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
Time passes, and eventually it’s October. Management assigns Hans a new seat in the dining hall after Joachim’s departure, and he’s now sitting at Settembrini’s old table, opposite the empty chair reserved for Behrens. His new tablemates include an amateur photographer from Mexico, an old woman from Transylvania, and a Czech man whom people call “Herr Wenzel,” since nobody can pronounce his name. The brewer Herr Magnus and his wife also sit at Hans’s new table. Hans is friendliest with A. K. Ferge (the “martyr” from St. Petersburg) and Ferdinand Wehsal, a merchant from Mannheim who would constantly stare at Clavdia.
It's never clear exactly how much time has passed between chapters—the narration seems to purposely obscure the passage of time to mimic the experience of life at the Berghof. Yet the cycling in and out of new residents at Hans’s table indicates that he has been there quite a long time.
Themes
Hans finds Wehsal rather pathetic. He poses inane questions to his dining companions, asking them, for instance, whether it’s worth it to tell someone you love them even if they don’t know you exist. Wehsal thinks so: while doing so might be embarrassing, it also creates a moment of intimacy between the object of one’s affection and oneself, however fleeting.
It's ironic that Hans finds Wehsal’s lovesickness pathetic, given its resemblance to Hans’s own pathetic crush on Clavdia. Hans has matured in some ways, yet he remains largely stunted, and he is certainly lacking in self-awareness.
Themes
For the next few days, there’s a guest at the table: Hans’s uncle James Tienappel. It feels strange to Hans to have someone from his old life here in his new “upper world.” But Hans has suspected that “a raid from the flatlands” would have to happen at some point, so when James Tienappel announced his plans to stop by while in Switzerland on a business trip, Hans calmly accepted the news and passed it along to Behrens.
That it feels strange to Hans to have someone “from the flatlands” signals how much Hans has changed since arriving at the Berghof. He used to think it was strange that Joachim differentiated between people from “the flatlands” and people from the “upper world,” but now it makes sense to him, and he embraces his status as a citizen of the “upper world.” Furthermore, when Hans describes his uncle’s visit as “a raid from the flatlands,” it signals his desire to defend his right to stay the Berghof. He perceives his uncle’s visit as an attack meant to take him away from his new, preferred way of life.
Themes
After James arrives, he passes along Hans’s other relatives’ regards. He also updates Hans about Joachim, noting that he has joined his regiment and feels great about it. James seems on edge, but it’s unclear why. He tells Hans that he only plans to stay a week at most. And, judging by Hans’s healthy appearance, he assumes that Hans will leave with him. When Hans says he’s not ready to leave yet, James can’t believe it—life is short, and Hans has already been here for over a year. He promises to talk to Behrens about Hans’s condition, and Hans encourages him to do so.
Joachim is flourishing since returning to his military service. Unlike Hans, who has yet to achieve self-actualization, Joachim has succeeded in identifying and then acting on his goals. He felt a duty to serve in the military, and now he has followed through with that duty. Meanwhile, Hans’s inability to understand James’s edginess shows how little he can relate to people from the flatlands: it’s apparent that James is experiencing the same mixture of unease and intrigue that Hans felt when he first arrived at the Berghof, yet Hans is so removed from that experience that he can no longer relate to it.
Themes
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On James’s first night at the Berghof, Hans gets James situated in Joachim’s old room, where he’ll be staying, and then they head to the Berghof’s restaurant for dinner. They don’t talk about home or anything serious. James repeatedly mentions the cold weather. He has trouble breathing through his nose because of the altitude. When Hans casually mentions, in great and gross detail, the gangraena pulmonum from which one resident suffers, James unexpectedly erupts with laughter. After dinner, Hans introduces James to Dr. Krokowski, who greets him with happy enthusiasm. James, meanwhile, can sense without being told that he’s “operating on foreign soil” at the Berghof, which has its own social norms and conventions.
James’s introduction to the Berghof uncannily mirrors Hans’s, right down to his uncomfortable laughter, his introduction to Behrens and Krokowski, and his complaints about the cold weather. Hans, meanwhile, has taken over Joachim’s role, indicating the extreme transformation his time there has inspired.
Themes
The next day, James meets Behrens in the dining hall. Behrens enthusiastically tells James that it’s great he’s here—not just for Hans’s sake, but for his own, too: apparently, he’s quite anemic! Behrens then suggests that James try to live as a resident while he’s here. Not long after this, James takes his first rest cure, and he enjoys it immensely. When he tries to make jokes about the odd activities he observes around him, Hans responds with the same calm smile that every resident wears on their face, and it makes James feel uneasy.
James’s visit continues to mirror Hans’s, right down to the unease he feels toward the calm, vacant smiles of the Berghof’s residents. This raises the question of whether James will follow in Hans’s footsteps and remain at the Berghof against his best interests or whether he will listen to his unease and leave the Berghof before he can succumb to its temptations.
Themes
Later, James meets the head nurse when she drops by his room to tell him that he’ll have to wait his turn to meet with Behrens since he’s not sick and therefore not a top priority. The nurse’s aggressive behavior unsettles him—and so does Hans’s apparent acceptance of it. Meanwhile, James is constantly cold, despite Hans’s insistence that the residents are “never cold,” a phrase he repeats like a mantra.
James’s introduction to the Berghof continues to resemble Hans’s to a comically high degree. Tension mounts as readers are left to wonder whether James will succumb to the Berghof’s pull or flee while he still can.
Themes
On James’s sixth day at the Berghof, he finally has his meeting with Behrens. He goes into it wanting to have a serious discussion about Hans, but he seems subdued and defeated when he returns to his room and doesn’t mention anything he and the doctor talked about. At supper Monday night, Behrens sits at Hans’s table and, in response to a question Hans has asked him about human decomposition, explains in gory detail how one’s guts explode. James, disgusted, leaves the next morning without saying goodbye to Hans. Later, Hans receives telegram from his uncle explaining that he received word that he had an urgent business matter to attend to, but this is clearly a lie. He closes the telegram, “Best wishes for a continued pleasant stay,” and Hans can’t tell whether James is mocking him.
James experiences the same mixture of fascination and revulsion that Hans felt when he first arrived at the Berghof, yet James has the conviction and self-awareness to listen to his gut and leave while he still has the chance. James’s experience suggests that there was never anything fundamentally flawed about Hans that made the Berghof’s decadence appeal to him in the first place—James clearly recognized the appeal of the strange, otherworldly place. Yet Hans, perhaps due to his youth and inexperience at the time, lacked the initiative to recognize the potential harm that might come from staying there, and now he must suffer the consequences.
Themes
