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Imagery
Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Part 1, Chapter 3: In the Restaurant
Explanation and Analysis—An Old Water Hole:
Joachim describes himself, in a simile, as “an old water hole” when Hans arrives at the sanatorium:
It’s really sad, isn’t it? I had already been accepted and would have taken my officer’s exam next month. And here I am lounging about with a thermometer in my mouth and counting Frau Stöhr’s illiterate howlers, and time is passing me by. A single year plays such an important role at our age, it brings so many changes and so much progress with it when you’re living down below. And here I am stagnating like an old water hole—a stinking pond, and that’s not too crude a comparison, either.”
Related Themes:
Part 2, Chapter 1: The Baptismal Bowl/Grandfather in His Two Forms
Explanation and Analysis—The Portrait:
Hans is captivated by a portrait of his grandfather, which shows him in an old-fashioned military uniform. In a passage punctuated with situational irony, the narrator suggests that Hans regards the portrait of his grandfather as more “authentic and real” than the man himself:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Although he had only once seen his grandfather in real life in the fashion pictured there on canvas—just for a brief moment as part of a dignified procession into the town hall—he could not help, as we have said, regarding this pictorial presence as his authentic and real grandfather, seeing in the everyday one a temporary, imperfectly adapted improvisation, so to speak. From that perspective, the lapses and eccentricities in his everyday appearance were apparently mere imperfections, or inept adaptations, were the vestiges or hints
Part 3, Chapter 9: Satana Makes Shameful Suggestions
Explanation and Analysis—Like Coal:
The narrator uses several similes in a passage in which Hans discovers that he finds that he no longer enjoys the taste of his favorite cigars while sitting in Joachim’s room at the sanatorium:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The corridor floor with its coconut runners undulated gently under his feet, but he found it was not all that unpleasant a sensation. He sat down in Joachim’s large flowered armchair—there was a chair like that in every room—and lit a Maria Mancini. It tasted like paste, like coal, like anything except what it should; nevertheless he continued to smoke it as he watched Joachim get ready for his rest cure, slipping into his tuniclike house jacket, putting an old overcoat on over that, and then taking the nightstand lamp and his Russian grammar with him out to the balcony [...]
Related Themes:
Part 4, Chapter 7: Doubts and Considerations
Explanation and Analysis—The Soul:
In a passage that describes Director Behren’s place in the broader administrative hierarchy of the sanatorium, the narrator uses various heavily ironic metaphors:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Director Behrens was neither the owner nor the proprietor of the sanatorium—although one might get that impression. Above and behind him stood invisible forces, made manifest only to a certain degree in the management office: a board of directors, a joint-stock company [...] The director, then, was not an independent man, but merely an agent, a functionary, an associate of those higher powers—though, of course, the highest and supreme associate here, the soul of the place, the determining factor for the whole organization, including the management office.
Part 4, Chapter 9: Growing Anxiety/Two Grandfathers and a Twilight Boat Ride
Explanation and Analysis—Tantalus:
In an ironic passage, Frau Stöhr uses both a metaphor and an allusion that underscore her perception of medical treatment at the Berghof as a kind of punishment:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Frau Stöhr’s affectations were dreadful to behold. “Good God,” she said, “it’s always the same, as the gentleman knows himself. One takes two steps forward and three back—and when one has served one’s five months, the boss comes and adds another six to your sentence. Ah, the tortures of Tantalus. You push and push, and you think you’ve reached the top of the hill…”
“Oh, how prettily you express it. You’ve finally put a little variety into poor Tantalus’s life. You’ve let him roll the famous marble boulder for a change.
Related Themes:
Part 4, Chapter 10: The Thermometer
Explanation and Analysis—Not Untalented:
Before Hans is scheduled to leave the Berghof, he meets with Director Behrens to discuss various symptoms that he has begun to experience. Despite arriving at the sanatorium in a state of good health, he now feels that he has “a little fever” in addition to shortness of breath and an irregular heartbeat. With a clear sense of verbal irony, Director Behrens praises Hans as being “not at all untalented” in being ill.
Unlock with LitCharts A+“You don’t say!” Behrens exclaimed. “And I suppose you think that’s news to me, do you? Do you think I don’t have eyes in my head?” And he pointed with one massive forefinger at his own two bloodshot, watery, protruding blue eyes. “How high is it, then?”
Hans Castorp modestly supplied the numbers.
“In the morning? Hmm, not bad. Not at all untalented for a beginner. Well, then, you can fall in, two by two, tomorrow. It will be an honor. And now, do go in and savor your taking of nourishment.”
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Recuperation :
In a passage marked by situational irony, Hans claims to Joachim that he will have to take a vacation to recover from the stresses of his vacation once he finally leaves the Berghof:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I feel as if once I’m back home in the flatlands I’m going to have to recuperate from my recuperation and sleep for three weeks, that’s how run-down I feel sometimes. And then to top it all there’s this catarrh I’ve caught.” Indeed, it did look more and more as if Hans Castorp would be returning to the flatlands with a first-class case of the sniffles. He had caught a cold, presumably from lying outside in the rest cure—
Related Themes:
Part 5, Chapter 5: Encyclopedia
Explanation and Analysis—Passport:
Despite Settembrini’s warning to leave the Berghof as soon as possible, Hans stays for the full three weeks of his reservation and, after developing a fever, extends his stay at the sanatorium. Looking over the younger man’s X-ray results, Settembrini uses a simile that compares them to a passport:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He watched the young man laugh and then asked, “And the copy of your X-ray—have you received it?”
“I did indeed receive it,” Hans Castorp confirmed with importance. “Just recently. Here it is.” And he reached for his inside breast pocket.
“Ah, you carry it in your wallet. As a kind of identification, like a passport or membership card. Very good. Let me see.” And Herr Settembrini raised the little glass plate framed with black paper up to the light [...] “Yes, yes,” he said at last. “Here you have your legitimation—thank you so much.”
Related Themes:
