We saw how, in the evolution of the novel, the introspective memories of the sensitive late-comer Hanno were integrated into a wider span of civic and family history. In the course of this shift, one generation came to be central to the compressed timescale of the novel – that of Thomas, Christian and Tony. Within this generation Mann's major interest clearly lies with Thomas.

What makes Thomas interesting is that he responds to the problems he shares with Christian by endeavouring to maintain in his life that ‘self-control [Haltung] and balance’ (5,2) which Christian so completely lacks. At the same time, Thomas's choice of Gerda as partner – and this, as we suggested, is the point at which his fortune deserts him and the family's decline is sealed – has its origins in a desire to be different, to be more distinguished than his generation in Lübeck, not to marry ‘some silly teenager from the Möllendorpf – Langhals – Kistenmaker – Hagenström set’ (5,7): in short, what moves him is that self-important family pride (‘the feeling of personal importance’) that is at the heart of Tony's beliefs and actions too. It is the memory of this feeling that haunts Thomas at the end of his life: ‘Repeatedly, when the hours of melancholy came upon him, Thomas Buddenbrook would ask himself what he in fact still was that might justify his having even a slightly higher opinion of himself than of any one of his more simply constituted, stolid fellow citizens with their petty bourgeois limitations’ (10,1).