Persona vs. Self-Image in Thomas Mann's "The Child Prodigy"

Introduction: The Gap Between Persona and Self-Image

"No two people are alike" is an axiom generally accepted in our society. Whether differences of attitude and outlook between people lie in genetic combinations or in the social experiences of each individual is a topic for debate. Thomas Mann's "The Child Prodigy" effectively explores differences of perspective among a group of individuals who are all experiencing the same phenomena. How each interprets that experience brings out his or her unique perspective. One thing all people share, however, is an urge to present themselves to others in a way that improves upon their own self-image. Self-image — our understanding of who we are — often differs greatly from persona, which is what we want others to see. We need others to esteem us more than we esteem ourselves.

"The Child Prodigy" centers on a child who is said to be seven, is really eight, and looks to be nine years old. This child composes music and plays it on the piano for audiences who are stunned and impressed by his giftedness at such a young — though disputed — age. The conflict lies between the persona each character presents and who each character really is inside. The little composer and pianist, for example, has learned how to please the audience, to appear innocent, and to make "shy, charming" gestures that suggest he and the audience are friends. In his heart, however, he despises the audience and has no respect for them. The distance is illustrated by his thoughts about the audience as it applauds his first selection: "Now I will play the fantasy. It is a lot better than Le Hibou, of course, especially the C-sharp passage. But you idiots dote on the Hibou, though it is the first and the silliest thing I wrote." He continued to bow and smile. This theme plays out across all the characters and will be the focus of this analysis.

When the story opens, the audience has already absorbed much publicity about the little genius, Bibi. They are receptive and ready to be impressed by his accomplishments — and they are not disappointed, because "Ah, the knowing little creature understood how to make people clap!" Bibi has been well taught. "Bibi made his face for the audience because he was aware that he had to entertain them a little," and later "he cast his eyes up prettily at the ceiling so that at least they might have something to look at."

Bibi: The Child Prodigy's Inner and Outer Worlds

As the performance progresses and Bibi plays his compositions, the reader tunes in on the thoughts of various individuals in the audience. Some admire the child, while others see the "show" as a carefully thought-out illusion created by the impressario. At the end of the story the reader sees these same characters as they interact with each other and in a sense "show their true colors." Thus, the conflict between how people want to be perceived and how they actually are inside gets replayed in how they treat those who know them well versus the impression they wish to make on those who are seeing them for the first time.

Bibi's very name implies he will forever be childlike. The name sounds like baby talk, as though the child named himself "Baby" before he could speak clearly and the people around him took it up and called him Bibi too. Indeed, his value lies in being a child and not an adult. He is gifted, although not at the genius level of a little Mozart who could score his own symphonic music at age six. Bibi "could not score them, of course, but he had them all in his extraordinary little head and they possessed real artistic significance, or so it said, seriously and objectively, in the programme." The artistic significance of Bibi's compositions comes into doubt once we learn that the impressario — someone with a financial stake in the outcome — made that claim rather than a disinterested observer.

Nevertheless, Bibi truly loves music and secretly allows it to transport him into states of bliss. Every time he faces the piano it is a new and exciting adventure "where he might let himself be borne and carried away, where he might go under in night and storm, yet keep the mastery." This internal experience of surrender and transportation to other realms seems very adult. Bibi "sometimes had moments of oblivion and solitude, when the gaze of his strange little mouselike eyes with the big rings beneath them would lose itself and stare through the painted stage into space that was peopled with strange vague life." Bibi is much more adult inside than he appears on the outside, and so is his secret attitude toward the audience.

Bibi is a complex character because, despite the knowing little person within him, he believes he is uniquely different from others. He sees himself "elect and alone, above that confused sea of faces, above the heavy, insensitive mass soul, upon which he labors to work with his individual, differentiated soul." Of all the characters in the story, perhaps Bibi is the only one who has not yet realized that no two people are alike. The child prodigy phenomenon itself contributes to this illusion: the audience's adoration reinforces Bibi's sense of singular specialness, even as the story's other characters quietly reveal the same interior contradictions he possesses.

