The Magic Mountain: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Magic Mountain" is a novel by Thomas Mann that explores the lives and interactions of various characters at a Swiss sanatorium. The central character, Hans Castorp, is a young German man who becomes a patient due to tuberculosis. His journey through the sanatorium serves as a metaphor for a spiritual quest, where he encounters diverse philosophical perspectives. Key figures include Ludovico Settembrini, an Italian humanist advocating for reason and progress, and Leo Naphta, an intellectual with a Catholic background who embodies spiritual authoritarianism. Clavdia Chauchat, a captivating Russian woman, complicates Hans's emotional landscape, while Mynheer Peeperkorn, a strong yet inarticulate figure, contrasts with the novel's intellectual debates. Joachim Ziemssen, Hans's cousin, represents a more traditional path, yearning to leave the sanatorium to fulfill his duties as a soldier. Other characters, such as Hofrat Behrens and Dr. Krokowski, provide additional layers to the narrative, reflecting the varied responses to illness and existential inquiry. Through these richly developed characters, Mann addresses themes of time, love, and the search for meaning in a fragmented world.
The Magic Mountain: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Thomas Mann
First published: Der Zauberberg, 1924 (English translation, 1927)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Davos, Switzerland
Plot: Philosophical
Time: 1907–1914
Hans Castorp (hahns KAHS-tohrp), a young German of middle-class and commercial background. He is a sedate, sensible, correct young man, appreciative of good living, but without particular ambition or aspiration. This spiritual lack, Mann suggests, is allied to physical illness. About to enter a shipbuilding firm, Hans goes to make a three-week visit at the International Sanatorium Berghof, where his cousin is a patient. There, he learns that he himself has contracted tuberculosis, and he spends seven years at the sanatorium. Spiritually unattached to his own time and place, he resigns himself rather easily to his new role as an inmate of the “magic mountain,” where the spiritual conflicts and defects of modern Europe are polarized and where time and place are allied to eternity and infinity. His experience takes on the significance of a spiritual journey. He is exposed to a threadbare version of Western liberalism and rationalism (in the person of Settembrini); to the lure of irrational desire (in the person of Madame Chauchat); to Catholic absolutism and mysticism (in the person of Naphta, whose arguments with Settembrini make up a large part of the second portion of the novel). Finally (in the person of Mynheer Peeperkorn), he feels the attraction of a strong, vital personality that makes the intellectual strife of Settembrini and Naphta sound quite hollow. Lost in a snowstorm that quickly becomes a symbol of his passage through uncharted spiritual regions, Hans attains a vision of an earthly paradise and of blood sacrifice—the two opposed forces life has revealed to him—and he achieves a further revelation of the importance of goodness and love. Ironically, after he returns to the sanatorium, he forgets; the vision has literally led him beyond himself and his capacity. He now dabbles in spiritualism and, in a famous passage, also soothes himself with romantic music that, he feels, contains at its heart the death wish. It is a snatch of this music that Hans has on his lips when, at the conclusion of the novel, he is glimpsed on a battlefield of World War I.
Ludovico Settembrini (lew-doh-FEE-koh seh-tehm-BREEnee), an Italian humanist, man of letters, apostle of reason, progress, equality, and the brotherhood of man, as well as a fiery Italian nationalist. His case is incurable; no longer able to return to the land of action (a fact that has obvious symbolic connotations), he spends his energy in hollow eloquence and in ineffectual writing for the International League for the Organization of Progress.
Leo Naphta (LAY-oh NAHF-tah), an apostate Jew converted to Catholicism, educated by the Jesuits, brilliant in his defense of the immaterial, the spiritual, the authoritarian, the medieval. He gets the better of Settembrini in his many arguments with the Italian, but it becomes clear that Naphta's rigidity is essentially a form of death. Toward the end of the novel, having goaded Settembrini into a duel, Naphta turns his gun on himself.
Clavdia Chauchat (KLAHF-dee-ah koh-SHAH), a Russian, married but refusing to carry a ring on her finger, wandering about Europe from sanatorium to sanatorium. Her manners are in many ways the antithesis of what Hans has learned to accept as ladylike; but that very difference seems to attract him once he has begun to lose his ties with Hamburg, and on a carnival night, they consummate the passion she has aroused in him. She leaves the sanatorium for a time but returns in the company of Mynheer Peeperkorn.
Mynheer Peeperkorn (MEEN-hayr PAY-pur-kohrn), an enormously wealthy, burly ex-planter. He is inarticulate (thus enforcing the difference between him, on one hand, and Settembrini and Naphta, on the other), but exudes a strength of personality that engages the respect of Hans, who allies himself with the Dutchman. But Peeperkorn, feeling the approach of impotence, kills himself (another facet of nineteenth century individualism gone).
Joachim Ziemssen (YOH-ahkh-ihm ZEEM-sehn), Hans's cousin, soldierly, courteous, brave. A foil to Hans, he refuses to yield to the magic of the mountain, keeps track of time, chafes to return to the flatland so that he can pursue his career as a soldier. Though in love with an inmate, Marusja, he, unlike Castorp, refuses to yield to his passion. Finally, he insists on leaving, though he is not fully cured. He is gloriously happy for a while but returns to the sanatorium to die.
Marusja (mah-ROOS-yah), a pretty young Russian girl, silently adored by Joachim Ziemssen.
Hofrat Behrens (HOHF-raht BAY-rehns), the chief medical officer at the sanatorium. His wife had died there some years before, and he stayed on when he found himself tainted with the disease. He is a mixture of melancholy and forced jocularity.
Dr. Krokowski (kroh-KOF-skee), a foil to Behrens. If Behrens represents the medical point of view, Krokowski represents the psychoanalytical.
Frau Stöhr, a middle-aged woman who irks Castorp at the dinner table by her boring conversation, yet he welcomes her gossip about Clavdia Chauchat.
Miss Robinson, an elderly English woman and table companion of Castorp.
Fräulein Engelhart (ANG-ehl-hahrt), a school mistress from Konigsberg, another table companion of Castorp.
Dr. Leo Blumenkohl (BLEW-mehn-kohl), a physician from Odessa. The advanced stage of his illness causes him to be the quietest person at Castorp's table.
Herr Albin (AHL-been), a patient who, unable to take his illness philosophically, creates excitement by demonstrating suicidal intentions.
Tous Les Deux (tew lay doo), an old Mexican woman known by this name because her conversation consists of only a few French phrases that always contain the words “tous les deux.”
Sister Berta (BAYR-tah), formerly Alfreda Schildknecht (ahl-FRAY-dah SHIHLD-knasht), a talkative nurse who tries to explain her frustrations to reluctant Hans Castorp and Joachim Ziemssen.
Adriatica von Mylendonk (ah-dree-AH-tih-kah fon MEElehn-donk), the director of the sanatorium, who surprises Castorp by her businesslike manner.