In the following essay, Bolkosky discusses "Disorder and Early Sorrow" as not only the story of a family, but also as an illustration of "national disorder and sorrow, the confusion of generations."

. . . . "Disorder and Early Sorrow" is a "realistic" description of a day in the life of an upper middle-class family in the Munich of 1924. It has, however, deeper significance, suggesting an analysis of the time more pointed than any of Mann's previous aesthetic undertakings. He seems almost off his guard, somehow at ease, with a keen if relaxed eye for historical results. Written in 1925 at and about a time when the turbulent circumstances of people's lives were indisputably attributable to such a monumental political event as World War I, the narrative makes a political statement and embodies Mann's evolving feelings about life in the Weimar Republic and the future of Germany.

The war had brought Germans...