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Similes
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 4, Chapter 10: The Thermometer
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:
