All 3 Uses of
servile
in
The Magic Mountain
- Because she is a power, and it is servile to accept her, to reconcile oneself to her—that is, to reconcile oneself to her inwardly.†
Chpt 5.5 *
- They watched as a rousing tale of love and murder in the court of an Oriental potentate unrolled silently before them; scene after opulent scene sped past, full of naked bodies, despotic lust, and abject servility blind in its zeal, full of cruelty, prurience, and fatal desire—and then suddenly the film slowed to linger revealingly on the muscular arm of an executioner.†
Chpt 5.8
- Knowing that the slightest frown was sufficient to terrify and cow the pitiful, sensitive fellow, he tolerated Wehsal's servile habit of seizing every opportunity to bow and scrape, sometimes allowed him to carry his overcoat on their promenades—and Wehsal would bear it over one arm with a kind of reverence—and even put up with the Mannheimer's conversation, and very gloomy conversation it was.†
Chpt 6.5
Definition:
-
(servile) submissive -- typically excessively so (so submissive or eager to serve and please that one seems to have no self-respect)
or:
relating to the work that requires obeying demeaning commands
or:
slave-like or relating to slaves