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Death, in Death in Venice, could only happen in the classical world embedded in the decaying city of Venice.Thomas Mann made a specific choice of location for his story to come to life.The city of Venice embraces the rebirth of a history; the classical world of Greece, its philosophers, the art and architecture, its culture, and its myths.Mann compiles a thread of the classical world throughout his novella to present the claim that beauty alone gives people a visible reminder of ultimate reality.Mann's allegation therefore is that this experience of art over morality separates the wise from the merely sensual.
Death in Venice is a story of a middle-aged man named Aschenbach who is the epitome of self discipline, and believes the most genuine art of the world is only created against the will of passion.Mann was also influenced greatly by a philosopher Freidrich Nietzsche, who believed that only in the balance between passions and the conscious can art take place.Nietzsche describes two separate forces, Apollonian and Dionysian.Aschenbach's character is marked by an Apollonian personality, from the god Apollo who was the god of light and form, that which shapes drives and instincts into clarity and order.Aschenbach encounters an impulse to travel, and ends up in Venice, where at the hotel he stays at sees a fourteen year old Polish boy named Tadzio, who is entirely beautiful.While repressing a Dionysian (from god Dionysus) association of dissolution and pure artistic obsession, Aschenbach succumbs to Tadzio's beauty and compulsively watches and follows the boy and his family around Venice.Despite the city being infected by the deadly disease Cholera, he stays because he is blinded by his impure fixation to the boy, which ultimately leads to his death.
The setting of the book takes place in the city of Venice, which Mann chose this particular location for many reasons.Quite unusually, it was built and has been maintained by sheer will over the forces of nature however it is slowly decaying and sinking into the Mediterranean Sea, which will ultimately be the case for Aschenbach as well.It was the birthplace of the Renaissance of Classical Greek culture; rich with art, architecture, and myths of the Hellenistic Age.Finally Mann chose the city, because no other city was going to make the novella work they way it did, not even Rome which is not "like the portrait of a primitive world of islands, morasses and silt-laden rivers." (Mann )
The city allows for the argument Mann present's his readers with.The novella revolves around the idea much like Plato's that there is a conflict between the conscious will and uncontrolled passions."True wisdom is obtained through the knowledge of the Ideas and not through the imperfect reflections of the Ideas that the senses perceive." (Perry 6) Ideas, refers to the thoughts about whatever is being viewed, in this story Tadzio's beauty.Mann combines the mythological and psychological worlds that Venice embodies to prove the point.Because of this, Aschenbach has many encounters with characters that bear likenesses to an array of Greek mythical characters.
Mann quickly introduces his mythical theme in the book on the second page in the first chapter, where Aschenbach's eyes catch "the Hall of Last Rites… with its Byzantine-style architecture, and selected religious phrases concerning the life beyond, such as 'You are entering the dwelling place of God'." The description of this burial place sets an ominous tone right away for a book entitled, Death in Venice.
The first character resembling a mythical Greek character is the gondolier who Aschenbach meets while placing his luggage and trust into; as he wishes to be taken to the Lido which was the area with many hotels.The gondola itself is like a coffin, Aschenbach himself notices as he sits down into the boat, "And have you observed that the seat in such a boat, that armchair painted black like a coffin and upholstered in a dull black, is the softest, most luxurious and enervating seat in the world?" This observation is the opposite of expected, instead of being apprehensive about the eminent ride, he is extremely self-assured.The journey closely resembles that of the journey to the underworld, yet Aschenbach falls into an easy minded daydream on his "good ride" to the underworld, as the mythical Charon the skeletal boatman of the river Styx takes him into Venice.Classical heroes such as Theseus and Hercules also made a similar journey into the underworld; however these heroes' crossings were distinguished as testimonies of their perseverance over evil.In contrast to the heroes' trips to the underworld Aschenbach's trip was rather a "free ride" being "lulled by the tepid breathe of the scirocco." (Mann 16) This will become a poor foundation on a blueprint making him develop further surrenders to his senses as Plato described as mentioned before.
In chapter three Aschenbach comes upon Tadzio while sitting on the beach, he sees him as "perfectly beautiful… recalling Greek statues of the noblest period, and, along with its extremely pure perfection of form." He likens him to the Greek god Eros, which most people know as Cupid, who is the god of love and sexual desire."According to Plato, Eros is the striving of mankind to the pure, the good, and the beautiful." (Encyclopedia Mythica) Again repressing his true feelings Aschenbach dispassionately admires the boy's beauty from a purely intellectual perspective, not knowing he has been struck by one of Eros's arrows of love and desire.His relief of the observations made were not completely based upon the basic senses, came when he saw the boy up close in the elevator."Lacking the glow of health, strangely brittle and transparent, like those of some anemic people." (Mann 7) Seeing the boy's mortal qualities Aschenbach "avoided accounting himself for the feeling of satisfaction or consolation which accompanied," his thoughts of the boy's subsequent health.(Mann 8)
In chapter four, Aschenbach is again watching and admiring Tadzio, his every movement on the beach.He is struck by a vision of Socrates instructing Phaedrus about desire and virtue.Plato said, "For beauty, dear Phaedrus, beauty alone, is charming and visible at the same time; remember this it is the only form of intellectuality which we perceive with, and can tolerate with, our senses… Thus beauty is the path taken by the man of feeling to attain the intellectualonly the path, only a means." (Mann 7) This quote from Plato is a justification made by Aschenbach that his admiration of beauty is not merely sensual, rather just the path taken to attain the intellectual.Socrates takes advantage of his naive student, and a naive Aschenbach takes advantage of Socrates' reasoning.
