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
Over the years, Krokowski’s lectures have shifted from “physic dissections” to “magical, arcane matters.” His main focus remains the subconscious mind, but now, instead of talking about love and illness, he focuses on hypnosis, telepathy, and other mystical matters. To Krokowski, if one believes in the link between bodily illness and repressed emotions, it's not such a great leap to see how repressed emotions can manifest changes in the external world. And it’s worth noting, the narrator adds, that Krokowski was talking about such manners long before Ellen Brand entered the picture.
Here, with Krokowski’s new interest in telepathy and other mystical subjects, the “magic” of The Magic Mountain manifests somewhat more literally. Krokowski, it seems, has taken his psychoanalytic theories to the extreme, positing that repressed emotions can effect change. This attitude is dangerous to someone like Hans, as it absolves Hans of the responsibility to actually act on his theories, emotions, and beliefs.
Themes
Ellen Brand, whom everyone calls Elly, is a sweet, 19-year-old patient from Copenhagen. She appears childish and innocent on the outside, but in time it becomes clear that she possesses hidden, strange talents. And Krokowski takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of them. Elly’s hidden talents first appear when residents are playing some parlor games during a social hour one night. One game begins with one person leaving the room, at which point the others will decide on some task for the person who left the room to perform. Upon the person’s return, they must guess what the task is. Everyone is unsettled when Elly correctly guesses each of her complicated tasks, such as taking some salt from the dining hall and sprinkling it on another resident’s head and then leading him to the piano and pounding out “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
The “magic” of The Magic Mountain continues to intensify with Elly Brand’s arrival. Elly’s unbelievable ability to correctly guess the complicated tasks the other players assigned her suggests that she has genuine psychic abilities. Elly’s status as something of a gifted child reinforces Hans’s naïve drive to believe that illness and suffering imbue a person with honor and nobility. It’s as though Elly’s unfortunate illness has given her this special, supernatural gift to make up for everything else it’s taken from her.
Themes
Everyone accuses Elly of cheating, and she apologizes. Though she hadn’t been listening outside the door, she can’t help but listening “in the room, after she came in.” At first everyone is puzzled, then they immediately call for Krokowski, informing him that Elly can apparently hear voices. Krokowski is immediately intrigued and sends everyone to their room to take a rest cure. He asks Elly to stay behind, though, so he can “chat” with her. This chills everyone to their core, including Hans, who feels full of terror as he witnesses Elly’s powers. Hans, like most everyone else, grew up hearing vague stories about the supernatural, but he’s never witnessed anything paranormal firsthand.
Though Elly insists that she didn’t cheat by listening outside the door, there’s really no evidence to prove she isn’t lying. She could be making the claim about listening “in the room, after she came in” (i.e., reading people’s minds) to mess with everyone. Hans’s terror as he witnesses Elly’s supposed supernatural powers could read as yet another example of his ambivalence. He has tried for so long to find greater meaning and value in illness, suffering, and death. But now that he has encountered evidence that seems to support his theory (Elly’s supernatural ability suggests that suffering gives people higher powers and perhaps even offers proof of an afterlife), he falters, apparently realizing that he might not be as committed to his ideals and beliefs as he once thought.
Themes
From that night on, Krokowski forbids anyone from performing any unofficial experiments on Elly. Meanwhile, he starts inviting her for sessions in his “analytical dungeon” in the basement. Hermine Kleefeld, who has assumed the role of young Elly’s surrogate mother during her time at the Berghof, learns snippets about Elly’s psychic life through her close relationship with Elly and then passes that information on to the others.
Krokowski’s prohibition of any unofficial experiments on Elly simultaneously confirms and raises suspicion about the authenticity of Elly’s supernatural abilities. On the one hand, he could recognize her genuine talent and want to keep it to himself for research purposes. But it could also be that he recognizes Elly as a fraud and doesn’t want a nosy resident to catch wind of this for some reason. Either way, Krokowski’s willingness to entertain this incredulous notion reinforces the irrationality of his character.
Themes
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Everyone learns, through Hermine, that the “voice” who whispered things to Elly that night in the lounge was a boy named Holger, who is something of a guardian angel to Elly. They also learn that Elly has been hearing these voices since she was a young girl, and it hasn’t always been harmless fun. Once, she saw a vision of her older sister Sophie, who was living in America then, dressed in an odd white gown. The next morning, she learned that it was that very night that Sophie died of inflammation of the heart.
