The Theme in the Work
Chapter II formulates the problem before the protagonist climbs. The narrator says that a person also lives the life of his age, and that, when the times cannot answer the question "For what?", a heroic isolation or a very robust vitality is needed to undertake a work beyond what is necessary. Hans Castorp has neither, and the narrator adds that this lack can reach even the physical and organic part of the individual.
In Chapter VI the answer appears in a snowstorm. Lost on his skis, Hans Castorp falls asleep beside a shed and dreams of a gulf of courteous young men and, inside a temple, of two gray-haired women who tear apart and devour a child. Still between sleep and waking, he rejects Leo Naphta and Lodovico Settembrini and decides, in the name of goodness and love, not to grant death any power over his thoughts. By evening, what he had thought is already slipping away from him.
In Chapter VII, Pieter Peeperkorn offers something else: no doctrine, only presence and a theology of feeling, in which the failure to feel is the ignominy of God. When he dies, the Berghof (see the Berghof) falls into the great boredom, a life without cares or hopes. Then war breaks out. Settembrini takes leave of his disciple by sending him down to fight wherever the ties of blood send him, and the narrator leaves Hans Castorp in the mud of the battlefield, softly singing "The Linden Tree," with a question: whether from this world festival of death love will still arise.
The novel asks the question in Chapter II and does not answer it with any of the doctrines that parade past afterwards. The only clear answer the book admits comes from within the protagonist, in a dream, and is lost; the strongest one seen from outside is Peeperkorn, who has no idea at all and dies for not bearing the failure of his own feeling. The ending trades the answer for a hope in the form of a question, and that is consistent with the starting point: an age without a "For what?" does not end in a lesson, it ends in war.
Where It Appears
- Chapter II, The House of the Tienappels and the Moral State of Hans Castorp: The narrator says that when the age cannot answer the question "For what?", a heroic isolation or a very robust vitality is needed, and that Hans Castorp had neither.
- Chapter V, Research: Reading anatomy on winter nights, Hans Castorp reflects on what life is and defines it as a fever of matter, which is neither matter nor spirit.
- Chapter VI, Snow: In a dream in the snow, Hans Castorp chooses the courteous young men of the gulf, rejects Naphta and Settembrini, and says that goodness and philanthropy consist of not granting death any power over one's thoughts.
- Chapter VII, Mynheer Peeperkorn (continued): Peeperkorn tells Hans Castorp that feeling is divine and that, if man fails in feeling, the ignominy of God breaks out, a cosmic catastrophe.
- Chapter VII, Mynheer Peeperkorn (end): After Peeperkorn kills himself, Hans Castorp explains to Clavdia that the failure of feeling in the face of life gave him the sensation of a cosmic catastrophe and of the ignominy of God.
- Chapter VII, The Thunder: Settembrini takes leave of Hans Castorp, calling him Giovanni, and sends him down to fight with courage wherever the ties of blood send him, while the war breaks out.
Passages
The narrator explains why Hans Castorp climbs without defense.
When this answer is missing, the effect is not confined to the spirit:
To undertake a work that exceeds the measure of pure and simple necessity, when one's time knows no satisfactory answer to the question "For what?", one needs isolation and moral readiness, something rare and of a heroic nature, or else a very robust vitality, and Hans Castorp, the narrator says, possessed neither one nor the other.
In the Snow, the answer comes from a dream and not from a debate.
I will not grant death any power over my thoughts! For that is what goodness and philanthropy consist of, and nothing else. [...] Love confronts death; only love, and not reason, is stronger than it.
Peeperkorn puts meaning into feeling.
His personal theology, spoken to Hans Castorp at the bedside, sums up what is at stake in all its grandeur:
Our feeling [...] is the manly force that awakens life [...] feeling, my young friend, is divine. Man is divine, as long as he feels [...] If man fails in feeling, the ignominy of God breaks out, the defeat of God's manhood takes place, a cosmic catastrophe, an unimaginable horror, and at this point he drinks again.
Settembrini sends the disciple down.
E così in giù [...] in giù finalmente! Addio, Giovanni mio! [...] Go and fight with courage, wherever the ties of blood send you!
The last sentence of the novel ends in a question.
The narrator's final farewell promises nothing and only asks:
Will love, too, still arise from this world festival of death, and from the pernicious fever that inflames the sky of the rainy night?