Preview

Mario and the Magician

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
18300 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Mario and the Magician
Thomas Mann

MARIO AND THE MAGICIAN
The atmosphere of Torre di Venere remains unpleasant in the memory. From the first moment the air of the place made us uneasy, we felt irritable, on edge; then at the end came the shocking business of Cipolla, that dreadful being who seemed to incorporate, in so fateful and so humanly impressive a way, all the peculiar evilness of the situation as a whole. Looking back, we had the feeling that the horrible end of the affair had been preordained and lay in the nature of things; that the children had to be present at it was an added impropriety, due to the false colours in which the weird creature presented himself.
Luckily for them, they did not know where the comedy left off and the tragedy began; and we let them remain in their happy belief that the whole thing had been a play up till the end.
Torre di Venere lies some fifteen kilometres from Portoclemente, one of the most popular summer resorts on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Portoclemente is urban and elegant and full to overflowing for months on end. Its gay and busy main street of shops and hotels runs down to a wide sandy beach covered with tents and pennanted sand-castles and sunburnt humanity, where at all times a lively social bustle reigns, and much noise. But this same spacious and inviting fine-sanded beach, this same border of pine grove and near, presiding mountains, continues all the way along the coast. No wonder then that some competition of a quiet kind should have sprung up further on. Torre di Venerethe tower that gave the town its name is gone long since, one looks for it in vain-is an offshoot of the larger resort, and for some years remained an idyll for the few, a refuge for more unworldly spirits. But the usual history of such places repeated itself: peace has had to retire further along the coast, to Marina Petriera and dear knows where else. We all know how the world at once seeks peace and puts her to flight-rushing upon her in the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Drowling Mountain

    • 1992 Words
    • 8 Pages

    o Minimal to No threat of new entrants – with the right type of conditions needed to be available for a new resort to establish themselves, no real location available…

    • 1992 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the next period, materials and shapes of amulets were believed to bring good luck to the owners. Therefore, a joy of adorning one’s body, beliefs in omens, and the purposes are all significantly correlated with jewelry crafting.…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Henrico County Assessment

    • 4699 Words
    • 19 Pages

    Social agencies, recreation centers and schools all show signs of bustling activity. There is an…

    • 4699 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Comic Fools To create humor in drama, one must either make witty wordplay, create an amusing situation, or use physical comedy. Often jokes may be incorporated into a play, or a comic situation may result in a series of complicated antics. The tradition for some of these comic devices has been carried over for hundreds of years, dating back to Shakespeare in the 1600's.…

    • 913 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Esperanza Rising Analysis

    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages

    variety of contrasting emotions that embattle her life from the moment her world took a onehundred…

    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    of a woman? What makes her heart flutter with indecision and pure pressure? In this story "The Great…

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Mario and the Magician

    • 1422 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In Thomas Mann's "Mario and the Magician," Mann uses illness and deformity to symbolize the driving force towards disaster. It is in the illness of the characters that the setting for disaster is made, which then beings on a downward spiral once the character of Cipolla enters the story. Cipolla is not only mentally ill, but he is deformed. Much of his deformity is left a mystery for it is described so vaguely by the narrator. The first episode of illness starts with a whooping cough. After the whooping cough episode, another display of illness, not only physically but also in regards to the illness of character, is a child with "disgusting raw sores on his shoulders" (Mann 534). Shortly after these two episodes, the narrator even contemplates terminating his vacation to leave behind the already present disasters. Unfortunately for the narrator and his family, the downward decent into total tragedy was not over; it had nearly begun. The next several episodes that set the stage of disaster are in Cipolla's deformity. Due to the illness of the characters and the deformity of Cipolla, the entire story is doomed for catastrophe.…

    • 1422 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The San Luis Valley

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The feeling that immediately rushed over us was unsettling, like we were being watched. As we stood outside of the car not a word was said, not a grain…

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Terrorism in Spain

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages

    "A Hint of Peace." New York Times 12 Jan. 2011: A22(L). Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Mar. 2011.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Nowadays peace is striven to be achieved through different methodologies – starting from grass root and civilian initiatives to participation of NGO’s and intergovernmental military alliances. However, new perspective has originated, welcoming to apply spirituality and mysticism as tools for peace implementation and development of intercultural understanding. This essay is going to discuss this argument from the view point of Wayne Teasdale and George Vaillant. First, it will explain the interdependence of peace an intercultural understanding. Second, it is going to discuss Teasdale’s arguments of mysticism and spiritualities’ capacity to create global society with a heart. Finally, it will explore Vaillant’s argument of positive emotions being a product of spirituality that can be a long-time provider of peace.…

    • 1515 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Is Zambian a Peaceful Nation

    • 3703 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Peace is something which is vastly misinterpreted and misrepresented in today’s world. Everyone has their own perceptions about it. Peace isn’t just a cleaver way of showcasing your imposed superficial friendliness while brewing up violent tendencies from within. Peace is not just lack of wars, it’s about the victory of reality over virtual superiority, the realization that everyone in the world is nothing but equal. It means to give the due share of respect to…

    • 3703 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Peace. What is this elusive word that seems to escape us, no matter how hard we struggle to find it? How can it be such a momentous challenge? How can it be a friend to some yet an enemy to others? And why is everyone on earth searching for it? The Encarta dictionaries define peace as “freedom from conflict between people or groups of people” and “the absence of violence or war.” These statements, however, are furthest away from the truth when describing planet Earth. We are plagued with the diseases of war, genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, hatred and mass killing of people. The land is stained with blood and the air is polluted with animosity. Where is the peace? You can’t find it; the horizon of blackness stretches on, seemingly forever, as if the light has been permanently extinguished...…

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The CAMAYA COAST is located in SitioWain, Mariveles, Bataan, which is easily accessible by land and sea travel.…

    • 1699 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Globle Fire Power

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages

    If history has shown the observer one thing, it is that war follows man like a shadow. According to one source, documented history has recorded an estimated 300 years of known peace on our planet - leaving thousands of years open to conflicts of varying degrees. Interestingly enough, this mostly unknown fact forces us to recognize that there has been some source of conflict - be it religious, ethnic, territorial or otherwise - between two or more groups on our planet on a consistent basis for thousands of years.…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    World Peace

    • 1809 Words
    • 8 Pages

    "Peace." Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc, 12 Oct. 2011. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <www.wikipedia.org/wiki/peace.com>.…

    • 1809 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays