X-rays represent Hans’s unhealthy and self-destructive fixation on death. Hans first sees his X-ray during a checkup with Dr. Behrens. The sight of his skeleton displayed so plainly on the screen before him forces Hans to acknowledge his mortality for the first time in his life. Though Hans has dealt with the deaths of loved ones, the revelation of his own mortality deeply unsettles him; indeed, he describes the X-ray image as a sight “which no man was ever intended to see […].” From that point forth, he makes it his goal to understand and dignify death. But Hans’s project quickly consumes him to the point that his efforts to understand, dignify, and make peace with the inevitability of death end up debasing his life. First off, he regards his X-ray image as indisputable proof of both his illness and his need to remain at the Berghof in order to heal. In this way, the X-ray image precludes his return to the real world down in the flatlands and the life of purpose he might have created there, had not the threat of death distracted him. Hans also starts carrying his X-ray image in his wallet as though in place of an ID card, signaling death’s takeover of his identity. Later, he exchanges X-ray images with Clavdia Chauchat, representing death’s takeover of his relationships.
X-Ray Quotes in The Magic Mountain
And Hans Castorp saw exactly what he should have expected to see, but which no man was ever intended to see and which he himself had never presumed he would be able to see: he saw his own grave. Under that light, he saw the process of corruption anticipated, saw the flesh in which he moved decomposed, expunged, dissolved into airy nothingness […] he beheld a familiar part of his body, and for the first time in his life he understood that he would die.
X-Ray Symbol Timeline in The Magic Mountain
