Thomas Mann is not only an important writer, but also a collector of writer and artist manuscripts. Because he believes in Goethe's words: "To fully understand a great work, one must not only see the finished product, but also understand the process of its creation." For me, literary criticism is about understanding why the author wrote, based on what circumstances and inspiration, what system and values they have, what social background they are in, and why they chose the writing form that we see.
Mann himself was at a major turning point in history and witnessed the transition of humanity to modernity. I currently want to comprehensively describe it, but I still fall short. Now, based on my current understanding of the novel "A Letter from an Unknown Woman," if I can gain a deeper understanding in the future, I will further write about it.
I. Realism of the Story#
The realism of the story has two aspects.
On the one hand, this novel has its realistic origins.
Mann received a letter from a stranger in 1916. The writer of the letter, Friederike, was a female writer who mentioned her encounter with Mann four years ago and their chance encounter a few days ago. In the letter, Friederike expressed her admiration for Mann's works and also expressed her personal opinions on some of his works. At that time, Friederike was already a mother of two children, but with the exchange of letters, their feelings deepened. Four years later, Friederike divorced her original husband and married Mann.
In 1913, Mann came to Paris and met Marcel, who was skilled in making women's hats and was being abused by her husband. They spent a happy but short time together in Paris. A few months later, Mann received a letter from Marcel before her death, which expressed her deep and passionate love for Mann, with no blame but gratitude. Mann commented on this: "A letter without blame, therefore seven times more touching. I oscillate between extreme shame and extreme shamelessness, and I tend to be extreme in this regard."
(The above two paragraphs have significant differences in various sources I checked, such as some claiming that Mann received Friederike's letter in 1912, and some not believing that the letter Mann received was Marcel's last letter. I will find more accurate and authoritative descriptions in the future.)
The male protagonist of the novel, young and famous, refined and loves to travel, bears the shadow of the author. These must have inspired him.
On the other hand, the portrayal of the girl's passion in the novel is realistic and credible. Some people oppose this novel because it is so real and seductive that it can lead others to imitate. Even so, what responsibility does a novel need to bear? Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther" was believed to have caused many young boys and girls to commit suicide. "The Peony Pavilion" was also believed to harm young ladies. But these are not the responsibilities of the novels. Novels require sincerity in the content they depict. Moreover, this novel is not meant to be read in this way.
II. Psychological Analysis of the Story#
The female protagonist says at the end of the letter, "I no longer believe in God, I don't need others to say Mass for me, I only believe in you, I only love you, and I only want to continue living by your side." This sentence is crucial for interpreting this novel.
In the 20th century, the death of God, Nietzsche and Freud were two important figures. Mann had written biographies of these two people and was familiar with their thoughts. He was friends with Freud, who praised Mann's novels from a psychoanalytic perspective multiple times.
From a psychological analysis perspective, the female protagonist was born into a poor family, lacking a father, with a weak mother, and surrounded by coarse and low-class people. When she was 13 years old, she saw the refined male protagonist who owned various beautifully bound books, and a new world opened up to her. "That person has read so many beautiful books, he also knows many languages, he is rich and knowledgeable. What does he really look like? When I think about you having so many books, I feel a sense of awe towards the wise." Inside the door is her paradise. This is compensation for the shortcomings of her childhood. According to Freud's theory, adults spend their entire lives compensating for the shortcomings of their childhood, striving towards this otherworldly world. However, this otherworldly world no longer has a place for God, but belongs to human desires and free will.
In Freud's view, the repression of the ego and the id leads to the sublimation of the superego. Since meeting the male protagonist, the female protagonist says, "Before, I had mediocre grades in school, but after falling in love with you, I studied seriously, often staying up late to read, and my grades became the best in the class. I also started learning the piano and showed extraordinary perseverance."
If the story ended there, there would be nothing wrong, and no one would be offended. However, the female protagonist's love for the writer is portrayed as a masochistic spirit, and she can only feel happiness from the writer. This is not uncommon in the symptoms of youth.
The question we need to ask is, is this normal?
This question is difficult to answer. On the one hand, if she were to undergo psychological counseling, it would be considered typical paranoia and dependence on others, and she would need to develop an independent personality. On the other hand, masochism is a voluntary sacrifice and endurance, a temperament possessed by many human heroes, although they express this paranoia and masochism in other aspects, such as dedication to humanity, to ideas, and to art. Like the heroes in Mann's biographies. As Mann himself said:
"In my biographical literature, I don't write about successful people in real life, only about characters with noble moral spirits. I never like to praise and glorify heroic characters, but always focus on the tragedies of the losers. In my novellas, the protagonists are all manipulated losers of fate, and they are very attractive to me."
