The Buddenbrooks family struggles between maintaining traditional bourgeois values - diligence, duty, and economic success - and emerging ideas of individuality and artistic expression. While older generations try to secure the family business and social position, younger ones seek new paths of self-realization.

With each generation, the Buddenbrooks become more sensitive, sickly, and less capable of meeting business and social demands. The novel depicts the physical and mental decline of family members through illness, madness, and death, as the once-strong dynasty gradually crumbles.

The protagonists struggle with existential questions about life's meaning and their own identity. While some seek solace in faith and tradition, others turn to art, philosophy, or love for fulfillment, showing different paths of searching for meaning in a time of change.