Who He Is
The Italian humanist of the Berghof, a disciple of Giosuè Carducci, whom Hans Castorp classifies before he knows his name.
"A barrel organ grinder," thought Hans Castorp, and so he was not in the least surprised at the name he heard
Trajectory
In Chapter III: The Whole First Day and the Arrival of Settembrini he enters as a pedagogue from his very first line, calling the doctors judges of Hades and the patients a fallen people, and recites Carducci's hymn to Satan as a symbol of rebellious reason.
How many months did our Minos and Rhadamanthus allot you?And, moments later:So you came of your own free will to these heights, to visit this fallen people that we are
None of these lines denies that the patients are ill, but none treats the illness as elevation: judges of hell and a fallen people are figures of debasement, not of nobility. It is the same yardstick with which, right after, Settembrini refuses the very devil that Hans Castorp invoked without thinking. On hearing "as difficult as the devil," he asks whether the young man knows that hisgreat masterdedicated a hymn to the demon, and recites the verseO salute, o Satana, o Ribellione, o forza vindice della Ragione
That same night he suggests that Hans Castorp leave on the next day's train.
why not pack your bags this very night and take tomorrow's train to set off and get away from here?
In Chapter IV: The Sense of Time, Hippe, and the Thermometer he finds music moral and politically suspect, tells of the Carbonaro grandfather and raises politics and humanism to a single force.
it measures the course of time in a special and lively way, and thus lends it vigilance, spirit, and preciousness. Music awakens time; it awakens us, so that we may draw a more refined enjoyment from time; it awakens… and therefore it is moral, Politically Suspect!
Its name was: civilization!, Dawning Dread. Of the Two Grandfathers and the Boat Ride at Dusk
In Chapter V: Humaniora, the Analysis, and Walpurgis Night he shows Hans Castorp the program of the League for the Organization of Progress and calls the body an evil principle, in the name of the spirit.
In the reading room, Settembrini shows Hans Castorp the letter from the League for the Organization of Progress, which commissioned him to write, for an encyclopedia of twenty volumes on human suffering, the entry on belles-lettres.Order and classification form the beginning of mastery, and the most dangerous enemy is the unknown enemy. [...] in roughly twenty encyclopedic volumes, all the imaginable ills of men will be enumerated and treated [...]; in a word, the work will show the chemical elements that, in manifold mixture and combination, make up all human suffering
In the same meeting, Settembrini takes Hans Castorp to the small reading room and sets out his position on the body before the spirit, calling the body an evil principle precisely because it loves man.I say "yes" to the body, I honor it and feel love for it [...]. But there exists a power, a principle to which I dedicate my fervent approval [...], and that power [...] is the spirit. [...] I am not unaware that, within the antithesis of body and spirit, the former represents the evil and diabolical principle; for the body is nature, and nature [...] is evil: mystical and evil!
In Chapter VI: Naphta, the Snow, and the Death of Joachim he meets his adversary in Leo Naphta and defends democracy against him; in a conversation with Hans Castorp about Freemasonry, he draws the limit of tolerance.
Democracy has no meaning other than being an individualist corrective to every form of absolutism of the State. [...] The conquests of the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, my good sir, are called personality, the rights of man, freedom!
And Settembrini's reply, which places the limit of tolerance where the Enlightenment thinkers placed it:
tolerance becomes a crime when it is devoted to evil.
In Chapter VII: Peeperkorn, the Great Boredom, and the Thunder he accepts the duel while disapproving of it, fires into the air and, in the thunder, takes leave of Hans Castorp by sending him down.
On the way to the duel, Settembrini promises Hans Castorp:
My friend, I shall not kill. I shall not do it. I shall expose myself to his bullet. That is all that honor can demand of me.
E così in giù [...] in giù finalmente! Addio, Giovanni mio! [...] Go and fight with courage, wherever the ties of blood send you!
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that pass through him are Reason, Politics, and Tradition and Modernity.
His yardstick is not health against illness but reason and courage against what he calls decline: he praises Hans Castorp's decision to stay and, the same day, suggests that he leave, because what he values is a decision made with clarity. He is also the only voice in the novel that asks, from the first day, for a descent to the plain, and it is his request that comes true in the end.
Relationships
- Leo Naphta: the doctrinal adversary, with whom he shares the tailor Lukaček's house and the duel.
- Hans Castorp: the disciple, whom he calls Giovanni at the farewell.
- Pieter Peeperkorn: the presence that empties his discussion with Naphta.