Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Magic Mountain, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Time
Coming of Age
Death and Illness
East vs. West
Abstract Ideals vs. Lived Experience
Summary
Analysis
Joachim greets Hans and asks how he slept. Hans grumbles about his strange dreams and about all the noise the Russian couple has been making. He asks about an older woman dressed in black (Tous-les-deux) whom he’d seen walking in the garden that morning. Joachim say she’s Mexican and doesn’t speak German. She’s visiting her son, who will almost certainly not recover and will likely be dead soon enough. And since then, her other son, who had only come to visit, has gotten deathly ill, too. As Hans thinks about this, his eyes turn red and puffy, as though he’s been crying—just as they did yesterday when he heard the man’s horrible cough.
Hans’s eyes become red and puffy as though in direct response to Joachim’s remark about the old woman’s gravely ill sons. Meanwhile, Joachim talks about the woman’s situation frankly and casually. This contrast reinforces Hans’s unease at death, illness, and suffering at this early point in the story. Meanwhile, Joachim’s casual attitude suggests that being surrounded by the sick and dying for several months now has taught him to accept death and illness as inevitable and unremarkable parts of life.
Themes
As Joachim and Hans walk to breakfast, Joachim tells Hans about the sanitorium’s various residents. Hans refuses to meet the noisy Russian couple, whom he despises. Joachim says this is fine—they’re barbarians and sit at the “Bad Russian” table. There’s also a “Good Russian” table, where the more civilized Russian residents sit, but it’s unlikely Hans will meet any of those Russians, either.
Joachim’s critique of the sanatorium’s Russian residents—even the “Good” Russians, he implies, aren’t worthy of Hans’s civilized, German company—sets up the novel’s critical (and oversimplified) stance toward Russia and so-called “Eastern” sensibilities.
Themes
In the dining hall, Hans and Joachim sit down at one of seven long tables, and Hans is pleased to see how elaborate breakfast is. One of the workers asks him what he’d like to drink, and Hans realizes that she’s a dwarf. This shocks him, but Joachim is totally unfazed. As Hans eats, he observes Joachim and the other residents, “companions in misfortune,” all eating and chatting happily together. He also observes the hall’s décor, which is sleek and modern but also with “a dash of fantasy” to it.
The abundant breakfast at the dining hall hints at the decadence and ease of life at the Berghof. Here, it seems, meals are a source of pleasure rather than sustenance. The almost comical abundance of food and the exaggerated cheer of the Berghof’s residents as they eat it indicate the novel’s critical stance toward such decadence. Meanwhile, the “dash of fantasy” in the Berghof’s décor reinforces the idea of the sanatorium as a place that exists outside of ordinary, bourgeois society.
Themes
Frau Stöhr sits at their table. Trying to appear “refined” as she talks, she raises her upper lip to reveal long, “rabbitlike” teeth. A man sitting next to her has a disgusted look on his face and says nothing. He doesn’t try to get acquainted with Hans, and Hans speculates that perhaps he’s too sick to see the point in making any new acquaintances. Joachim chats politely with Frau Stöhr, who complains to him of her health, noting her high temperature that morning. Hans joins in on the dull conversation. Inwardly, he considers how normal the dining hall feels—he’d worried it would be depressing being around sick people, but it feels perfectly ordinary.
The character of Frau Stöhr exists in part for comic relief, but she also functions as evidence of the ordinariness of illness and death—if someone as simple as Frau Stöhr can be ill and suffer, then clearly illness and suffering aren’t experiences that transform or enlighten a person. Hans gestures toward this notion when he reflects on how ordinary it feels to be around sick people—their sickness isn’t teaching him anything about life or death or inspiring him to be grateful for his own good health, for instance.
Themes
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On their way out of the dining hall, Hans and Joachim run into Director Behrens and Dr. Krokowski. Behrens, a tall, very thin man, introduces himself to Hans. He has purple cheeks that stand out against his white surgical clothing. Krokowski is also dressed in his professional clothing and behaves exactly as one would expect an assistant to behave, never speaking but making silent, knowing glances. Behrens notes that Hans—unlike Joachim whose military background has made him bad at being sick—will make a great patient. Hans, Behrens insists, is “civilian” and “comfortable.”
When Behrens notes that being a “civilian” will make Hans a great patient, he suggests a link between illness and passivity—civilians, unlike soldiers, have no duty to serve. Soldiers like Joachim, on the other hand, make bad patients because their military training instills in them a sense of duty that makes them prone to action.
Themes
Behrens notes Hans’s pale complexion and declares that he’s anemic. He suggests that Hans should work on improving his coloring if he wants to do well with lady residents. Then, he gives Hans some advice: “to live for a while as if it were a slight tuberculosis pulmonum,” increasing the protein in his blood. Then he turns to Joachim, reminding him to stick the “mercury cigar” in his mouth and record the results for his checkup on Saturday.
In this scene, Behrens encourages Hans to live as though he were a sick resident during his stay at the Berghof, implying that Hans should rest well and not overextend himself during his stay. Meanwhile, when he tells Joachim to stick the “mercury cigar” in his mouth, he’s reminding Joachim to take his temperature, comically referring to a thermometer as a “mercury cigar.” This symbolism will take on more meaning later on.
Themes
