Who is Hans Castorp from The Magic Mountain and what is their importance?

Hans Castorp is an "ordinary" young man from Hamburg. Raised by relatives, he has a modest, regular income, a talent for mathematics, and a solid but unexciting career as a shipbuilder ahead of him. Hans' character is representative of one side of the German soul. He is a German Everyman, and he is described as hard working, conscientious, middle-class and ordinary on the outside, but full of deep secret longings and unexpected attractions and talents on the inside.