In the work is present the author's typical parodistic opening where he uses sophisticated detachment and understatement to make the sad fate of a child at the hands of his nurse seem tragicomic.

Here it is present in Herr Friedemann trying to live out a life without a romantic relationship, by taking pleasure in art and nature.

[2] The story begins abruptly, as the family's alcoholic nurse drops one-month-old Johannes Friedemann from the changing table while the mother and three daughters are away.

Herr Friedemannn and Frau von Rinnglingen make a deep connection, despite the brevity of their encounters and the constraints of society.

This leads her to believe that he is impotent as well which is why, just as she looks past her husband when he walks into the room, she looks at him with expressionless eyes, instead of looking at him with a sinister glitter ... quizzically and firmly.

The four instances when this occurs are: seeing her arriving to town in a carriage, meeting her in her house, seeing her at the opera, and in the final scene of the story.

It is under Gerda's gaze that Friedmann loses his cultivated self, making a love confession in an emotional, incoherent and inarticulate state.

Additionally, the laughter heard at the end of the novel, following Friedmann's suicide, emphasizes how the self is at constant mercy of others' gaze: exposed to ridicule, shame and scorn.

[5] Ethel Lorinda Peabody finds it artistically perfect, especially the little nature descriptions placed at key moments.

For example, after the night in opera, Herr Friedemann awakens with a feeling of calm and confidence to which the nature attunes, with the birds twittering and the sky shining blue.