Elly’s story seems to validate the authenticity of her supernatural abilities, though, of course, nobody can know whether the story about seeing her sister’s spirit is real, imagined, or patently false. Once more, Elly’s supernatural ability links suffering, illness, and death with extraordinary ability, suggesting that Sophie’s death somehow gave her the special power to communicate one last time with her younger sister.
Themes
Hans agrees to participate in a séance the others are holding with Elly. It will be a secret from Krokowski, of course. On the night of the séance, everyone gathers in Hermine Kleefeld’s room. There’s a table at the center of the room with an upside-down wineglass placed upon it. There are also lettered tokens on the table, which the spirit, should one appear, will use to communicate. After everyone has some tea, they all gather around the table, and Hermine dims the lights. Everyone places a finger on the wineglass and waits for it to move. Twenty or so minutes pass without anything happening, and people are getting restless. But suddenly, the glass tips and flies out from under everyone’s fingers before eventually settling back at the center of the table. Everyone is equally intrigued and terrified.
The theatrics involved in the séance—the tea, the dimmed lights, the lettered tokens—seem designed to heighten the guests’ suggestibility, which could prompt them to sense supernatural presences that aren’t actually there. Even so, the narration leaves room for ambiguity, and readers have no reason to doubt that a supernatural presence did indeed tip over the wineglass. This scene builds on the magical elements at play in this chapter, and this underscores the heightened atmosphere of irrationality and restlessness that has overtaken the Berghof as of late.
Themes
Herr Albin asks if a spirit is in the room, and eventually the glass spells out H-O-L-G-E-R, confirming the presence of Holger, Elly’s supposed guardian angel. The group uses the wineglass to ask him questions, but he doesn’t seem too interested in giving specific answers. When they ask what his profession was (when he was alive), he replies “POT.” They guess this means he may have been a poet but simply forgot the “E.” One of the women asks Holger if he’d been handsome, and he replies, “Beautiful brown, brown locks,” much to everyone’s delight. Someone asks if Holger can recite some of his poetry for them, and he obliges, reciting poetry for a long while, with nobody able to make him stop. His poetry describes with great beauty the abode of a hermit and the private musings of Holger’s mind.
This scene is played for comedy (it’s bit of a stretch to assume the “Holger” has misspelled “POET,” and Holger’s bragging description of his “Beautiful brown, brown locks” is delightfully funny), but it also points to the way a shared desire to believe in the same thing can lead people to behave irrationally. Even so, the narration leaves open the possibility that Elly’s supernatural abilities are genuine and that Holger’s presence is really in the room.
Themes
After the poetry recitation ends, Hans presses his hand to the glass and asks if Holger can tell him how much longer his stay here will last: after all, he initially came here thinking he’d leave after three weeks, and now years have passed. Holger replies cryptically, spelling out “go,” “across,” and then saying something about Hans’s room (Room 34). Then, without warning, the lights blow out, and the room becomes pitch black. Frau Stöhr cries out with fright. Dr. Ting-Fu, another of the residents, suggests turning on the ceiling light, which calms everyone down. When the lights go on, though, Hans looks down at his knees and finds Clavdia’s interior portrait (her X-ray) resting there. Hans knows he didn’t bring it into the room with him.
Hans’s question about how much longer he will stay at the Berghof reinforces how in denial he is about his inner malaise. He doesn’t need a ghostly entity to answer this question for him. Hans isn’t being held at the Berghof against his will and can therefore leave any time he wishes—he’s simply choosing not to. When Clavdia’s X-ray image appears on Hans’s lap, apparently in response to his question, he should take it as a sign that he has stayed at the Berghof for far too long. Initially, he stuck around with the hope that he would see Clavdia again. Now that she has come and gone, he should learn his lesson, cut his losses, and re-enter society while he still can. As Holger’s first series of cryptic answers—“go,” “across,” and “3-4”—seems to suggest, Hans has been at the Berghof for three plus four years, or seven years in total.
