Mario and the Wizard: Narrator

Summary of Mario and the Wizard

• This is a story that Thomas Mann had published in 1930. As a reader, you are immersed in a travelogue that is about a family of four.
• The narrator is the father, who spends a summer vacation by the sea with his wife and children. The mood is gloomy and the family does not feel welcome in the fascist city.
• There are minor incidents in which it is clearly conveyed that the family will only be tolerated. Discrimination against the four people is the order of the day.
• During a magic show, it turns out that the artist is a hypnotist who uses his power. But the family does not find the strength to withdraw from it. Only at the end does a waiter (Mario) resist and shoot the magician.

Role and form of the narrator

• Now many pupils and students think that the narrative form can be easily classified. After all, it is a personal report and the father speaks from a first-person perspective.


Personal narrator - this is how you use it in the novel

Writing is a craft that can largely be learned. As in every ...

• From this it can in fact be deduced that a first-person narrator is at work. However, this simple statement alone does not do justice to the narrative form.
• The literary self describes everything from an extremely distant position. This would be a clear indication of an authoritative narrator, because a pure first-person narrator is directly affected by what is happening.
• Authoritative narration means that the narrator always has an overview. It is often stated that this narrative form is only involved when it appears as an omniscient authority. It is not so! He can, but doesn't have to.
• To prove its existence it is only important that it reflects what has happened without any involvement. Although the protagonist is involved in the action, his distance conveys that he wants to float above things as best he can.
• There is, however, one more clear characteristic that gives Mario and the Wizard an authoritative narrative style. As an outsider, the authorial narrator can address the reader directly and without authorization. This is exactly what the protagonist does repeatedly and very urgently.
• How does this unusual mixture of narrative forms come about? Thomas Mann succeeds in this because he designed "Mario and the Magician" as a retrospective travelogue. This means that from the perspective of the first-person narrator, all events at the time of the action are already in the past. For this reason, he also has the overview of an authoritative narrator and not just the sympathy that his person had at the time.