Death in Venice by Thomas Mann ì. . .

passion as confusion and degradation was actually the

Brief biographical sketch

Thomas Mann was born in L¸beck in 1875 to a prosperous burger household. He was the
second of 5 children and was a rather poor student. His older brother Heinrich was a writer,
and Thomas wanted to follow in his footsteps. In 1901 Thomas published Buddenbrooks, a
novel loosely based on the Mann family history, which was an immediate best seller. From
that point on, it was Heinrich who followed in his brotherís footsteps. Between publishing
Buddenbrooks in 1901 and Death in Venice in 1912, Mann published several short stories
including Tonio Krˆger and ìTristan,î and another novel, Royal Highness. None of this work
garnered the attention that Buddenbrooks had attracted and Mann was in danger of becoming
a victim of his early success. In working through the issues addressed in Death in Venice,
Mann was able to understand his personal needs as a creative artist and as a human being.
From this point on his destiny as a writer was assured. Thomas Mann died in 1955.

Death in Venice: the novella

Before one can begin to study the opera or the film at any depth, it is necessary to delve into
the background of Mannís novella. In writing Death in Venice, Mann incorporated many
sources. One of his primary influences was The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche. In
this work, one of the questions which Nietzsche addresses is that of health and decay in the
arts. He posits that there must be a balance between the rational and emotional impulses in
humanity. He associates these impulses with the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus. A
simplistic distinction between the two gods is that Apollo is aligned with restraint, balance,
and the rational; Dionysus is aligned with the emotions, passions, and the physical. For art to
be healthy, Nietzsche believes that these two impulses must be balanced. Too much emphasis
on either the rational or the emotional impulse will have disastrous consequences. Mann
borrows this idea from Nietzsche and constructs a narrative around it. Gustav von
Aschenbach, the protagonist of Death in Venice, has devoted his life to the Apollonian
aspects of life. His writings are carefully crafted works of scholarly research, consciously
devoid of emotion and subjectivity. But Dionysus is a jealous god and he will not allow his
realm of the emotions to be ignored. At the opening of the novella it is this repression of the
emotions that is causing Aschenbachís problems, and will eventually bring about his demise.
While the aspects of homosexuality and pederasty are certainly prominent in the novella, I
believe that they can become a ìred herringî of sorts. It is not through homophobia that I
question the importance of these issues, but through a search for a 6 deeper understanding of
this work. Wilfrid Sheed in his introduction to Mario and the Magician (another novella by
Thomas Mann) briefly touches on Death in Venice: I once tried to teach Mannís unteachable
Death in Venice, only to be stopped in my tracks by a student who said, ìI donít dig stories
about fags.î I generally have a weakness for the literal mind . . . But in this case, it hadnít
occurred to me that Iíd been reading a story about fags. Mann was much too grand for that;
nothing less than the Human Condition was worth his time (xi). I agree with Sheedís analysis.
Homosexuality is not really the issue here, just like it is not really important that Aschenbach
is a writer.2 In fact, Mannís initial inspiration for the story came in response to a real-life
heterosexual encounter: that of the aged Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with a young girl. In a
letter to Elisabeth Zimmer, Mann recalls the initial impetus for writing Death in Venice:
ìOriginally I had not planned anything less than telling the story of Goetheís last love, the
love of the seventy-year-old for that little girl, whom he still absolutely wanted to marry, but
it was a marriage that she and also his relatives did not wantî ( Mann, ìExtracts from Letters,î
94). Obviously, the particulars of Death in Venice are not what the novella is about. Mannís
focus is the Human Condition. While many readers may not be able to identify with
Aschenbachís obsession for a young boy, most readers can identify or empathize with aspects
of a life out of balance. In the contemporary world that identification might be finding the
balance between career and family, between material and spiritual needs, or even a balance
between stability and adventure. But it is this perspective of a life out of balance ñ this insight
