The Magic Mountain

Hans’s early life is marked by death, and in particular, death by respiratory illness. His father dies shortly after his mother and the orphaned Hans is sent to live with his respectable but old-fashioned grandfather, an important figure in local politics. Hans’s grandfather dies shortly after, however, also of pneumonia. While the death of Hans’s father is quick, likely hastened by mourning for his late wife, Hans’s grandfather “struggled amid great agony” because he was “a man rooted firmly in life, a tree hard to fell.” Here, the narrator compares Hans’s grandfather to a tree that is difficult to cut down due to its deep roots. This metaphor, then, suggests that Hans’s grandfather was, regardless of his advanced age, a lively man who did not submit to death easily, despite the pain of his final days. The death of his grandfather cements Hans's early interest in death. 

Even in his childhood, Hans has a difficult time confronting death directly despite his often morbid character. When he looks at the body, he does not perceive it as being that of his grandfather. Instead, using a simile, he thinks of the body as being “like a life-size wax doll.” This simile suggests that, for Hans, death has fundamentally altered the nature of his grandfather’s body. Without life, then, the body appears to be merely a wax model of itself. Further, he describes the body, in a metaphor, as being “but a shell” of the man himself. Again, this metaphor highlights the fundamental difference, for Hans, between a person and a body. Later, in the sanatorium, Hans will continue to reflect extensively on the relationship between death and life, and between an individual and their body. 

Here, Settembrini responds with graciousness that borders on sarcasm. Settembrini claims that Hans, "like so many talented young men,” is “playing the intellectual dilettante” and trying out “possible points of view” without committing to any one viewpoint. Hans, he states, is “no blank page, but is rather a page where everything has already been written [...] in appealing inks.” Settembrini’s metaphor suggests that young people are not “blank,” devoid of ideas, but rather, have lots of different, even conflicting viewpoints. The role of the teacher, then, is to help the student to determine which of these various ideas are true and which are “false.” Throughout the novel, Settembrini will serve as something of a mentor to Hans, though he himself struggles to apply his ideals to his own life.  

Here, Settembrini uses logic in order to rebut Hans’s association of illness with nobility. This attitude, Settembrini claims in a metaphor, is itself “a sickness” that must be treated. Rejecting what he identifies as the “superstitious” notion that health is “suspicious” and illness “as good as a passport to heaven,” he reasons instead that modern scientific thinking has “banished” these associations, which he believes originate in religion. Throughout his speech, he uses metaphors drawn from warfare, describing old prejudices as being “encamped in the human soul” and acknowledging that “the battle” of reason and superstition “is still being waged.” His speech here offers a succinct summary of Settembrini’s “humanist” worldview, which places faith in human reason and progress.

Throughout the novel, Dr. Krokowski demonstrates a characteristic tendency toward self-promotion that seems to conflict with the scientific ideals of impartiality and objectivity. Here, he ends his lecture with “a grand advertisement for psychic dissection.” This metaphor, which treats psychoanalysis as a form of invasive surgery, underscores Dr. Krokowski’s belief that the mind is like any other organ and that mental health, in turn, follows the same, consistent principles as physical health. Mann’s depiction of Dr. Krokowski is, at various points, subtly satirical. The doctor’s language is both highly abstract and suffused with technical jargon. Often, he speaks in a rapturous tone that seems closer to that of a preacher than a doctor, using such terms as redemption, light, and dark, and offering salvation to patients.

Here, the narrator uses metaphors drawn from the spheres of the spiritual and the supernatural. The administrators of the sanatorium, for example, are described as “invisible forces” who only “manifest” in the “management office,” and as “higher powers.” Director Behrens is described, in a metaphor, as the “soul of the place,” who holds the “highest and supreme” authority in the hospital, despite answering to the board of directors, whose job is to maximize profit. Given that the sanatorium presents itself as a modern and scientific institution, these metaphors are notably ironic. The narrator, then, characterizes the Berghof as an institution that lacks transparency and deliberately obscures its corporate structure.

