#formalcontext

      The most accurate way to view the structure of Mann’s “Death in Venice” is as a journey story: It is a journey away from home that has no return. The structure of the novella mirrors Aschenbach’s Eastward journey from the Apollonian to the Dionysian. Aschenbach begins his journey wound tightly; like the clenched fist he commonly makes whilst writing. The novella ends as his journey ends: relaxed and free in death.

      The novella begins with Aschenbach leaving his home in Germany to go on a walk, “in hopes that the fresh air and activity would restore him and help him have a profitable evening” (Mann 1). His journey begins near the Hall of Last Rites, where he sees a red-haired stranger instills him with the insatiable desire to travel. The urge strikes him and Aschenbach is transfixed; he stands, “his hands clasped behind him and his eyes fixed on the ground, in order to examine the nature and purpose of this sensation” (3).  His clasped hands signify his extreme self-discipline that Aschenbach has practiced since his youth. Like Aschenbach, the text is also reserved and controlled in the opening. The structure of the first two chapters is the opposite of flowery prose. It is straightforward description, with an almost complete lack of investment and emotion. This changes of course in chapters four and five as Aschenbach changes under Tadzio’s influence.

      Aschenbach’s eastward journey takes him to Venice, where his, and the novella’s structure changes. It is in this deteriorating city that Aschenbach meets Tadzio, the beautiful youth who becomes the object of Aschenbach’s affection (and many would say, obsession). It is interesting that the reader never Aschenbach at his home in Germany, because he seems to find his home in Venice, where Tadzio can be found. Once Aschenbach sees Tadzio, he never wants to leave Venice. More than that, he never wants to have the boy out of his sight. Aschenbach’s structured lifestyle begins to dissipate the longer he is away from his home in Germany. The text opens up as Aschenbach does, with the ending of chapter four showcasing a much wilder, passionate structure than earlier chapters. Aschenbach portrays a Dionysian attitude when he is “beside himself” and inhales “the nighttime fragrance of the plants”. Aschenbach leans back, his arms dangling, and absurdly and sacredly admits that he loves Tadzio. This image of Aschenbach is very different from those earlier in the novella. And with his emotional change, Mann’s prose changes; it becomes more robust and vibrant and instead of boring description, the reader is greeted with sentences full of life and passion. The structure and Aschenbach have moved from the reserved Apollonian and the Western, to the sensual and spontaneous Dionysian/Eastern. The structure shift of the text reaches its height in the fifth chapter. Aschenbach has a wild, orgiastic, lascivious dream that is a complete departure from the structure of the novella up to this point. The text, and Aschenbach, has become unbuttoned and unhinged. It is no longer restricted and reserved and tightly clenched. The structure spirals free of all Apollonian restraints and Aschenbach’s dream is a perfect testimony to that fact. After having this dream, Aschenbach no longer cares what anyone in the hotel thinks or says about him. He has given himself over to the Dionysian completely; he realizes that his journey ends wherever Tadzio is located. The entire novella, he ached at the thought of being separated from Tadzio. Tadzio is Aschenbach’s true home. His journey concludes not at home, in Germany, but in Venice, with Tadzio in his sight.

      The movement of the text is paralleled by the evolution of Aschenbach from a standing figure to a sitting figure. Aschenbach begins the text on his feet, walking through Germany. He continues his journey story on his feet: standing on the boat, walking through the streets of Venice, standing on the beach watching Tadzio with his playmates. There is a significant structural change in regards to this near the end of the novella. In this portion, there are many instances of Aschenbach sitting down. He spends much time sitting down in the hotel barber’s chair as he receives treatments to make him look younger. He is unable to follow Tadzio and his family through the streets of Venice anymore; exhausted by “passion” (which is really cholera) Aschenbach needs to sit down in the middle of the square. Finally, and most importantly, he dies sitting down, his arms extended and his hands open, in a chair at the beach.

       Aschenbach’s journey ends, not with him back where he started, but within Tadzio’s aesthetic glow. For him, the journey home ends where he can bask in Tadzio’s overwhelming presence, and give in completely to his Dionysian desires. Aschenbach and the structure of the text go on parallel journeys throughout the novella, and the culmination for both is freedom and fulfillment in death: the true end of the journey home for both of them.