Later in the chapter as Aschenbach watches Tadzio play with a ball along the sea, he sees within the boy "Hyacinth who was fated to die because two gods loved him." (Mann 40) Although the two gods that loved the Spartan boy were Apollo and Zephyr, it seems once again that there is a suppression of truth.Zephyr is actually a disguised Dionysus since the two gods fought over the boy, and the real battle is the two gods Apollo and Dionysus fighting within Aschenbach.As he watched the boy in the fading light on the shore, he thought to himself, "He was more beautiful than words can say, and Aschenbach felt painfully, as he had often done, that words are able to praise physical beauty but not to reproduce it." (Mann 4) Quietly admitting to his self that as a writer he could not comprehend the boy's beauty in words and his true sense of magnificence rests at the level of perception alone.
In the same scene the boy directs a smile to Aschenbach and within the boy's frailness; Aschenbach alludes to "Narcissus bending over his reflection in the water," as he sees himself within the boy.(Mann 4) The mythical tale of Narcissus is that Echo falls in love with Narcissus, and so distraught over this rejection that Echo withdrew into a lonely spot and faded until all that was left was a plaintive whisper.Aschenbach throws himself onto a bench, and whispers the "standard formula for longing… 'I love you!'." (Mann 4) Now more desperate than ever, death looms over Aschenbach.
Chapter five introduces the disease Cholera, and how the locals are hiding it from the public.In a mythological reference, India is said to be the birthplace of the cult of Dionysus, as well as the origin of the disease Cholera.At night Aschenbach has a dream which seems to comprise a primitive ritual to worship a god, and he realizes that it symbolizes him self.No longer admiring the boy who resembled a statue anymore, he is now ultimately worshipping a god, completing his change from Apollonian to Dionysian.
The end of the book has Aschenbach sickly wandering around lost in the "labyrinth" of the city.In an attempt to quench his thirst because of the fever he is experiencing, he eats some overripe strawberries, where he soon sinks on the steps of a well."For Socrates, true education meant the shaping of character according to values discovered through the active and critical use of reason." (Perry 61) Here the narrator brings about a long passage of Socrates lecturing Phaedrus.Socrates posses the question that Aschenbach has repressed so long, "Or do you believe instead that this is the path of dangerous charm, truly a path of error and sin, which necessarily leads one astray?" (Mann 5) He continues about how even the most knowledgable men can be lead astray, and into the abyss.That even noble man can commit "horrifying crimes of the passions." (Mann 60) He states that it should be forbidden to use art to educate the people, because it corrupts morality, just as it has in Aschenbach.Both knowledge and beauty lead to the abyss, claims Socrates.
Mann, as a write was an artist with a pen and paper, and was in danger of the art's sensual side.However he does also suggest that there can be a balance, and that there has to be one in order to avoid the abyss.The end of the book takes on a mocking tone towards Aschenbach by the narrator, which is the separation from the myth of the great writer and the perseverance of the same person to realize where he went astray.
In the final passages Mann shows the split of personalities, between Apollonian and Dionysian once again.He uses Tadzio and Jaschu to compare the two as they wrestle each other, which ends with Jaschu holding Tadzio's head in the sand too long so that Tadzio could only slowly raise himself and had to sit there for several minutes.When he finally gets to his feet, Tadzio walks into the sea onto the sandbar where it is quiet and peaceful.One last time he is being watched by his lover, each slow step, every small detail, and the last look are all accounted for.Tadzio asks the last silent question, not heard even from the words in the book, "Will you (Aschenbach) take the last step into the Abyss?" And Hermes the messenger boy brings news of the great Gustav von Aschenbach's trip to the underworld.
Perry, Marvin. Western Civilization A Brief History, fourth edition. Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 001. Volume I.
Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice. Ed. Stanley Appelbaum. New York Dover Publications, Inc, 15.
Encyclopedia Mythica Mythology, Folklore, and Legends.Copyright 15-00 M.F. Lindemans.http//www.pantheon.org/mythica.htmlPlease note that this sample paper on Greek Mythology in "Death in Venice" is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on Greek Mythology in "Death in Venice", we are here to assist you.Your cheap custom college paper on Greek Mythology in "Death in Venice" will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.
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