Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg: The `Snow-Spiral'

Abstract

The `Snow' chapter of Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg has been generally considered the artistic and intellectual core of the novel.' Yet little attention has been given to two scenes which prefigure the `Snow' experience and which actually present its `problem' in miniature. The two occur respectively during Hans Castorp's first morning at the Berghof, in the chapter entitled 'Ehrbare Verfinsterung,' and after the first week in Davos, in the chapter 'Hippe.' In the first experience, which takes place on the balcony of Hans's hotel room, the morning's serenity is pierced by discordant reality. Hans discovers a world of sensuality and grim death lurking just beneath a veneer of artificial beauty and good taste. But he tremblingly rejects the truth offered him, and stubbornly clings to the world as he chooses to see it. In the second experience, which occurs as Hans makes his only other journey up into the mountains, he is strongly pulled towards an indistinct world beyond the one familiar to him. Yet the experience offered demands a physical commitment which Hans cannot make, as well as a severance of habitual ties. Bound by `time' and the expectation of others, he makes his pitiful and tortuous way back to civilization. It is two years later, when the `challenge of the trees' is answered in earnest, that Hans returns and plays out his climactic scene. And he does indeed `return,' for contained in the Snow vision are both the essence and very physical remnants of the two earlier experiences – now expanded and weighted with a much deeper significance. It is thus that Hans travels the same road more than once, encountering the same