      The motif of deterioration can be seen throughout Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice and reflects the novella’s allegorical interest in the deterioration of the European soul. 

      We first see the motif of deterioration when Aschenbach meets the old man pretending to be a young man on the boat.  Mann writes, “The faint crimson of his cheeks was rouge; the brown hair beneath the straw hat with its colorful band was a wig; his neck was scraggy and sinewy; his litte stuck-on mustache and the tiny beard on his chin were dyed” (13). Mann presents his reader with a representation of youth in conflict with the reality of old age. The old man that Aschenbach encounters appears to have rosy cheeks but it is makeup. His hair appears youthful and free from grays because it is a wig. What truly reveals his age is that his skin is not taut instead it is scraggy. In trying to hide his old age what the old man is truly trying to cover up is his physical deterioration.                        

      Beauty that covers up physical deterioration is even present in the beautiful Tadzio. When Aschenbach first encounters Tadzio he thinks, “ Was he ill? -because the skin of his face stood out white as ivory against the darker gold of the encircling curls” (Mann 21). Aschenbach’s questioning of Tadzio’s health is significant because it points to the idea that even though Tadzio is physically beautiful, this beauty may be covering up an inner corruption. Here Aschenbach suggests that Tadzio’s beauty is in fact covering up physical decay. 

      While the city of Venice itself is beautiful, in the novella it is discovered that even the beautiful city is harboring a secret. During Aschenbach’s stay there is a chlorella outbreak in Venice. Aschenbach discovers this and, “felt a hidden satisfaction with the events in the dirty alleys of Venice that were being covered up by the authorities -this criminal secret of the city which coincided with his own dark secret, and which he was so very anxious to keep” (Mann 44). Aschenbach’s moral deterioration is also reflective in the decay of Venice. The authorities are anxious to keep the chlorella outbreak under wraps because it will negatively affect tourism which is the city’s main economic source.

            As all of the characters and the city deteriorate in the novel so does the moral tone of the work. Aschenbach starts off with a strong moral character and reacts in disgust of characters who have questionable moral character. This is why Aschenbach is so repulsed by the old man, however, he seems to signal Aschenbach’s fate of deterioration when he says, “‘Our compliments,’ he babbles, two fingertips alongside his mouth, ‘our compliments to your darling, to your dearly beloved, the most beautiful darling’” (Mann 16). Aschenbach is traveling alone so there is no beautiful darling for the old man to be remarking on. However, as the old man is morally corrupt and trying to hide his age he may have the foresight and ability to recognize his own character in Aschenbach. The obsession with youth and beauty found in the old man is precisely how Aschenbach comes to be corrupted. The consequence of allowing beauty to corrupt a person’s soul in the novella is death, as Aschenbach dies at the end of the work and many tourists die from cholera.      

      The relationship between the Western world, and the perceived incoming dangers of the East in the eighteenth and nineteenth century is crucial to any discussion of themes and motifs in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Mann writes his text with a careful balance between praising the East and criticism of Western culture. As long as it is unclear whether it is the overly lustful goal that Aschenbach set out to achieve in his relationship with Tadzio, or the harshness of a purely rational society from which Aschenbach sought relief that causes Aschenbach’s downfall, Mann’s text neither advocates for or against a preferable way of life. Because of this, Death in Venice functions as an ideal narrative to depict the influence that the East has on Western thinking in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

      Mann introduces the conflict between the East and the West in only the third paragraph of his text. Aschenbach begins to desire travel, and feels pressure to succumb to his wanderlust while watching an old Byzantine style church, with Greek styled crosses. From out of this church, Aschenbach presumes, comes the Foreigner who inspires in Aschenbach a sudden desire to escape. After fleeing the West, Aschenbach ends up in Venice, a city situated on the edge of the West, and steeped in Eastern culture. Venice, for hundreds of years, welcomed the influences of traders from the East, and developed a culture that mixed the aesthetics of the two regions. Despite this, where Aschenbach stays in Venice is one of the more Western influenced areas. Pankaj Mishra writes of his travels to Venice that, “The Lido, with its broad avenues and promenades, was recognizably of the West, like the cities I had seen since I left India in 1996,” (Mishra,1). Venice represents more to Aschenbach than just a different version of scenery than his home, and requires of Aschenbach a different mindset.