into the human condition ñ that makes Death in Venice so compelling to so many people.
Another issue that Mann explores in Death in Venice is the creative process. As mentioned
earlier, he was influenced by The Birth of Tragedy. In this work Nietzsche is ostensibly
unearthing the roots of Greek tragedy. He sees tragedy as a great art that could only arise in a
well-balanced society that is not afraid to accept and embrace all aspects of the human
condition, including the tragic. The Classical period of Greek civilization (c. 500 - 325
B.C.E.) was such a society and was fertile soil for the birth of tragedy. For Nietzsche, the
fundamental impulses he associates with Apollo and Dionysus must be kept in balance to
create healthy art. But his approach to Apollo and Dionysus is quite idiosyncratic. Rather
than simply aligning Apollo with the rational and Dionysus with the emotional, Nietzsche
envisions Apollo as the god of dreams and Dionysus as the god of intoxication. Both gods
represent altered states of reality. From this it is clear that there will be no simplistic
distinction between them. Speaking of Apollo and Dionysus, Michael Tanner, in his
introduction to The Birth of Tragedy remarks, ìIn a way they are opposites, and Nietzsche,
who was both attracted to dichotomies and intent on overcoming them (hence, perhaps, his
claim in Ecce Homo that BT [The Birth of Tragedy] ësmells offensively Hegelianí) does not
regard them as mutually hostile, as many commentators thinkî (xv). Nietzscheís remark that
the Birth of Tragedy ìsmells offensively Hegelianî refers to Hegelís emphasis on resolving
dichotomies. Although never formally stated by Hegel, his solution to dichotomies is often
summarized as: thesis ñ antithesis ñ synthesis. The concept being that through the interaction
of two apparently opposite ideas (thesis and antithesis) a synthesis will take place that moves
beyond the 7 duality of opposites. By the time Nietzsche writes Ecce Homo he has disowned
many of the ideas of The Birth of Tragedy, hence his criticism of one of the basic tenets of
that book. In Resentment and the ìFeminineî in Nietzscheís Politico-Aesthetics, Caroline
Picart adds another level to this discussion of the difficulty in making simple distinctions
between Apollo and Dionysus. She sees both gods as necessary to produce Greek tragic art,
but tragic art is not created by a simple coupling of these two gods: ì. . . what emerges is a
more complex model of reproduction, in which both entities appear to possess a reproductive
duality ñ possessing both ëmasculineí (excitatory) and ëfeminineí (birthing) capacities ñ
within themselves, and yet require each other in order to effect birthingî (43). Yes, both gods
possess that ìreproductive dualityî that can inspire artists, but if the artist relies on only one of
the gods for inspiration the creative process will become sterile and the artist will languish.
This is the condition in which we find Aschenbach at the beginning of Death in Venice. W.
H. Auden in a letter written to Benjamin Britten in 1942 uses different terms, but is
discussing this very idea: ìGoodness and [Beauty] are the results of a perfect balance between
Order and Chaos, Bohemianism and Bourgeois Convention. Bohemian chaos alone ends in a
mad jumble of beautiful scraps; Bourgeois convention alone in large unfeeling corpsesî
(Mitchell, 22). Rather than seeing Apollo and Dionysus as mutually exclusive, I believe that
Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy sees them in a wary but respectful symbiotic relationship.
Seeing Apollo and Dionysus as opposites reflects a tendency in Western Civilization to
reduce a complex and colorful relationship to a simplistic black and white dichotomy. Along
with Western Civilizationís predilection to create dichotomies is a tendency to value one side
over the other: being rational is good, being emotional is bad. Though this is stated rather
harshly it would be difficult to argue that in our society the emotional is generally prized over
the rational. By extension, males are often considered more rational and women are
considered more emotional. We live in a predominantly patriarchal society which has a
tendency to marginalize women. The point of this tangent is that it would be easy to
characterize the Apollonian as having positive attributes and the Dionysian as having
negative attributes. In this scenario Dionysus would be aligned with decay, depravity, and
decadence. Those are all negative characteristics that have a tendency to align Apollo with
their opposites. But too much emphasis on order and rationality is not good ñ Gustav von
Aschenbach is the perfect example. Nietzsche sees the need for both elements in human