What Mann writes, whether it is biographies or novels, is driven by passion and portrays failed heroes. In the eyes of the secular world, they are failures, but they have achieved self-completion in their lives and are masters of their own destiny. From a secular perspective, Yang Lijuan brought disaster to herself and her family. However, I do not think there is anything to blame. Each person has several decades of life, and no one can dictate how you live your life.
Bao Yu being beaten and Dai Yu saying to him, "Can you change?" is not asking him to really change, but rather pity for the only person who shares a spiritual connection on the lonely road. Every life is a lonely one-way road. But I do not recommend placing one's life on a person or a belief, because one day you may find that this person, this belief, is nothing more than that. It is best to live a fulfilling and joyful life.
The courage and dedication to beliefs in youth are determined by hormones. It is intentionally done to promote competition, adventure, and mating for the overall continuation of human genes. This passion from youth, the innocence, can continue into adulthood and is a factor that many people who make significant contributions to humanity can succeed. As the female protagonist says:
"My love is so selfless and devoted. I will not betray you, only love you until the end. No woman can love you like I do in this world. A child's infatuation is the most incomparable love in this world. This love does not have any hope, it is humble, not valued by others, full of passion, and only seeks to please the beloved. It is different from the passionate desires of adult women, it does not have the greedy desires that love possesses. Gathering all the passion, only a lonely child can do this."
Based on my current experience, I believe that after going through this stage, one can have doubts about past beliefs, seeing mountains as not mountains and seeing water as not water, being able to doubt when faced with the mountains and rivers, and seeing clearly when the willows are dark and the flowers are bright.
III. Yesterday's World and the Otherworldly World#
The passionate dedication in this novel can be associated with Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose," "The Happy Prince," and "The Picture of Dorian Gray," and further back, Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid," and Victor Hugo's romanticism. This is an idealistic world based on personal freedom of choice, opposing rationalism based on reality.
Before the death of God, your belief in God cannot be measured by self-interest. In the era of romanticism, the love you give cannot be measured by life. These otherworldly values and beliefs cannot be calculated or doubted.
Mann witnessed the victory of modernity, and modernity is the ultimate value, metaphysics, and the dissolution of otherworldly ideals. A world that experienced the devastation of World War I, causing many writers to reflect on their own creations and on history. This is an era without belief, God is dead, as Max Weber said: all the noblest values and meanings have been demystified and lost from the public sphere.
"A Letter from an Unknown Woman" was written in 1922, and in the same year, Kafka's "The Castle," Eliot's "The Waste Land," Joyce's "Ulysses," and Proust's second volume of "In Search of Lost Time" were published. George Orwell said that writers between 1910 and 1930 were pessimistic and disillusioned, and their works would be passed down. However, Orwell did not explain why. My conclusion is that the pessimism of human belief and the death of freedom are eternal. "No longer resisting, no longer pretending to be able to control it, just accepting it, enduring it, and recording it. It seems to be a good solution that sensitive novelists can adopt now. It has a positive and constructive attitude, and at the same time, it is true in emotions. It is difficult to imagine at present" (Orwell, "Inside the Whale").
Therefore, further extending, Mann in this novel mourns the world of yesterday, the world that has not yet reached the end of the world, the world that can reach the otherworldly. This story is quite cruel, but intentionally so, because belief justifies it, and all tests cannot shake faith.
Human childhood has ended, and we have acquired many powers that can destroy ourselves. We irreversibly enter modernity. Atomic bombs, assembly lines, big data, credit loans, climate change, and the modernity composed of parliaments and reality TV shows. Modernity has an uncertainty principle. When you don't think, don't understand what modernity is, modernity may bring destruction to humanity. But if enough people think about modernity and panic about its possible destruction, then destruction may not come. This itself is a responsibility ethics. From the banality of evil in Arendt, the self-imposed meaning in Camus, the veil of ignorance in Rawls, the communicative rationality in Habermas, they endow humanity with the responsibility they should bear when they step out of childhood.
Yesterday's past cannot be retained, today's present is full of worries. When I was reading Mann's "The World of Yesterday," he wrote about the first time he saw an airship, which reminded me of Eren Yeager's father taking his sister to see an airship in "Attack on Titan." The same cheers for human progress, but also the same tragedy for humanity. Isayama Hajime hurts the readers intentionally because many questions have no answers. God is dead, and humanity can only rely on itself.