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Logos
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Part 2, Chapter 1: The Baptismal Bowl/Grandfather in His Two Forms
Explanation and Analysis—Hard to Fell:
While describing Hans’s difficult background, including the early death of his father, the narrator uses a metaphor that compares Hans’s relatively hardy grandfather to a tree.
Escorted by a quite respectable number of his fellow citizens, [Hans’s father] joined his wife in the Castorp family grave, a very beautiful plot in the cemetery of Saint Catherine’s Church [...] His own father, the senator, survived him, if only by a little, and during the brief period until his death—likewise caused by pneumonia, against which he struggled amid great agony, for unlike his son, Hans Lorenz Castorp was a man rooted firmly in life, a tree hard to fell—during this brief period of a mere year and a half, then, the orphaned Hans Castorp lived in his grandfather’s house.
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Explanation and Analysis—Wax Doll:
The narrator uses metaphor and simile when describing a past scene in which Hans, in his childhood, looked upon the body of his grandfather during his funeral:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was this aspect of death that made his dead grandfather look so strange, not really like his grandfather at all, but like a life-size wax doll that death had slipped into the coffin in his place and for which this whole solemn show was being put on. The man who lay there, or better, what lay there, was not Grandfather himself, but a shell—which, as Hans Castorp knew, was not made of wax, but of its own material. It was just stuff, and that was what was indecent, and so not really even sad [...]
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Part 4, Chapter 1: A Necessary Purchase
Explanation and Analysis—Blank Page:
During an argument about whether or not illness is ennobling, Settembrini argues that those suffering from long-term illness are “only a body.” Joachim notes that Hans had earlier made the same claim, despite, in this argument, defending the position that illness confers a sense of wisdom and nobility upon the ill. In his response, Settembrini uses metaphor to argue that Hans must be more consistent and decisive in his opinions:
Unlock with LitCharts A+If for his part our good engineer [Hans] has already voiced analogous opinions, that only confirms my surmise that, like so many talented young men, he is playing the intellectual dilettante, temporarily experimenting with possible points of view. The talented young man is no blank page, but is rather a page where everything has already been written, so to speak, in appealing inks, the good with the bad. And it is the educator’s task explicitly to foster the true—and by appropriate practical persuasion forever to eradicate the false when it tries to emerge.
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Explanation and Analysis—The Battle:
After Hans casually expresses his belief that sickness is ennobling and leads to wisdom, Settembrini strongly objects. In making his argument that illness is “not venerable,” he uses both metaphor and logos:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Illness is definitely not elegant, and certainly not venerable—such a view is itself a sickness, or leads to it [...] It comes from an era of superstitious contrition, when the idea of humanity was demeaned and distorted into a caricature, a fearful era, when harmony and health were considered suspicious and devilish, whereas infirmity in those days was as good as a passport to heaven. Reason and enlightenment, however, have banished those shadows, which once lay encamped in the human soul—not entirely, however, for even today the battle is still being waged. That battle, however, is called work, sir, earthly labor, work for the earth, for the honor and interests of humankind.
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Part 4, Chapter 6: Analysis
Explanation and Analysis—Psychic Dissection:
In The Magic Mountain, Mann’s treatment of psychology, and more specifically Freudian psychoanalysis, is frequently satirical. In one notably satirical scene, Dr. Krokowski advertises the benefits of psychoanalysis, which he refers to metaphorically as “psychic dissection,” to the patients at the Berghof:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It turned out that Dr. Krokowski concluded his lecture with a grand advertisement for psychic dissection—he spread his arms wide, and invited them to come unto him. Come unto me, he said, though not exactly in those words, all ye that labor and are heavy laden! And he left no doubt of his certainty that they all, without exception, labored and were heavy laden. He spoke of hidden suffering, of shame and affliction, of the redemptive effects of analysis; he praised the effects of light piercing the dark unconscious, explained that illness could be transformed again into conscious emotion, admonished them to trust, promised recovery.
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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.
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Part 6, Chapter 5: An Attack Repulsed
Explanation and Analysis—Ambassador:
When Joachim leaves the sanatorium against the recommendations of the doctors, he reports back to his family about the odd atmosphere there and Hans’s decision to stay. Shortly after, Hans’s uncle, James Tienappel, travels to Davos to check in on Hans. While reflecting on the “strange” feeling of sitting next to James, the narrator uses a series of metaphors drawn from politics and war:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was strange suddenly to have sitting beside him a representative and ambassador from home, the scent of an old, vanished, earlier life [...] But it had been inevitable. Hans Castorp had been quietly expecting such a raid from the flatlands for a long time now, had even correctly guessed the person who would actually be entrusted with the task of reconnaissance—but that had not been hard to do [...] No, it would have to be James who was commissioned to check up on the missing family member.
Part 6, Chapter 7: Snow
Explanation and Analysis—Gemstones:
After several uneventful months at the sanatorium, Hans decides to violate hospital policy and purchase a pair of skis during an unusually early snowfall in the fall. The narrator uses several metaphors to describe the shining snow that fascinates Hans:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Hans Castorp stepped out from under the tree to let a few fall on his sleeve and to examine them with the connoisseur’s expert eye. They looked like shapeless tatters, but more than once he had held his good magnifying glass up to them and knew that they were collections of dainty, precise little jewels: gemstones, star insignia, diamond brooches—no skilled jeweler could have produced more delicate miniatures. Yes, there was something special about this light, loose, powdery white stuff that weighed down the trees, covered the breadth of the land, and carried him along on his skis [...]
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Part 7, Chapter 10: The Great Petulance
Explanation and Analysis—Pedagogic Policeman:
After an argument between Naphta and Settembrini on the topic of freedom and political violence grows heated, Settembrini characterizes Naphta as “infamous” and suggests that he could not be “punished severely enough” for corrupting young people with his ideas. Deeply offended, Naphtha uses metaphors and personification as he challenges his once-friend and rival to a duel:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Infamous? Punished? Have the asses of virtue taken to butting us now? Have we roused civilization’s pedagogic policeman to the point of drawing his sword? I call that quite a success, for starters—easily achieved, as I must add with some disparagement, for behold! what a mild bit of teasing was needed to induce ever-alert virtue to don its armor. The rest, sir, will follow in due course. Including the ‘punishment’—that too. I hope your civilian principles do not preclude your knowing what it is you owe me, because otherwise I would be forced to find means to test those principles in a way that—”
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Part 7, Chapter 11: The Thunderbolt
Explanation and Analysis—Thunderbolt :
During Hans's seventh year at the Berghof, the First World War interrupts the deep malaise into which Hans had sunk. The narrator employs a metaphor that describes the beginning of the war as a "thunderbolt":
Unlock with LitCharts A+Then came the rumble of thunder— But modesty and reserve keep us from turning that thundering rumble into a blustering narrative [...] It was, to speak in subdued, respectful tones, a historic thunderclap that shook the foundations of the earth; but for us it is the thunderbolt that bursts open the magic mountain and rudely sets its entranced sleeper outside the gates. There he sits in the grass, sheepishly rubbing his eyes, like a man who, despite many an admonition, has failed to read the daily papers.
