devil himself knows that Adrian, in a sense, summoned him, and calls him out

on his duplicity: “You would do better to conclude that I am not merely in the flesh, but

am also he for whom you have taken me all this time … nor should you make false

pretence, feigning you had not long since expected me” (Mann 241). Adrian, according to

the devil, knew well that he would show up and that he is indeed the devil the former

expected.

While there is great deliberation between the two, eventually the reader becomes

privy to how Adrian first entered the pact—the night he spent with the prostitute. The

devil, quite aware of Adrian’s case, and considering he was an individual the hosts of hell

wanted (Mann 263), comments, “and so we were diligent that you should run into our

arms … the arms of my little one, of Esmeralda, and that you should come by it, by that

illumination, the aphrodisiac of the brain, after which you so very desperately longed

with body and soul and mind” (Mann 263). Adrian slept with Esmeralda to expose

himself to syphilis, which can cause dementia, and as Adrian believed, allow him to
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expand beyond his means. The devil confirms this by saying, “You will break through the

age itself, the cultural epoch” (Mann 259). Due to his infection of syphilis, Adrian will

compose the music he wants.

Adrian’s reason for conjuring up the devil is traced back to his need to write

something unique—a completely fresh idea, although what constitutes a fresh idea is

difficult to definitively and figuratively pin down. By doing an impressive amount of

research to make himself knowledgeable on music, Adrian ran the risk of composing

something that was not original. The devil voices this inherent problem, stating that they,

presumably other unholy creatures, “are sapient and know the literature and remark that

the idea is not fresh at all, that is recalls all too much something that occurs in Rimsky-

Korsakov or Brahms. What to do? One simply changes it. But a changed idea—is that

still a fresh idea at all?” (Mann 253). For Adrian to have studied, breaking the traditional

route of creation, created an impasse. Adrian, just as writers who have read a plethora of

books and sit down to write, found himself with tainted, if not already conceived,

thoughts.

Fortunately, Adrian was capable of having a breakthrough with assistance, which

is where the prostitute and the devil come in. Genius was often associated with the

demonic, or the irrational, and the devil, not God, promoted originality. There is the

struggle of composing your own work, and of not being influenced by tradition. The

diseased thinker or genius can break through the boundaries. In conversation with Adrian,

the devil emphasizes that with, “Do you believe in such a thing, in an ingenium that has

nothing whatever to do with hell” (Mann 252). There the devil suggests that anything

ingenious had a helping hand with hellish beings.

The consequence of this Faustian pack is forfeiting the ability to love. The devil

himself says, “You, fine creature well-created, are promised and betrothed to us. You

may not love … Love is forbidden you insofar as it warms. Your life shall be cold—

hence you may love no human” (Mann 264). Noticeably, while Adrian throughout the

novel was rather cold and aloof, he was capable of love occasionally; the deal was in

effect to stop him from further feeling or expressing that ability, to leave him cold and

alone. In that state, according to the devil, he will be able to warm himself with the

“flames of production” (Mann 265). Adrian’s emotional withdrawal from human

experience will allow him to be productive with his art.

Adrian, our protagonist, though brilliantly gifted and arrogant at the same time,

chooses to lose himself in the idea that he will become greater with the assistance of the

devil and will in his own mind remain immortal through his creative endeavors. In the

final chapter, the devil is acting as the mouthpiece to uncover Adrian’s thoughts; whether

or not the devil truly visited him is not the issue. The idea that someone such as Adrian

was willing to be infected, by gambling for the possibility of having a stroke of genius to

the deterioration of his own health and life

Bibliography

Adorno, Theodor. On the Question: "What Is German?”. Print.

Mann, Thomas. Doctor Faustus The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn As

Told by a Friend. Ed. John E. Woods. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1997. Print.