Tonio Kröger combines almost all the ideas and trends of the young Mann; it is typical in every respect for both his thinking and technique during the years preceding the First World War. In spite of the many attempts to stamp this story as merely autobiographical the hero is not just Thomas Mann but rather a type, a symbol for many like him, among whom Mann may have counted himself. At the same time he is an ideal to which Mann may have inspired. Nor is Tonio the only "type" of the story. Such figures as Hans Hansen, Ingeborg Holm, Magdalena Vermehren, or Lisaweta Iwanowna are of an intentionally shadowy quality, and to give them more distinct characteristics or a greater role in the story would have detracted from their chief function, that of being typical. There are other "types" that are described by Tonio in his talk with Lisaweta: Adalbert, the novelist; the lieutenant, an occasional poet; the actor off stage; the prince in a crowd. Finally the author employs the leitmotif here in a manner which stresses certain characteristics in individuals which he considers typical of other individuals (there is, for instance, the case of Magdalena Vermehren, "the girl who always fell down," a motif which is later widened to include a whole audience of "people with awkward bodies and delicate souls, people who always fall down, as it were"). Thus, we can hardly go wrong if we consider Tonio's experiences in the field of love as somewhat typical for the artist.

Tonio Krbger has two erotic experiences in his youth. As a fourteen-year old boy he loves a boy of his age who is his complete opposite in every respect. As a sixteen-year old adolescent he falls in love with a girl in his dancing class who is equally different and who takes little notice of him. In both cases Tonio is disappointed and hurt through lack of understanding and love on the part of the person whom he loves. As in [other early stories by Mann], this youthful love affair (we can well regard Hans and Inge as a single object of Tonio's love) is of great significance, but it does not begin a process of disintegration or engender a permanent hate but rather has somewhat positive consequences.

In the great central chapter of the story Tonio takes account of his state of mind in this particular spring of his life, and he finds a basic split in his personality and artistic existence which for the time being he can only express through a description of its manifestations. He can tell Lisaweta that spring bothers him; that he anxiously searches his audiences in the vain hope that among those present there may be one of those "who do not need the spirit" and for whom his works are written; that he feels highly uncomfortable when a lieutenant, a man of the world, makes a fool of himself by reading mediocre poetry which he has written; that he both envies and detests Adalbert, the novelist, who can refrigerate his feelings in order to preserve them for later literary use. When Tonio travels "home", it is not only to rediscover the springs of his existence but to try and resolve this basic conflict. The "solution" comes to him not in his hometown but in a little Danish sea resort where on the occasion of a dance he...