Themes
When Hans later tells Settembrini about the séance, Settembrini scoffs and calls Elly a fraud. Then Settembrini goes off on Hans for believing in such nonsense. He tells Hans it’s his “inalienable right” as a human to use his rational mind to tell the difference between good and evil and between “truth and the sham of lies.” Hans just nods along without responding.
It's no wonder that Settembrini scoffs at Elly’s supposed supernatural abilities, given that rationality is a core fixture of his humanist ideals. One wonders what Hans sought to achieve by telling Settembrini about the séance. Perhaps he did not like what “Holger” told him via Clavdia’s X-ray image and wanted Settembrini to discount the séance so that he could disregard Holger’s “advice.”
Themes
Later, Dr. Krokowski starts inviting select residents to the sessions he holds with Elly in his office. Hans doesn’t attend the sessions himself, but he hears bits and pieces from residents who do. Apparently, Elly made a wastebasket hover in the air during one session. Krokowski’s theory is that Elly’s condition is a matter of “biopsychic subconscious complexes into the objective world […].” By this logic, then, Elly might be capable of physically manifesting the spirits she convenes with in her head—in other words, she might be able to project apparitions of the dead into reality. He sets to work training Elly to make this a reality, and Hans hears that eventually Krokowski is successful, with various attendees of the sessions reporting that they were “touched by materialized hands.”
Hans’s avoidance of Krokowski’s sessions with Elly suggests that he’s still unsettled by what Holger communicated to him via Clavdia’s X-ray image. Multiple people have advised him to leave the Berghof for the sake of his wellbeing, and yet he obstinately and irrationally disregards their helpful advice. Years have passed, and yet Hans remains just as naïve—and because he has spent critical formative year cut off from the real world, just as inexperienced—as he was when he first arrived at the Berghof.
Themes
Krokowski even manages to coach Elly to materialize Holger, who it turns out “really did have ‘beautiful brown, brown locks.’” Elly also claims that she’s able to materialize any deceased person. Hans hears this, and it eventually compels him to participate in the Berghof’s paranormal activities. One night, he heads to Krokowski’s basement office to attend a scheduled session. Krokowski and Elly greet all the attendees with lighthearted cheer, apparently to keep the room’s atmosphere calm and unmenacing. Despite this, Hans feels ill at ease.
It's unclear why the revelation that Elly may be able to manifest the dead is what compels Hans to finally attend one of Krokowski’s sessions. He has been so critical of the way staff and residents try to downplay or outright deny the reality of death, and the notion that the dead may be resurrected via magic seems to call into question the permanence and harsh reality of death. Hans’s choice to attend the session despite his wariness about it makes sense, though, given his characteristic ambivalence. He repeatedly gravitates toward experiences he knows (or at least should be able to predict) aren’t good for him.
Themes
When all the attendees have arrived, Krokowski asks his assistants—Frau Magnus and Fräulein Levi—to accompany him and Elly to the adjacent office, where Elly will receive a preliminary exam before the main session begins. Meanwhile, Hans and the others, who are all regular attendees, wait in the consulting room. Hans looks about the room and sees a bust of Hippocrates and an engraving of Rembrandt’s painting Anatomy Lesson above the fireplace. The floor is covered with a red carpet.
The Rembrandt painting on Krokowski’s wall depicts a demonstration of the dissection of a cadaver. Meanwhile, the bust of Hippocrates brings to mind the Hippocratic Oath, which outlines the ethical standards that doctors must uphold. Together, these two details emphasize a doctor’s obligation to heal (or at least improve the quality of life for) their patients. This contrasts with the event that’s currently taking place in Krokowski’s office: it’s unclear whom this séance is helping, and how.
Themes
Ten minutes later, Elly, Krokowski and the two assistants return from the examination room, and the session begins. Krokowski turns off the lights, enveloping the room in darkness. He explains, mostly for Hans’s benefit (because it’s his first time), that Elly will put herself in a trance state. After that, her attendant spirit, Holger, will speak through her. Now, Krokowski instructs everyone to link arms, and then he orders another attendant to turn on the music. A Millöcker overture begins to play from the gramophone. By the time it's over, Elly has fallen into a trance state. Hans is given the privilege of “exercising scientific control” over Elly, which requires him to sit facing her and grip her hands and allow her to whisper into his ear, essentially serving as a middleman between Elly/Holger and the attendees.
