Klaus Mann
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Klaus Mann, Mephisto (1936)
Klaus Mann's novellistic technique is closely reminiscent of that used by his father, Thomas Mann. The latter sought to "see, within the flow of life, recurrent patterns of mythological events and archetypal characters." In Thomas Mann's works (cf. Death in Venice [1911]) every apparently realistic detail also carries symbolical and even mythological and psychological implications.
In Mephisto Klaus Mann's technique is more straightforward and blunt: he employs a number of cultural associations (crime, the "underworld," the devil) in order to portray a society (and in particular one human being) that has sold itself to the devil. The many parallels are intended to demonstrate an archetypal pattern of opportunists and collaborators who are willing to compromise all their principles for self advancement and transitory fame and power. Here are some of the obvious references:
1. In Hamburg Hfgen plays in Midsummer Night's Dream (110)1 -- thus preparing himself for his later emergence under the Nazis as Oberon (235) -- prince of the Underworld. He also directs Orpheus in the Underworld (123 ff.), and jumps on the stage to demonstrate what he wants -- "For surely this was Dionysus, god of ecstasy and drunkenness ...