Frau Stöhr presents herself as an educated and refined woman, though she often mixes up her references and uses words incorrectly, to the amusement of other patients such as Han and Settembrini. Here, she speaks with a characteristic mix of cliché and error, describing the difficult path to recovery as taking “two steps forward and three back” and complaining that the doctors have added “another six” months to her “sentence” at the sanatorium. This metaphor imagines the Director as the leader of a jail and the patients as prisoners. However, there is a clear sense of irony here, as Frau Stöhr is, like the other patients, free to leave whenever she wants. The novel suggests, then, that she is merely feigning a desire to escape the sanatorium and in fact hopes to stay there as long as possible. 

Further, she alludes to “the tortures of Tantalus.” In Greek Mythology, Tantalus was a mortal who drew the ire of the gods. In the most well-known version of the myth, Tantalus was forced to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree. Both the fruit and the water would forever elude his reach, leaving him perpetually hungry and thirsty, a state aggravated by the constant sight of the fruit and water. Frau Stöhr, however, has confused her references, as the mythological figure who is forced to eternally “push and push” a boulder to the “top of the hill” is in fact Sisyphus. With a clear sense of verbal irony, Settembrini sarcastically praises Frau Stöhr for adding “a little variety into poor Tantalus’s life” by mistakenly attributing to him an additional punishment. 

The narrator, reflecting Hans’s own defensive feelings, describes James as “a representative and ambassador from home.” This political metaphor, then, suggests that Hans imagines that James has come to defend the interests of “the flatlands,” or the world beyond Davos. Using an additional, related metaphor, the narrator states that Hans “had been quietly expecting such a raid from the flatlands for a long time now,” and describes James’s visit as “reconnaissance,” or strategic scouting by an enemy army. These war metaphors reflect Hans’s increasingly defensive attitude as he prolongs his stay at the sanatorium and begins to think of his family and friends as invaders from an enemy nation. 

Here, Hans examines the snowflakes that have fallen onto his sleeve with “the connoisseur’s expert eye,” as if he is a jeweler examining some diamonds. The snowflakes are, he feels, “collections of dainty, precise little jewels: gemstones, star insignia, diamond brooches.” Peering closely at them with his magnifying glass, he concludes that the snowflakes are “more delicate miniatures” than any jeweler could produce. These various metaphors, drawn from the language of jewelry and gemstones, underscore Hans’s newfound fascination with the endless variety offered by the natural world. Shortly after, Hans senses that a snowstorm is coming, and he deliberately lingers on the mountain in a manner that suggests that he has fallen for the allure of the snow and hopes to get caught in the storm.

Hans’s actions in this scene are notably ambivalent. On one hand, Settembrini encourages his skiing adventures, as they seem to suggest that Hans is developing a healthy interest in the world beyond the sanatorium. On the other hand, Hans is often drawn by the allure of self-destruction. As with his “relationship” with Clavdia, Hans has been tempted by beauty into making a self-destructive choice.

Furious at these insults, Naphta describes Settembrini, in a metaphor, as “civilization’s pedagogic policeman,” a figure who ensures that others are not stepping out of bounds or breaking any intellectual laws. Highlighting the surprising violence of Settembrini’s claim that he should be “punished,” Naphta describes Settembrini as “drawing his sword.” Further, he personifies the concept of virtue, an important idea in Settembrini’s philosophy, as a knight ready to “don its armor” for battle against philosophical enemies. Naphta’s language here returns the implicit threat of violence in Settembrini’s remarks. After years of verbal sparring, the two men, both more accustomed to a quiet life of the mind, prepare to fight a duel to the death. 

The narrator spends little time describing the broader geopolitical context of the war, instead emphasizing Hans's sense of surprise at the war's outbreak. Having long ago severed all connections to the outside world of the "flatlands," Hans is shocked by the sudden disruptions of the war, which force the various international patients of the Berghof to hastily return to their respective nations. The narrator describes the preamble to the war as a "rumble of thunder" and the beginning of the war as a "thunderclap" that "shook the foundations of the earth" and "[burst] open the magic mountain." The narrator, then, turns to the natural world for a metaphor apt for the catastrophic war that kills millions and brings Hans's slumber to an abrupt end.