Who is Hans Lorenz Castorp from The Magic Mountain and what is their importance?

An "ordinary" young man from Hamburg who has been raised by relatives after both of his parents died when he was young. Hans has a modest regular income, a talent for mathematics, and a solid but unexciting career as a shipbuilder ahead of him when he visits his cousin Joachim at a Swiss tuberculosis sanatorium for a three-week stay.

Hans represents one side of the German soul. He is a German Everyman of his time and place: hard working, conscientious, middle-class and ordinary on the outside, but full of deep secret longings and unexpected attractions and talents. Lodovico Settembrini calls him "life's problem child," but Hans is also ready to learn and be influenced, which is why Settembrini becomes his mentor. He is initially unreflective about himself, which makes him unintentionally funny when he chatters on and on. His initial timidity about Clavdia eventually develops into an ability to charge ahead - but on his own terms. Hans' innocence and naiveté conceal a shrewd, calculating, determined streak that increasingly comes to the fore.