1.2.1 Modern Meaning of Sanatorium

Sanatorium is usually set up in a place that has certain natural recuperation factors and where the environment is quiet. Moreover, convalescents in sanatorium are asked to mainly organize themselves to carry out various recreational activities and physical exercise, which differ from the treatment in hospital. In the hospital, most patients spend their time and energy on a rest cure or indoor activities. It is also quite difficult for them to walk outside freely. Nevertheless, modern sanatorium does not have these rules and patients are totally free. In official terms, hospital aims to thoroughly cure the disease and avoid spreading it out, but sanatorium is devoted to improving patients‟ physical body to enhance recovery.

1.2.2 Meaning of Sanatorium during that Stage in the novel

The sanatorium in the novel is located on a mountain which is 1600 meters high, approximately 5000 feet above sea level. It is not the same one I have mentioned before, but the one that is, as a matter of fact, an abnormal place full of diseases, physically and mentally, and also a place of merriment for the patients in the sanatorium.“Sixteen hundred meters—that is over five thousand feet, as I reckon it. I‟ve never been so high up in my life.” “Our sanatorium is higher up than the village, as you see,” went on Joachim. “Fifty meters higher. In the prospectus it says a hundred, but it is really only fifty.” (Chapter 1, Arrival, P.11) Actually, the novel has talked about the geographical location of the sanatorium at the beginning of the literary. It emphasizes that the sanatorium is on a high mountain where it is seemingly isolated with the environment under the mountain. When we continue to read more, it is not hard to find that it‟s actually a kind of prison leading to the dark abyss.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Previous Study of the novel on “Time” in the Sanatorium

An interesting finding is discovered that most experts are attracted by the time in the book before I consult a large amount of literature work. Indeed, time in the novel is repeated and talked a lot by the author since during that period human perception for the time has become more and more sensitive in various fields of social life, and temporality has become an increasingly important factor in modern human life.

At the turn of the 20th century, Western people‟s reflections on history and civilization have reached an unprecedented climax, which shows higher sensitivity of time. In the fields of physics, psychology and philosophy, time is endowed with the new cognition. It is no longer just a concept, but has the relativity and objectivity. (Huang Liaoyu,2011:62) This kind of breakthrough opens up a wide space for the imagination about time.

The core form of time in The Magic Mountain is the present of stagnation. Sanatorium and Tuberculosis appear in the author‟s writing as the phenomenon of The Times in Western society, which are also crucial clues through the novel. Sanatorium that is considered as a closed room is identified with the protagonist Hans‟ mind state. In addition, the unconsciousness of the time on the mountain is explicitly showing the blue temperament of people. People in the sanatorium, or we can call patients, lead a rambling life and profligacy there has taken them to a decadent abyss.