Essay on Exploring Death in Death in Venice

1504 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Reflective essay on death in venice

Exploring Death in Death in Venice

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, is a story that deals with mortality on many different levels. There is the obvious physical death by cholera, and the cyclical death in nature: in the beginning it is spring and in the end, autumn. We see a kind of death of the ego in Gustav Aschenbach's dreams. Venice itself is a personification of death, and death is seen as the leitmotif in musical terms. It is also reflected in the idea of the traveler coming to the end of a long fatiguing journey.

It must also be noted there are no women in the story with prominent roles. The hero's wife is long dead and his daughter has been married and gone for many years. Any women in the story are merely in the background, unnamed and colorless-totally insignificant. Mann has purposely left them out because they are life givers, the symbol of fertility and birth. (The only one scene where women have an active role is in the degrading and violently promiscuous dream.)

There are definite homosexual overtones evident almost from the moment Aschenbach sees Tadzio-the object of his obsession.

By far the most important level of death appears in the crumbling of Aschenbach's life principles: the giving up and letting go of all those ideals that molded his character and had shaped his work and guided every aspect of his entire life. It is a complete handing over of oneself to all that was heretofore anathema to him. The mind, reason, rationality, and all that goes with it: service, dignity, and restraint all buckle and die-all fall in the wake of the onslaught of passion and chaos.

Dreams play a major role in the story, and, throughout the history of literature, sleep has often been consid...

... middle of paper ...

...one can surmise perhaps Aschenbach's shade would then have been rowed across the Styx (in a black gondola), or more possibly he would have followed Tadzio's outwardly pointing finger and joined Poseidon's ranks, plunging "into an immensity of richest expectation" (75) seeking "refuge . . . in the bosom of the simple and vast" [ocean] (31). Gustav thought of the boy as Phaeax, one of the sea god's sons (29). He had seen this godlike creature "with dripping locks . . . emerging from the depths of sea and sky" (33).

What more fitting manner of leaving the earthly fray than by returning to "the birth of form . . . the origin of the gods" (33)?

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Chps. 9, 14.

Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia Vol. 24, p. 388.

Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice. 1911. New York: Vintage, 1958.

Show More
Related

  • Techniques Used to Create Tension in I’m the King of the Castle

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    on a journey of moving freely in time and space to allow them to know

    Read More

  • Allusions In The Sleeper

    384 Words  | 1 Pages

    “The Sleeper” uses Greek and Latin mythology to enhance the poem. This gives readers a tremendous level of insight on this poem. This helps readers perceive: how Irene had lived and died, what the griever is feeling, what the griever is trying to say and do, and grasp the underlying Greek and Latin lore. Because of the writing of Edgar Allan Poe, “The Sleeper” was written in dark romanticism and adds a supplementary twist to the mythologies.

    Read More

  • Death Shown in Paintings

    591 Words  | 2 Pages

    Death has been widely portrayed in Art throughout the centuries, the most depicted death scene possibly being the death of Christ. Every death scene is not created equal, despite the fact that the works of Art focus on death. The feelings, symbolism, and themes that are conveyed by the scene are diverse. To see how varied the effect can be from different death scenes we can look at The Sortie made by the Garrison of Gibraltar by John Trumbull in 1789 and The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West in 1770. It’s interesting to see how these artists depicts their own view on death in these specific works, since in fact West acted as a teacher to Trumbull yet their styles differ dramatically.1, 2 Although both works of art put death at the center of the scene and take place during a War; with the aid of the Artists’ unique styles and directions, completely different interpretations are invoked in the viewers.

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre's Language in Charlotte Brontë

    3105 Words  | 7 Pages

    Jane Eyre's Language in Charlotte Brontë Brontë portrays Jane Eyre as an untypical heroine. Examine Brontë’s language use, structure and character portrayals. The heroism of Jane Eyre is central throughout the novel of the same name. The classic Victorian novel, written by Charlotte Brontë, follows the protagonist Jane Eyre through episodic stages of her life as she strives to find her niche in life.

    Read More

  • Present the way in which imprisonment is presented in The Bell Jar

    1959 Words  | 4 Pages

    with the people around her. At the end of the novel, the bell jar has

    Read More

  • The Effects of Femininity

    1573 Words  | 4 Pages

    In order for us to deal with how a consideration of femininity can effect our understanding of a literary text, we must also be able to grasp the notion of `feminism' and `Feminist Literary Theory'. A dictionary definition of `feminism' is: `the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of the equality of the sexes.' Although this leans towards feminism in the historical sense of the word, it still provides the grounds, or foundations, from which feminist literary theories were created. Feminists argue against the stereotyping and social construction of female norms, seeing them as created by men in order to establish their own sense of power. It is thought that while males suggest that gender is sex and not actually a construct, the female role will become much more passive, stereotyped and controlled.

    Read More

  • Reacting against Victorian optimism and to the horrors of the 20th

    3112 Words  | 7 Pages

    didactical work shows us that we have far to go, but there is hope. I

    Read More

  • Death in Venice Essay: Love for Tadzio or Venice?

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    Thomas Mann's Death in Venice presents an artist with a fascination for beauty that overpowers all of his senses. Aschenbach's attraction to Tadzio can be viewed as a symbol for his love for the city of Venice. The city, however, is also filled with corruption, and it is this corruptive element that kills him.

    Read More

  • Appeal to Aesthetics in Death in Venice

    2037 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the late 19th century decadence was a tremendously popular theme in European literature. In addition, the degeneracy of the individual and society at large was represented in numerous contemporary works by Mann. In Death in Venice, the theme of decadence caused by aestheticism appears through Gustav von Achenbach’s eccentric, specifically homoerotic, feelings towards a Polish boy named Tadzio. Although his feelings spring from a sound source, the boy’s aesthetic beauty, Aschenbach becomes decadent in how excessively zealous his feelings are, and his obsession ultimately leads to his literal and existential destruction. This exemplifies how aestheticism is closely related to, and indeed often the cause of decadence. Although the narrative is about more complexities, the author’s use of such vivid descriptions suggest the physical, literal aspect of his writing is just as important to the meaning of the story.

    Read More

  • Essay About Death

    936 Words  | 2 Pages

    Death occurs when living stops. From the event of death, we have created religious and cultural traditions. It has become the core of literature and entertainment. As a society we are somewhat fascinated by it. Healthcare practitioners fight everyday to prevent it from happening. Can this event, which is absolute, change its meaning over time?

    Read More

  • The Triumph of Disaster in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice

    1950 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Mann's own life, the novel is greatly emblematic in that much of Aschenbach is autobiographical. Just like Aschenbach, Mann enjoyed status early in life; feeble health was a shared complication; and both exercised self-imposed order (Mann, too, conducted all his literary work during first light). The determination to sustain and survive existed in the spirit of both artists. Yet "Death in Venice" is by no certain means a narrowly autobiographical narrative. Nevertheless, much that is the artist Aschenbach is part of the artist Mann, and thus can be interpreted as a faint symbol of Mann. Perhaps Aschenbach is an extreme example of the imperfections Mann combated during his own lifetime; if this indeed is the case, then Aschenbach is not only a token of the frailty of Mann, but an emblem of the fallacies plaguing us all.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Gertrude And Ophelia

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    This fact plays a crucial role in the mood of the play. If the reader understands history, they also understand that women did not really amount to any importance, they were perceived more as property.

    Read More

  • Consumed by Beauty in Death in venice by Thomas Mann

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    Life for humans is dictated by the yearning for more through our experiences. We strive for more knowledge, more wealth, and more happiness, but it all is endless like an abyss. Beauty, however, is pure and can be found in the simplest matters in life. Throughout the novel Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann, Aschenbach works his whole life rigorously day by day searching for more and more until his introduction to Tadzio in Venice. Upon Aschenbach’s first site of Tadzio he falls in love with the perfect beauty of the child. For the first time in his life he sees the simplicity of beauty and how perfect it is, however, he is consumed by it. Aschenbach’s introduction to beauty consumes his mind from the rest of the world. Aschenbach searches for beauty in life, but is trapped and consumed by it and is pulled away from the rest of the world.

    Read More

  • Death In Venice Analysis

    1744 Words  | 4 Pages

    The novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann describes the journey of an older German writer, Gustav Aschenbach, who comes to Venice on vacation and falls deliriously in love with a young boy. This love, and the obsession it culminates in lead to the demise of the writer. Mann’s story seems to be about an ill-fated love but in truth it tells a tale of a man who goes from total control of his life and his being to an irrational creature who is controlled by wild emotions that he will eventually succumb to. Such a story line perfectly illustrates the differences between the two Greek gods of art and how people can fall under the influence of each. Both Apollo and Dyonisis are gods of creativity and art in the Greek world yet they have such different

    Read More

  • Free Death in Venice Essays: Mann and Death Death Venice Essays

    241 Words  | 1 Pages

    Studying Mann's personal experiences reveal from where he derives his attitude toward death. Certainly, he is not unfamiliar to its lurid face; at an early age, both of his sisters committed suicide. When he was only seventeen, his father passed away due to blood poisoning. The raw material of Death in Venice came from his vacation in the Lido, a beach in Venice. Oddly enough, this trip was taken in May of 1911, the same month ( and possibly year) when Aschenbach's story begins.

    Read More

More about Essay on Exploring Death in Death in Venice

Open Document