Krokowski frames Hans’s job as “exercising scientific control” in order to give the séance an air of rationality and believability. It also makes the event seem like it’s fulfilling some medical purpose and is therefore more ethical. Hans’s role as middleman between the living and the dead is also highly symbolic, bringing to mind the state of limbo he has existed in over the past several years. Though he has not physically died, his gradual disassociation from ordinary society leaves him lost to himself and to the world, which is a figurative sort of death.
Themes
Elly squeezes Hans’s hands, which means that Holger is present. Krokowski asks Holger if he’s still willing to make a deceased person appear, and Elly/Holger whispers “yes,” into Hans’s ear. Hans feels “goose bumps” prickle his skin. Krokowski asks which deceased person they should ask Holger to materialize. After a pause, Hans asks to see Joachim. Krokowski commands Holger to get to work materializing Joachim and then orders the music to resume. Elly remains in a trance for hours without anything happening. But then she suddenly starts to convulse. When the convulsions finally stop, Elly comes to, opens her eyes, and smiles. At this point, everyone takes a break to chat and smoke.
Hans’s reason for asking to see Joachim is unclear. Given that there has been no concrete evidence to support Elly’s ability to summon the dead, it’s possible Hans may be counting on the fact that Joachim will not appear. That being said, his request could also convey his conscious or unconscious desire to turn to Joachim for advice. Hans’s life has been consumed by decadence, irrationality, and malaise ever since Joachim’s death. Joachim has a straightforward and practical understanding of the world, a strong sense of honor, and a willingness to translate his moral code into action. Hans can use someone like this to set him back on track.
Themes
The break comes to a close and the session resumes. Hans asks to have someone else be the mediator, but Krokowski refuses his request, and Hans sits back down in his seat facing Elly. The gramophone is turned on again, and Elly reenters a trance state, and then more hours pass with nothing happening. When one of the disks on the gramophone ends, Hans suggests they play a specific piece, a song from Gounod’s Faust, next. He explains that it will help set a particular “emotional state” and that the piece is “quite special.” The music begins.
Gounod’s Faust is based on the German legend of Faust, in which an alchemist sells his soul to the devil for infinite knowledge. Hans’s choice to play this particular opera during a séance is rather on the nose, given the opera’s focus on black magic. Hans’s musical selection also reinforces the point that he is aware that he is doing something potentially self-destructive in trying to summon Joachim. He seems to sense that it will cost him to see his deceased cousin again, yet he moves forward with his plan anyway. Though Hans has matured and gained experience in some ways, he continues to make foolish, self-destructive decisions.
Themes
In the middle of the song, a deep voice announces, “I’ve been watching him for some time now.” The record ends, but nobody moves to lift the needle. In the corner of the room, off in the background, an additional person has materialized: Joachim, as he appeared in the final days before his death. But Joachim isn’t wearing his normal uniform—this one has a narrow collar, as well as a cross. He looks like a military men, yes, but one from the long-ago past. The room is utterly quiet. Hans feels like he’s going to be sick. He cries out, “Forgive me!” and then breaks down in tears before losing consciousness.
Joachim’s presence confirms the authenticity of Elly’s talent. More importantly, it deeply unsettles Hans, who immediately apologizes, seemingly ashamed to have disturbed Joachim’s peace. Hans, in keeping with his character, has let his emotions drive his actions and failed to consider the consequences of his behavior. Now, he has selfishly disturbed his deceased cousin. He has also instantaneously dismantled everything he thought he knew about life and death, undoing much of the progress he has made over the course of his self-education.
Themes
Hans awakes to Krokowski calling him by name over and over again. Hans says nothing and goes to the door and turns on the lights. Then he walks toward Krokowski and tries to say something to him, but he can’t bring himself to speak. He instead “nod[s] menacingly” at Krokowski and then leaves the room without a word.
Hans’s anger at Krokowski as he leaves the room reads as misplaced. As Hans “nod[s] menacingly” at Krokowski, he seems to blame the doctor for the seriously unsettling experience he has just had. In reality, though, Hans voluntarily attended this séance, and it was his idea to summon Joachim. Hans’s lingering immaturity comes through in his failure to take responsibility for his actions.
Themes
