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
Later, in the garden, Hans listens as two shrieking women plead with Herr Albin to put away his knife. Herr Albin continues smoking his cigarette and refuses to grant their request. He antagonizes them, suggesting that he go to his room and fetch his revolver, too, laughing as he lumbers off toward his room. He returns shortly after with the gun, explaining that he has it so that he can kill himself when things get too “boring” around this place. He puts the gun to his temple to demonstrate and his audience continues to plead with him to stop. He argues that they should excuse his behavior because he’s suffering an “incurable” disease, and so nothing he does should matter anymore.
Herr Albin’s argument that the “incurable” nature of his condition gives him license to behave as poorly as he likes is a game-changer for Hans. It alerts him to a benefit of existing in the odd, removed atmosphere of the Berghof—a benefit he hadn't yet considered. Here, he can act as self-indulgently as he pleases, with no regard for others or the broader project of human progress.
Themes
Hans, listening to this scene unfold, wonders whether Herr Albin is serious or joking. Regardless, he feels a little envious of the man’s attitude. He considers how “disgrace” has as much merit and benefits as “honor” and wonders what life would be like if he were freed from the expectation to be honorable.
This scene marks a major shift in Hans’s personal philosophy of life. He starts to see the bourgeois sensibilities of his ordinary life, with their emphasis on honor and respectability, as repressive and harmful. Meanwhile, the shameful, self-indulgent behavior he’s been taught to disdain might just be the key to a liberated, full life.
Themes
