ABSTRACT
The Magic Mountain is a Bildungsroman. The novel of education, or apprenticeship novel, focuses on the hero's spiritual and emotional development toward independence and enlightenment. Many of Mann's contemporaries were puzzled that he employed this form. Although it had flourished during the 19th century, the Bildungsroman had been considered obsolete for several decades. Mann revived the form because he believed it was the best way to portray the profound spiritual changes occurring in Germany after World War I. The Magic Mountain is, therefore, also the story of an epoch during which an entire nation and its people are being transformed. Representing 1912 Europe in microcosm, the sick and dying inhabitants of the sanatorium Berghof frivolously refuse to face facts. With surgical precision Mann autopsies the values and attitudes that led to the catastrophe of war.
