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
The Berghof has been busy lately, recently receiving many new residents, and so it’s a week before Head Nurse Mylendonk orders Hans to report for X-rays. Hans doesn’t mind that it took so long—he knows there are many people here who are sicker than he is. And at the sanatorium, it’s a matter of social etiquette to respect those with more severe illnesses. Hans finds that when he returns to his table in the dining hall for the first time following his three weeks of isolation, hardly anyone pays him any mind—as though he’d been gone for no time at all.
Once more, Hans exhibits a curiously laid-back attitude about his illness, hardly caring that it’s taking an unreasonably long amount of time for Berghof staff to X-ray him to confirm that he’s ill enough to justify his continued stay at the Berghof. He seems content to remain at the Berghof indefinitely and feels no great pull to return to his life in ordinary society. At the same time, he’s not quite ready to admit that he wants to remain at the Berghof, and so he manufactures a story about Behrens being overly swamped with patients to justify his extended stay.
Themes
But Hans’s crush on Madame Chauchat has only grown—all throughout his isolation, visions of her floated in front of his eyes. This, in truth, was how his time in bed managed to pass so swiftly. Hans reacted to these visions with a mixture of joy and horror. Joachim, meanwhile, doesn’t talk about Marusya, and so Hans doesn’t say anything to him about his infatuation with Clavdia Chauchat, limiting his conversations about her to his teasing interactions with Fräulein Engelhart.
That Hans’s amorous thoughts about Madame Chauchat made his time in bed pass quickly further illustrates the malleable nature of time. Hans’s and Joachim’s opposite approaches to dealing with their crushes—Hans indulges his while Joachim resists thinking about Marusya—mirror their opposite approaches to being ill. Hans indulges his illness and is in no hurry to return to his normal life. Joachim, meanwhile, has never allowed himself to get off track. He remains as determined as ever to get better so he can return to his military service. While Hans has “become lost” to the world, as Settembrini cautioned he would, Joachim remains sharply focused on reality.
Themes
One day, Fräulein Engelhart gives Hans some unsettling news: Clavdia has been posing for Behrens in his private residence to have her portrait painted. Upon hearing this, Hans returns to his room to take his temperature and finds that it is 99.9 degrees. Hans has recently noticed something else that has disturbed him—a new patient, a young man from Manheim, has been ogling Clavdia, too, though Clavdia doesn’t seem to pay him any mind. But, the narrator asserts, the narrative is straying too far from the most pressing issue: Hans’s X-ray exam.
Once more, the novel suggests a link between physical symptoms and repressed emotions, a nod to Krokowski’s psychoanalytic lecture and to the titular “magic” of the Berghof. Here, Hans’s agitation at the thought of his crush posing for Behrens manifests as a physical symptom: a raised fever. Hans’s irrational obsession with the tempting and dangerous Clavdia is literally making him sick.
Themes
Hans “descend[s]” into the basement laboratory for his X-rays. Joachim accompanies him. It’s busy downstairs, and lots of people are waiting. As Hans waits for his turn, he observes that the basement is cloaked in “a kind of artificial twilight,” just like Dr. Krokowski’s office is. Suddenly, Clavdia appears in the waiting area and takes a seat beside the entrance to the laboratory. Hans feels his blood freeze. She asks, in broken German, what time his appointment is at. Joachim and Clavdia complain about the doctor being behind schedule. Hans thinks about Behrens painting Clavdia’s portrait—an interpretation of her exterior. Then he thinks about her being X-rayed, revealing her insides, and he must look away out of “respectability.”
The “artificial twilight” of the basement gives it an ominous and uncertain quality. And twilight, an ambiguous time of day when it’s neither light nor dark but somewhere in between, mirrors the ambiguity that characterizes the experience of the typical Berghof resident: their chronic illness leaves them in a meandering, restless state between life and death. Hans’s impulse to look away from Clavdia’s X-ray out of “respectability” suggests a perverse sexual or sensual attraction to her insides: to the organs that are making her ill. This, in turn, reinforces that Clavdia’s illness—and the freedom Hans has decided it gives her—are what he’s most attracted to.
Themes
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Luckily, the staff seem determined to speed things along, so eventually it’s time for Joachim and Hans to head into the laboratory. To Hans, the room looks like “a photographer’s studio, a darkroom, or an inventor’s workshop and a sorcerer’s laboratory.” Behrens is there and greets them. Joachim immediately removes his clothes. Behrens tells Hans that seeing his insides should put some of his worries to rest. He shows Hans his “private gallery,” presenting a series of black plates that display a series of X-rayed body parts. Then he gets to work with the exam.
Hans’s description of the laboratory as "a photographer’s studio, a darkroom, or an inventor’s workshop and a sorcerer’s laboratory” suggests that Hans sees Behrens as an artist and a visionary. In his inflated regard for Behrens and his work, then, Hans continues to attach great meaning and significance to illness and suffering.
Themes
Joachim goes first. Behrens turns off the lights and explains that they must wait for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. Hans like this and compares it to a moment of silent prayer. Finally, their eyes adjusted, Hans looks at Joachim’s insides displayed upon the viewing apparatus. He sees Joachim’s heart. Doing so—looking at Joachim’s “gaunt memento mori”— both thrills and horrifies Hans.
Memento mori literally translates to “remember you must die.” When Hans describes Joachim’s heart as a “gaunt memento mori,” then, he's suggesting that to realize one’s physicality is to realize one’s mortality. Hans’s ambivalent reaction to seeing Joachim’s heart indicates his growing obsession with death as the key to understanding life.
Themes
It’s Hans’s turn next, and when he looks at his own skeleton on the viewing apparatus, he sees something no mortal should ever see: “his own grave.” Behrens, noting Hans’s disturbed reaction, admits that the whole thing is a bit creepy. In no time, the exam is over, and Behrens switches the lights back on. In the end, Behrens had been able to see both the old, healed spots on Hans’s lungs and the new ones. Hans confirms this, having seen the X-ray plates himself. And that settles it: he will take his rest cures, monitor his temperature, and wait until he gets better.
As odd as it is to accept Joachim’s mortality, it’s even more horrifying for Hans to look at his X-rayed body in the viewing apparatus and see “his own grave,” looking at his internal organs and realizing that he will die. Hans’s remark that no mortal should see “his own grave” drives at the idea of death anxiety, a concept present in Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Hans’s remark that no mortal should see their own grave, points to the self-destructive nature of fixating on death—the very thing Hans has been doing ever since he arrived at the Berghof, though he fails to make the connection.
Themes