     When Aschenbach wanders Venice on his own, he initially feels distaste at the stagnant lagoon air, and the wind blowing from the West. Mann writes, “… the weather did not seem to be improving. The wind was from landward. Under a pallid overcast sky the sea lay sluggishly still and shrunken-looking …Vexation overcame [Aschenbach]. The thought of leaving occurred to him then and there,” (Mann, 236). Despite this vexation, Aschenbach’s attempt to leave is prevented by the loss of his luggage, which gives him a revived desire to stay in the city. When introducing Aschenbach’s hesitant excitement at causes outside of his control that seem to work in favor with his internal desires, Mann writes, “There would be explanations to be given… a disaster would have been averted… and everything he thought he had turned his back on for good would lie open again for him to enjoy, would be his for as long as he liked . . . And what was more, did the rapid movement of the motor launch deceive him, or was there really now, to crown all else, a breeze blowing from the sea?” (Mann, 247). The breeze from the sea that brings clean air, fresh smells, and revives Aschenbach’s hope is an eastern breeze. Despite the apparent cleansing of Venice’s smells, the Eastern sea breeze also brings traders from the East, which is where the initial cholera outbreaks began. By setting the novella in Venice, Mann allows for concerns regarding the east to flourish, and where once Venetians incorporated silks and mosaic patterns into their world, now the city of Venice incorporates eastern-born illness.

    Mann’s treatment of Cholera as a disease that is secretly ambushing the population of Venice is not merely a discussion of the disease, but also a reflection of how Eastern ideas permeated Western thinking. Cholera is not something that can be kept secret for long, and yet the British travel clerk tells Aschenbach “For years now, Asiatic cholera had been showing an increased tendency to spread and migrate… But in the middle of May this year, in Venice, the dreadful comma-bacilli had been found on one and the same day in the emaciated and blackened corpses of a ship’s hand and of a woman who sold green groceries. The two cases were hushed up (Mann, 271). Cholera’s pervasive nature is seen as something that, coming from the East, has the potential to wipe out those who remain in its path. Cholera’s connections to the East mean that it is not a disease that can be explained as an accident. Cholera is carried from place to place, and the avoidance of places that may be contaminated by cholera is the avoidance of places with other Eastern influences. Mary Russo writes, “Venice… [is] a crossroads city for the East-West and the North-South axis. Our Venice (as in Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice) is the stazione termine for modernist anxieties about the end of Western culture...” (Russo, 244). Fearful travellers who had heard rumors of Cholera generally avoided those places to which the East had some hold over.

      While living in a city affected by the East, Aschenbach’s method of navigating through Venice as a foreigner appears to be to adopt ancient Greek concepts that were consistent with an adoration of things the East supposedly values. Aschenbach references Hyacinthus when watching Tadzio, and by doing so invites a discussion regarding the flaws of the Western winds. Hyacinthus was loved by both Apollo and Zephyr, and it was his rejection of Zeyphr’s love that causes Zephyr to kill Hyacinthus. Zephyr, the Greek God of the West Wind, causes Hyacinthus’ death, but is ultimately protected because his act was done in the name of love. Ellis Shookman writes, “…in the topography of Mann’s spiritual sphere, the North, South, East, and West stand, respectively, for melancholy, decadence, lust, and rationality…” (Shookman, 108). The rationality of the West kills the boy loved by the West Wind and Apollo, and Aschenbach’s perception of Tadzio as Hyacinthus is essential in understanding how Aschenbach misused Greek thinking in an attempt to justify his actions. Shookman’s interpretation of the West as rational is dependent on the East being primarily focused on lust. In making these distinctions, any relationship between the rational and the lustful is doomed to be forever misunderstood, and yield tragic consequences.

    Thomas Mann’s novella, Death in Venice, uses the theme of the east to display the tragic consequences of acting too far toward any one extreme. The reason there can never be a complete rejection of either the East or the West is that the Aschenbach’s desire to escape the West and his attempt to only embrace Eastern concepts denies his ability to be fully human. Human emotion does not exist within clear lines, borders between rationality and lust are blurred in everyday life. By creating a character that fails to act appropriately in both Western and Eastern worlds, Mann has utilized the theme of the East in his text to illuminate the impossibilities of ever distinguishing the better method of living. Any distinction made between the West and the East is inherently arbitrary; human cultures may vary, but the humanity that makes up each culture remains the same. The East is used to explain the West, and the West is used to explain what is different from the East, but only by recognizing the Other does each gain its own identity.