Unlike Bibi, the reader meets the impressario "in the flesh" only once in the story and never gets to enter his thoughts or hear him talk to himself. We only see him through other characters' eyes. Long before we meet him, we learn he is a clever showman who knows all the tricks of the trade. Only he knows Bibi's real name, for example, and keeps it a secret because the babyish stage name is more profitable than an adult name, which might not attract interest as effectively. He also knows how to create the impression that the child is a great artist, writing about Bibi in the style of an objective critic who "wrested these concessions from his critical nature after a hard struggle." He presents himself as a person of wealth and culture by wearing "large gold buttons on his conspicuous cuffs." The critic notes that the affection the impressario displays for Bibi is part of the show, designed to trigger a frenzy of emotion in the audience.

The Impressario, Mother, and Royal Figures

Of Bibi's mother we know little except that she is extremely well fed and perhaps a bit silly, with "a powdered double chin and a feather on her head." Like the impressario, we do not know what she thinks or says to herself. She dresses in a manner that makes other people see her as the wife of a rich man, although she is really the mother of a rich child. Bibi is attached to her and goes right to her after his performance. Perhaps he supports her willingly because she loves him — or perhaps she simply represents a "gravy train," and like the impressario she exploits him. The story leaves this deliberately ambiguous.

The princess is a royal person who behaves exactly as expected of royalty. She is restrained and ladylike, very conscious of her position. This princess values "sensibility" and supports the arts. Although she is old and shriveled, she has a royal image to maintain. "She sat in a deep, velvet-upholstered armchair, and a Persian carpet was spread before her feet … and presented a picture of elegant composure." Although royal, she enjoys Bibi's performance as much as the rest of the audience. "Even the princess shared in the applause, daintily and noiselessly pressing her palms together." Toward the end of the story the princess wants to meet Bibi. She asks him how he gets ideas for musical compositions and then guesses his response: "Does it come into your head of itself when you sit down?" Although Bibi politely agrees, he secretly thinks, "Oh, what a stupid old princess." The princess may or may not be stupid, but she is clearly obedient to the rules of appearance.

Her lady-in-waiting is equally obedient and maintains appearances appropriate to her station. Because she has less status than the princess, she cannot relax but must remain seated in an upright, alert manner. When she goes to fetch Bibi so the princess can meet him, she "smoothed down his silk jacket a bit to make it look suitable for a court function, led him by the arm to the princess, and solemnly indicated to him that he was to kiss the royal hand." She is very concerned with outward appearances, and whatever she thinks about her social inferiority is carefully hidden.

Conclusion: Mann's Vision of Human Concealment

The reader briefly sees an elegant young lady, helped by her brothers to put on wraps in front of a mirror. The external picture is of a beautiful and noble person. However, on the inside she lacks sensitivity to the feelings of others. She tells her brother not to admire himself in the mirror, which hurts him and makes him angry. The young lieutenant is his own man. "He would button his overcoat in front of the glass, just the same." Outdoors, he expresses his joy and freedom in a "dance on the frozen snow to keep warm." Of all the characters, he is the only one not afraid to be himself.

In the final paragraph of "The Child Prodigy," an inelegant girl with "untidy hair" watches the elegant lady and her brothers walk away. Although she "rather despised them," she doesn't show it. She watches the noble family until they turn the corner. This is a final example of presenting an outward appearance that hides an inner attitude or conviction.

With only the rarest exception, Thomas Mann seems to say that a separation between persona — the person we present to others — and the genuine person who dwells within is an inescapable part of being human. From the most carefully drawn, complex character to the least significant and most briefly sketched figure, this difference between what we really think and what we express to others is consistently illustrated. It seems we simply don't like what we see in ourselves well enough to reveal it to others. Mann's insight, rendered through the compressed canvas of a single concert evening, anticipates much of what later social theorists would describe as the performance of everyday life — the perpetual, largely unconscious management of the impression we make on the world.