Death in Venice

The novella’s first chapter establishes the character of the protagonist, Aschenbach, as he is before the transformative experiences that begin when he travels to Venice and encounters the beautiful Tadzio. Aschenbach is presented as a disciplined and highly respected man of advanced years, solitary and dedicated to his artistic pursuits. In The Conflict Between Rationality and Sensuality, it is clear that Aschenbach has dedicated himself excessively to rationality, and he fears that his commitment to reason, moderation, and respectability has damaged his art, leaving him unable to express strong emotion. Throughout the novella, Aschenbach makes frequent Classical allusions, and these allusions shift as Aschenbach’s allegiance shifts from reason to passion. At this point, Aschenbach venerates the Roman statesman Cicero, known for his clear logic and civic-minded oratory. Later, as he becomes increasingly obsessed with Tadzio, his allusions shift from Rome to Greece as he identifies with the unabashed sensuality of the Greek gods—particularly Dionysus and Eros.

Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the unconscious were hugely influential to Mann’s understanding of the human mind and experience. From this perspective, Aschenbach’s dedication to rationality amounts to repression. His adversarial relationship with his own emotions shows the lack of harmony and balance in his mindset, which Freud proposed would lead to repressed passions becoming excessively strong, perverse, and neurotic. While many of Freud’s ideas have been discredited by modern experts, Mann’s faith in Freud’s theories is clear. Aschenbach’s sudden, overwhelming wanderlust and his unquenchable hunger for novelty are textbook manifestations of repressed passions bursting forth uncontrolled.

Even this early in the novel, the theme of The Link Between Desire and Death features prominently. The chapter falls into an ominous mood which builds with the threat of an impending storm, the somber surroundings of the graveyard and stonemasons, and the hostility of the stranger looming over Aschenbach as he contemplates his advancing age and fears that he will die without having understood or pursued his true desires. The graves surrounding Aschenbach as he waits for his tram are classic memento mori symbols that signify the omnipresence of death. Furthermore, the ominous but mysterious figure of the hostile foreigner is a classic “death head” figure portending impending doom. That the stranger’s appearance incites—or at least directly precedes—Aschenbach’s sudden desire for travel draws a strong association between desire and death. This foreshadows Aschenbach’s eventual demise, which occurs as a direct consequence of his decision to travel. The danger is further foreshadowed by the threatening presence of the tiger in Aschenbach’s hallucination of a tropical landscape. The description of the “exotic” scenery is excessively detailed and emphasizes the otherness and unfamiliarity of the region. This is a typical example of the orientalism of the period. Orientalism fetishized Asian cultures by the citizens of the very colonial powers that exploited their citizens and resources. The tiger symbolizes both the beauty and the danger that Europeans associated with the unfamiliar landscapes of the East. Aschenbach’s urge for travel is therefore not only about a need for geographical novelty and removal from his daily life, but an urge for something entirely foreign and other.

The novella is written in free indirect discourse style, a third-person narration that places Aschenbach’s experiences and perspectives at the center of the narrative. This is a key characteristic of realist novels in that it aims to represent the true experience of an individual in the world. This also allows the author to explore the internal conflicts and developments of the protagonist, since such introspective matters are generally the focus of modernist literature (rather than the external focus of earlier literary movements more dedicated to outward actions and interpersonal relations on a grander scale). A further consequence of this narrative style is an abundance of ambiguity in the novel. All the reader’s information about events and characters is first filtered through Aschenbach’s subjective perspective and his incomplete knowledge. Not only does this allow for increased tension as facts and consequences are revealed piecemeal, but it also invites the reader to dig more deeply into the multiple potential interpretations of ambiguities while providing direct insight into Aschenbach’s motivations and emotions at any given moment.