The Magic Mountain Themes & Symbolism

The Magic Mountain Significant Topics

At the height of the novel, its young hero has a dream whose meaning he summarizes in one sentence, the only sentence Mann deigned worthy of being italicized: "For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts." The novel studies the process by which its leading character progresses from his initial attraction to the irrationalities of disease and death to a renewed trust in life, love, and human responsibility.

With the help of some very curious pedagogues, the hero learns to find his way ever more skillfully among a host of conflicting and, in their one-sidedness, always alluring but always destructive ideological alternatives. When the outbreak of the war brings to an end these baffling trial runs, he is finally ready to join the real fight on the side of those whose love of life promises the only hope for...
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