                                                                                                          --Charlotte Ference

Works Cited

Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice and Other Stories. Trans. David Luke. Toronto: Bantam, 1988.

Mishra, Pankaj. "West Meets East in Venice." Travel + Leisure. N.p., Dec. 2004. Web. Nov. 2014.

Russo, Mary J. "Venice, Venice, and L.A." Revisioning Italy National Identity and Global

Culture. Ed. Beverly Allen and Mary J. Russo. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1997.

       One manner in which to examine the deterioration of Gustav Von Aschenbach in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice is through the conflict of the Dionysian versus the Apollonian. Nietzsche first coined these terms in his work, The Birth of a Tragedy (Taylor).In Greek mythology, Dionysus is the God of the Earth and Apollo the God of the Sun. Therefore, the Apollonian elements are those such as form, reason, and self-control, where the Dionysian are much the opposite: destruction, chaos, emotion, irrational (Atassi). Nietzsche claimed that the conflict between emotion (Dionysus) and reason (Apollo) was the cause of the age of Greek Tragedy. He also believed that the ideal person needed to maintain a balance of the qualities embodied by the two Gods (Taylor).

       Using these concepts, it is easy to understand Aschenbach’s internal conflict in Death in Venice as a struggle between the Dionysian and Apollonian. In the beginning of the novella, we see how Aschenbach is an artist of Apollonian principles. He is disciplined, prides himself on self-control, and represses all irrational and emotional desires. Even though he has a desire to travel, Aschenbach is “tempered and corrected by the reason and restraint that he [has] exercised from his younger years on” (Mann 5).

       Additionally, Mann says of Aschenbach, “discipline [was] most important to him” (7). “[H]e never knew the idleness and carelessness of youth,” and it is evident that he has lived his whole life according to Apollonian principles. He has been able to suppress his desires and any inclination towards the Dionysian. But when he sees the man in the cemetery he is inspired to indulge his desire to travel, and takes a vacation to Venice.

       While in Venice, Aschenbach encounters a young boy named Tadzio and instead of balancing the Apollonian with the Dionysian, he falls completely and immorally into the Dionysian. Having suppressed his emotions and desires (the Dionysian side of himself), for so long, Aschenbach is unable to restrain himself once he lets go of his rigid Apollonian principles. Aschenbach sees in Tadzio, the epitome of beauty and youth, and idolizes the young boy: “The boy was absolutely beautiful. His face, pale and of a graceful reserve, surrounded by honey-colored curls, with its straight nose, lovely lips, earnest expression, sweet and godly, all recalled Greek statues of the noblest era…” (Mann 19).

       Tadzio becomes the vehicle for Aschenbach’s Dionysian desires to become free, but as this occurs, Aschenbach lets go of his Apollonian side completely. He no longer has any self-control or discipline, and because of this he deteriorates into immorality. Aschenbach stalks Tadzio, following him around Venice, and even when he hear that there is a cholera outbreak in the city, he risks his own life and the lives of Tadzio and his family, by keeping the information a secret. He considers telling the family, the reasonable action to take, but he can’t: “But he immediately felt he did not really want to take that step. It would lead him back, give his soul back to himself; but when one is frantic, the last thing one desires is to be oneself again” (Mann 47).

      Instead of combining the qualities of the two Gods, as Nietzsche suggested was necessary in a person, Aschenbach jumps from one extreme to the other. He begins firmly rooted in the world of the Apollonian. Suppressing his desires and sensual nature, even in his art, when he finally gives in to the Dionysian side of emotion and irrationality, he is unable to control himself at all. He turns a young boy into an idealized image of beauty and perfection. In doing so, Aschenbach becomes so obsessed with the boy and his desires and emotions overtake him. His inability to combine the Apollonian and the Dionysian causes his moral deterioration, and eventually death at the hands of the cholera epidemic.

      Passion can be confusing and degrading, but in Death in Venice we see what happens when a person tries to eliminate passion from his life. It is a human example of the law of physics that states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Aschenbach ís life up to his meeting with Tadzio has been extremely Apollonian; therefore his swing to the Dionysian will be equally extreme. (12)

-- Randa Kriss

Works Cited

Larner, James M., "Benjamin Britten and Luchino Visconti: Iterations of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice" (2006). Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations. Paper 3272.

Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice. Trans. Martin C. Doege. N.p.: n.p., 1912. Internet Archive. Web. 10   Dec. 2014. <https://archive.org/details/DeathInVenice>.

Mejcher-Atassi, Sonja, Dr. "Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice." 18 Nov. 2008. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. <http://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/cvsp/Documents/Thomas%20Mann.pdf>.

      In Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice, the color red is a prevalent motif, representing different internal conflicts that the character Gustav von Aschenbach faces. Mann uses the color to symbolize the devil, passion, and death. The gondolier and performer both represent the devil, with their red hair; Tadzio’s red bow on his outfits and the red tie that Aschenbach wears, along with his makeup, represent passion; and the strawberries that Aschenbach eats from the street vendor and the pomegranate juice Aschenbach drinks during the performance at the hotel, represent death.   

     In the novel, the reader meets two characters who have the same personality and have the aura of the devil. When first entering Venice, Aschenbach gets a ride from a rude gondolier, who was always “wrinkling his reddish eyebrows” (Mann 17). Realizing that he is not going to his preferred destination, Aschenbach speaks up and describes the gondolier as having “surly, arrogant behavior, so different from the way strangers are normally treated by the locals, seemed intolerable” (17). Aschenbach fears for a while that this man has bad intentions and that the ride will not end well. After getting off the gondola, Aschenbach finds out that the gondolier is “the only gondolier who has no license” (18). Like the gondolier, the performer at the hotel is also a character with bad intentions. While singing and playing the guitar, Aschenbach observed this man “at a distance from his companions, with his shabby felt hat pushed so far back that a tuft of his red hair stuck out under the brim” (49). While collecting money after his band's performance, Aschenbach asks him about the plague, but the performer denies any knowledge of it. Aschenbach then smells a strong odor of carbolic acid wafting off the performer, which explains his suspicious actions and outlandish behavior. These characters connect to the devil because, Judas, who betrayed Jesus, also had red hair. These characters seem to betray Aschenbach by lying to him, or, at least, not telling the full truth.

       By using the red bow that Tadzio wears, along with Aschenbach's desire to look young for Tadzio, Mann also expresses passion through the color red. Tadzio, often wearing “a red silk bow on the chest,” allows Aschenbach to spot him in a crowd, or find him easily on the beach or in the ocean (23). The red bow symbolizes the passion Aschenbach feels and how he believes that Tadzio feels the connection between the two of them as well. When entering Venice, Aschenbach is presented with an old man who is all dolled up, trying to look young. Disgusted by all of the makeup and crimson cheeks, Aschenbach leaves the ferry. Mann uses the old man as a way to foreshadow the end of the book. Aschenbach surrenders to his passion for Tadzio by succumbing to the hotel barber, allowing the barber to dress him up and make him look young with a red tie and lips “pouting in a shade of raspberry” (58). In the article “Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice: Reference Guide,” Ellis Shookman relates Aschenbach to the old man on the ferry saying that “the color red, then, shows both how Aschenbach eventually comes to resemble a character he once found disgusting and that Tadzio is connected to the two of them” (116). Shookman connects Tadzio to both the old man on the ferry and Aschenbach; by inspiring the passion Aschenbach has for him and wanting him to act like the old man.

      Death is symbolized in this novel by the pomegranate juice and by the strawberries that Aschenbach buys off a street vendor. While watching the performers at the hotel, Aschenbach “sat by the balustrade, from time to time cooling his lips with the ruby-red mixture of pomegranate juice and soda that sparkled in the glass in front of him” (Mann 48). In Ancient Greek mythology, pomegranates were known as ‘the fruit of death.’ In the article, “Persephone” by Micha Lindemans, the author explains the story of Persephone. Like Persephone, the Greek goddess of the Underworld, Aschenbach drank the pomegranate juice that brings death. Venice can be seen as the Underworld, because once Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds, they “bound her to the underworld forever” (Lindemans). The color red in this instance can be connected to death because Aschenbach enters the ‘Underworld’ when going to Venice, and verifies this fact when he drinks the pomegranate juice. When walking around Venice, Aschenbach buys strawberries off a street vendor, unaware that they carry cholera. Not knowing that the strawberries carry the disease that is spreading throughout Venice, Aschenbach eats the unwashed fruit, which eventually leads to his death.

