Hans moves in with his grandfather following the death of his parents. Hans’s grandfather was a senator and devout Christian, and he was skeptical of change and new ideas. Hans associates him with formality, respectability, and tradition. Hans’s grandfather dies when Hans is seven years old, and as Hans examines the corpse at the funeral, he muses on the simultaneous spirituality and “base physicality” of death, ideas he will return to throughout his stay at the Berghof.
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Hans’s Grandfather Character Timeline in The Magic Mountain
The timeline below shows where the character Hans’s Grandfather appears in The Magic Mountain. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 2, Chapter 1: The Baptismal Bowl/Grandfather in His Two Forms
...time when Hans was between five and seven years old. Hans briefly lived with his grandfather, the senator, until the senator also died. Hans’s grandfather’s house was built on the Esplanade....
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After dinner Hans’s grandfather would move to the den, and sometimes Hans would join him in the dimly lit...
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Hans’s grandfather was a devout Christian. He held rigid, traditional believes and was suspicious of new ideas,...
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After his grandfather had died and it was time to say goodbye for the last time, seven-year-old Hans...
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Looking at his grandfather’s corpse, Hans observed that death was both spiritually and emotionally “gripping,” as well as “something...
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Part 2, Chapter 2: At the Tienappels’/Hans Castorp’s Moral State
After the death of his grandfather, young Hans moves in with Consul Tienappel, his late mother’s uncle and the executor for...
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...he’ll hold some public office. It seems likely that he’d become a conservative like his grandfather. But Hans is an engineer—an embracer of modern technology—and so it’s just as likely that...
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Part 4, Chapter 9: Growing Anxiety/Two Grandfathers and a Twilight Boat Ride
One detail from Settembrini’s story about his grandfather sticks out to Hans: he always wore black in public, out of “mourning” for his...
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