Eighteenth-century Naples provides the setting for the pain, fears, resentments, desires, and triumphs of peasant-born Guido Maffeo and patrician-born Tonio Treschi, two castrati mentor and angel-voiced student who strive passionately to live full lives.
The genius of Thomas Mann is seen in his ability to transform his pervasive irony into a thousand things. Irony in Mann is a composite metaphor for all of his ambivalence towards both self and society. Study his works with this text, including Death in Venice, Mario and the Magician, Tonio Kröger, "Felix Krull," and "Disorder and Sorrow."
