SOURCE: "Conflict and Compromise: Tonio Kröger's Paradox," in Revue Des Langues Vivantes, Vol. XXXII, No. 4, 1966, pp. 376-83.

In the following essay, McWilliams interprets Tonio Kröger's psychological motivations as an artist.

Central to the interpretation of Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger is the concept of the "lost bourgeois", or, as Tonio describes himself: "ein Burger, der sich in die Kunst verirrte, ein Bohemien mit Heimweh nach der guten Kinderstube, ein Kiinstler mit schlechtem Gewissen." Critics have taken Tonio's words at face value, disregarding to a great extent that he is primarily a character in a story rather than a spokesman of the author. Although Thomas Mann has called this story "mein Eigentliches", it is first and foremost a work of literature in which the hero speaks for himself. Tonio comes forth as a fallible human being, who, like all of us, utters words which do not always...