The newer work reflected his experiences and impressions during a period when his wife, who was suffering from respiratory disease, resided at Dr. Friedrich Jessen's [de] Waldsanatorium in Davos, Switzerland.

In a particular mental state he described as "sympathy with death", he wrote the essays "Gedanken im Kriege", "Gute Feldpost" and "Friedrich und die große Koalition", examples of an intellectual military service which he regarded as his duty.

On the contrary, Heinrich was the author of the satirical novel Der Untertan and the essay "Zola", where he defended the idea of an inevitable defeat of Germany which would then lead to its democratisation.

Before beginning work, he undertakes a journey to visit his tubercular cousin, Joachim Ziemssen, who is seeking a cure in a sanatorium in Davos, high up in the Swiss Alps.

In the opening chapter, Castorp leaves his familiar life and obligations, in what he later learns to call "the flatlands", to visit the rarefied mountain air and introspective small world of the sanatorium.

These include Lodovico Settembrini (an Italian humanist and encyclopedist, a student of Giosuè Carducci); Leo Naphta, a Jewish Jesuit who favors communistic totalitarianism; Mynheer Peeperkorn, a dionysian Dutchman; and his romantic interest, Madame Clawdia Chauchat.

Many formal elements of Bildungsroman are present: the protagonist starts as immature and by leaving his home he learns about art, culture, politics, human frailty, and love [citation needed].

In his discussion of the work, written in English and published in The Atlantic in January 1953, Mann states that "what [Hans] came to understand is that one must go through the deep experience of sickness and death to arrive at a higher sanity and health..."[5].

[citation needed] Throughout the book the author employs the discussions among Settembrini, Naphta, and the medical staff to introduce the young Castorp to a wide spectrum of competing ideologies about responses to the Age of Enlightenment.

Mann wrote that he originally planned The Magic Mountain as a novella, a humorous, ironic, satirical (and satyric) follow-up to Death in Venice, which he had completed in 1912.

Whereas the protagonist of the novella was the mature and acclaimed author Gustav von Aschenbach, the central figure is now a callow young engineer at the outset of an anticipated career.

The setting has shifted from the densely populated island city on the Adriatic coast to an alpine, quasi resort-like sanatorium prized for its (alleged) health-restoring properties.

The disease ends fatally for many of the patients, such as the Catholic girl Barbara Hujus, whose fear of death is heightened in a harrowing Viaticum scene, and cousin Ziemssen, who leaves this world like an ancient hero.

This aspect of the novel mirrors contemporary philosophical and scientific debates which are embodied in Heidegger's writings and Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, in which space and time are inseparable.

There, in a grotesque scene named after Walpurgis Night, the setting is transformed into the Blocksberg, where according to German tradition, witches and wizards meet in obscene revelry.

The X-ray laboratory in the cellar represents the Hades of Greek mythology, where Medical Director Behrens acts as the judge and punisher Rhadamanthys and where Castorp is a fleeting visitor, like Odysseus.

The protagonist gets into a sudden blizzard, beginning a death-bound sleep, dreaming at first of beautiful meadows with blossoms and of lovable young people at a southern seaside; then of a scene reminiscent of a grotesque event in Goethe's Faust I ("the witches' kitchen", again in Goethe's "Blocksberg chapter"); and finally ending with a dream of extreme cruelty – the slaughtering of a child by two witches, priests of a classic temple.

Hans Castorp loved music from his heart; it worked upon him much the same way as did his breakfast porter, with deeply soothing, narcotic effect, tempting him to doze.

In the book's final scene, Castorp, now an ordinary soldier on Germany's western front in World War I, hums the song to himself as his unit advances in battle.

The author observed that the characters are all "exponents, representatives, and messengers of intellectual districts, principles, and worlds," hoping that he had not made them mere wandering allegories.

However, he remains pale and mediocre, representing a German bourgeois that is torn between conflicting influences – capable of the highest humanistic ideals, yet at the same time prone to both stubborn philistinism and radical ideologies.

Castorp also refers to the twins Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology, who were identified by the New Testament scholar Dennis MacDonald as models for the apostles James and John.

Completed in June 1923, this chapter, which forms the philosophical heart of the novel, attempts to overcome apparent contrasts and find a compromise between Naphta's and Settembrini's positions.

Even though Castorp could not possibly have learnt from either Naphta or Settembrini the idea that the experience of death is ultimately that of life and leads to a new appreciation of humanity, Mann was determined from at least September 1922 onwards to make this message the main point of his novel.

The "Schnee" chapter was written in the first half of 1923 and the italicisation of the key sentence was probably requested by Mann when the book was set in print in 1924, as a message to the readers of the time, who, after years of hyper-inflation and political turmoil, not only expected but also desperately needed a positive direction to their lives, some words of wisdom which would give them hope.

In this chapter, the terrorism championed by Naphta is no longer, in Castorp's eyes, associated solely with the "Diktatur des Proletariats", but also with conservative Prussian militarism and Jesuitism.

In a clear allusion on Mann's part to the assassination of Walther Rathenau, Naphta goes into the motivation of the revolutionary who killed Councillor of State August von Kotzebue in 1819, and concludes that it was not just the desire for freedom at stake here but also moral fanaticism and political outrage.

The female promise of sensual pleasure as hindrance to male zest for action imitates the themes from the Circe mythos and in the nymphs in Wagner's Venus Mountain.

"One scholar has postulated that the character of Mynheer Peeperkorn ... who revels in lavish meals ... was intended as a mirror image of Kafka's hunger artist...."[16] Joachim Ziemssen, Hans Castorp's cousin, is described as a young person representing the ideals of loyalty and faithfulness as an officer.

His death is described in a moving chapter of the novel, with the title "As a soldier, and a good one" [(Ich sterbe) als Soldat und brav], again a well-known citation from Goethe's Faust.