That the interpretation of Der Schwierige turns out here to be composed of a number of different arguments, on different levels and with different immediate objects, is a natural consequence of the play's genesis. For Der Schwierige is Hofmannsthal's attempt to deal at one stroke with practically all of the problem-complexes discussed so far: the problem of the lyrical or magical, how to incorporate into language the knowledge of a truth that becomes true only by being kept silent; the problem of the mimetic–social, how to throw open an artistic structure to the accident of actual society without making non-structure of it; the problem of a bridge between the lyrical and the mimetic, or between intellectual and social existence; and the problem of problems, of consciousness, of language as such, the problem of the inevitable tendency of an ironic achievement, once recognized, to lose the quality of irony and hence also that of achievement. Der Schwierige, like all of Hofmannsthal's later works, is an attempt to close the lid on chaos, and so contains not only the danger of futility but even a secret desire for futility. If the task can be accomplished, then perhaps it was not worth undertaking to begin with. Or perhaps, in a sense, the lid is closed after all; but trapped within remains only the evil of Hope.

At the beginning of Der Schwierige, Lukas tells the new servant Vinzenz that Hans Karl's compulsive locking and unlocking of drawers is the sign of a very bad mood (L2 148); and this point is soon verified, when Crescence suggests to Hans Karl that his real reason for declining Altenwyl's invitation is a wish to avoid Helene (L2 155).