      The three meanings behind the red motif in Mann’s novella each interact with Aschenbach and his time in Venice. The theme of the evil-like figures and the devil can link Aschenbach to how Tadzio’s family perceives him. Stalking around the city in “pursuit of the object that set him aflame,” along with following the family around the hotel, Aschenbach is seen as the evil-figure (Mann 46). Overcome with passion, Aschenbach dedicates his trip to Venice to Tadzio. On the chance of making eye contact with Tadzio and receiving a small smile of acknowledgment, Aschenbach “threw himself onto a bench; beside himself […] impossible in this case, absurd, perverse, ludicrous and yet even here still sacred and respectable: ‘I love you!’” (42). Aschenbach believes that the passion is mutual; he cannot fight his feelings. Lastly, Aschenbach himself embodies the theme of death. Like Persephone, Aschenbach never leaves Venice because he is condemned to die there. He goes through the process of getting older and trying to hide his age, and eventually dies there.

      In Death in Venice, Gustav von Aschenbach has internal conflicts with the color red. Mann introduces characters that represent the devil, whether it shown in their rude personality or their drunkenness and poor behavior. He symbolizes passion in the way certain characters present themselves, with a red bow or making ones self look youthful to fit into society. And lastly, Mann uses fruit to represent death in the novella, by potentially carrying the disease that kills Aschenbach, or fruit that means ‘fruit of death’.

 -- Mary Cain

Works Cited

Lindeman, Micha F. "Persephone." Persephone. Encyclopedia Mythica, 24 June 2005. Web. 03 Nov. 2014.

Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice. Trans. Stanley Appelbaum. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. Print.

        In Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice there is a lot of symbolism, imagery, and irony. One of the symbols that Mann uses is eyebrows. Gustav Aschenbach pays attention to the eyebrows of people many times throughout the novel. He looks at the eyebrows of four strangers. By doing this, Mann shows the readers how eyebrows can express things such as the age or mood of a person. First, Mann describes Aschenbach’s appearance to the readers. He says, “His hair, brushed back, thin at the crown, very full and quite gray at the temples, framed a brow that was tall and so fissured it appeared to be scarred” (11). This description of Aschenbach makes the readers try to visualize how he looks, which is old.

        In addition to Mann describing Aschenbach, he also shows Aschenbach studying many people throughout the book. He pays close attention to people and their features. He pays attention to the gondolier and his facial features. Mann says, “Wrinkling his reddish eyebrows, he looked past Aschenbach into the distance while replying in a determined, almost rude tone” (17). Mann shows the readers that Aschenbach could not resist paying close attention to the gondolier’s facial features. He shows the readers that the gondolier did not really want to answer Aschenbach and that he was able to see that by the way his eyebrows looked. He also describes the color of his eyebrows.

        Mann describes Aschenbach’s look other times throughout the novel. Mann says, “…and his eyebrows were so heavily wrinkled that his eyes seemed sunken beneath their pressure and, looking out from under, maliciously and blackly, spoke the language of hatred” (25). Mann describes Aschenbach’s eyebrows and the look on his face. This describes how Aschenbach looks after seeing the Russian family. Aschenbach seems to be envious and angry. The wrinkles on his eyebrows show that he is very old. Aschenbach sees that the Russian family was happy and younger than him, and he gets into a bad mood. He wishes that he was young and happy and is angry that he wasn’t.

       Mann also shows us how Aschenbach views the guitarist. He studies him and looks at every single detail about him. His pale, snub-nosed face, whose beardless features made it hard to calculate his age, was wrinkled as if from grimacing and vice, and the grinning of his mobile mouth was an odd match to the two furrows which, defiant, dominating, almost savage, could be seen between his reddish eyebrows. (Mann 49)

       Aschenbach closely examines all of the features of the guitarist. In his description of the guitarist, he points out that he cannot tell how old he is because his face was hairless but had wrinkles. He also describes the color of his eyebrows. Aschenbach becomes obsessed with the young Polish boy, Tadzio, because of his attractiveness and beauty. Tadzio is young and is everything that Aschenbach wishes to be. Aschenbach becomes obsessed with looking young. He even tries looking young by dying his hair. He becomes just the man in which he resented, the man on the boat that was old but tried making people think that he was young. Aschenbach was an artist which is probably why he paid such close attention to detail in people. He went from one extreme of art to another extreme of art. First he was only interested in his art, but as he aged he stopped making art. When he goes to Venice he becomes only interested in the attractive, young, Polish boy. He admires his beauty and everything about him.

         In the novel, red seems to be symbolic. He mentions reddish eyebrows several times. Aschenbach also wears a red tie when he dresses up for Tadzio. Aschenbach happened to be eating strawberries when he encountered Tadzio and also shortly before he died. The strawberries may have been infected and might have been the cause for Aschenbach’s death. He dies in front of Tadzio. In the novel, the color red seems is symbolic and seems to symbolize passion and depravity. The musician he encountered in Venice also had red hair. It is strange that red-haired things continuously appear to Aschenbach throughout the entire novel. The color red may also symbolize devils or demons. Mann might be trying to imply to the readers that devils or demons might be following Aschenbach haunting him.

         Mann does a good job showing his readers what eyebrows can express. He makes it clear that they can show a person’s age or mood. He also does a good job showing Aschenbach’s interest in detail. He pays attention to every single detail of a person. He allows his readers to see how Aschenbach notices every little thing about Tadzio. Aschenbach pays attention to the specifics. Mann shows that Aschenbach is obsessed by age and by his own passions; for Aschenbach, eyebrows reveal both age and moral character.

       In the novel, Death in Venice, travel is one of the main themes. The novel is a story of travel. Thomas Mann shows Gustav von Aschenbach, an artist and writer, traveling from one place to another. He shows the readers what the character experiences in his travels. Aschenbach goes from Germany to an Adriatic island then to Venice. “What he sought was a place that would be exotic, outside his everyday frame of reference, and yet easily reached; and so he went to an island in the Adriatic” (Mann 11). Aschenbach desired to go to a place that was different. He stays at the island for a few days but is not fond of the weather there, and decides to go to Venice instead.

       Mann states, “It was an urge to travel, nothing more; but it presented itself in the form of a real seizure, intensified to the point of ecstatic passion; in fact, it was like a delusion of the senses” (3). In this statement, the reader can tell from the start that Aschenbach has a great passion for traveling. The novel makes Venice appear to be like a dreamlike city, and makes it seem partly like a fantasy. Aschenbach falls in love with the character Tadzio, which is why he ends up staying in Venice for a longer period of time. He falls in love with the boy in part because he misses his own youth. While in Venice, he follows Tadzio and becomes obsessed with him.

        In Mann’s novel, travel is meant to act as a symbol. In order to understand Aschenbach’s obsession, it is important to recognize his motive for traveling south. Aschenbach is from Germany, which is in northern Europe. Northern Europe is known for a cold and disciplined lifestyle. Going to the southern part of Europe to Italy, is symbolic because it is a warm and relaxed place. When Aschenbach arrives in Venice he does not necessarily know how to deal with the weather since the weather in Germany is different. Aschenbach ‘s moods are very closely tied to the weather. The heat in Venice goes along with the longing and desire Aschenbach has for Tadzio because of his beauty.

        Mann shows how important traveling was for Aschenbach. He says, “Ever since he had had at his disposal the means to enjoy the advantage of world travel whenever he wished, and perhaps even before that, he had looked upon traveling merely as a health measure that had to be taken now and again, even if contrary to his plans and inclinations” (3). The theme of travel in this novel is also very important because while Aschenbach was in Venice, he was inspired to write again. He decided to start to write because he wanted to express his feelings on a cultural issue. He saw a cultural issue during his travels, which was a question of taste. Tadzio also led to him wanting to write again.

       In Aschenbach’s fourth week in Venice, he notices that many of the hotel guests are leaving. He started to hear rumors about a disease that was spreading around. Even though he realizes that the problem is serious, he decides to stay in Venice, especially because Tadzio was still there. He changes his appearance to look younger. Shortly after, Aschenbach dies in Venice from cholera. Aschenbach’s reason for staying in Venice, despite the disease and the risk to his own health, is because he wanted to continue seeing Tadzio.. He dies in front of Tadzio as the boy and his family prepare to leave Venice to go back to Poland.

--Gabriella Melillo

Works Cited