beings, but even in The Birth of Tragedy it is possible to interpret Dionysus as being
associated with negative social concepts. Nietzsche sees the Dionysian religion as coming
from the East,3 and characterizes these practitioners as ìDionysiac barbariansî (19). He
writes: ìAlmost universally, the centre of those festivals was an extravagant lack of sexual
discipline, whose waves engulfed all the venerable rules of family lifeî (19). Nietzsche here
acknowledges that the total abandonment of ìfamily valuesî was not acceptable. Humans
could not relinquish all rational control to the passions and emotions. It would be up to
Apollo to moderate the undiluted influence of Dionysus: ìthe figure of Apollo rose up in all
its pride and held out the Gorgonís head to the grotesque, barbaric Dionysiac, the most
dangerous force it had to contend withî (19). 8 Just as Apollo had to hold out the Gorgonís
head to tame the Dionysus of the Orient, Apollo also tames the Dionysus of Greek drama. It
is believed that tragedy was originally a sung work for a chorus of singers. Nietzsche posits
that the individual actors are the Apollonian manifestation that slowly emerged out of the
Dionysian chorus. He views the choral parts as the ocean and the actorsí words as small boats
that float on the surface. Any cursory reading of Aeschylus or Sophocles reveals the
qualitative difference between chorus and dialogue. The chorus parts even feel more ancient
and seem related to an older tradition than the dialogue of the plays. It is the combination of
Apollo and Dionysus, the combination of dialogue and chorus that makes the terrible beauty
of tragedy bearable. Nietzsche conflates the mediation of Apollo and Dionysus with the
Sublime, which he defines as ìthe taming of horror through artî (40). On a very basic level,
Nietzsche sees tragedy as the reconciliation of the impulse toward individuality with the
impulse toward the collective. But he takes this a step deeper when he contends that the
Dionysian is the view of the abyss, and the Apollonian is what allows us to survive the view
of the abyss. Nietzscheís point is that healthy, vibrant art must have a balance between order
and intuition; between the rational and the emotional; between planning and chance; between
objectivity and subjectivity. In Death in Venice, Aschenbach spurns the Dionysian side of
these equations. He spurns intuition, the emotions, chance, and subjectivity. A good example
of this is Aschenbachís continual search for affirmation regarding the plague. He knows
intuitively that there is a plague. He notices that people are leaving Venice and he wonders if
there is a plague. He notices that German newspapers disappear from the newsstand and he
wonders if there is a plague. He smells disinfectant and sees health notices posted and he
wonders if there is a plague. Through all of this he knows intuitively that there is a plague,
but he continues to ask people ñ the musician, the barber, and some of the local residents. He
only accepts the truth when the travel agent reluctantly admits it to him. By that time
Aschenbach is too far under the spell of Dionysus to even consider leaving Venice: ì. . . he
sensed that he was infinitely far from seriously wanting to take such a step. It would bring
him back to his senses, would make him himself again; but when one is beside oneself there
is nothing more abhorrent than returning to oneís sensesî (55). Although Aschenbach plans to
warn Tadzioís mother about the plague, he soon realizes that he will never do that. He is so
far under the spell of Dionysus, that he even compares the cityís dark secret to the dark secret
he harbors, and neither the city nor Aschenbach wants anyone to discover their secret. This
aspect of the story is a good example for the need to find a balance between the Apollonian
and the Dionysian. The Apollonian aspect here is Aschenbachís rationality. He wants proof
regarding the plague. He does not rely on fallible intuition or gossip. These are good
characteristics. The Dionysian aspect is what warns Aschenbach of danger. All of the above
intuitions about the plague; the disinfectant, the departure of guests, etc., could be seen as
warnings from Dionysus. It is the failure to balance the gods that leads to Aschenbachís
downfall. Order, rationality, and objectivity are good traits, but they must be balanced with
intuition, passion, and subjectivity. Aschenbach realizes that he lacks passion, that he
marginalizes the emotions, but this has been a conscious effort for him. There is a theme that
runs through much of Mannís writing that describes the North as cold and rational, and the
South as warm and 9 emotional. Aschenbach realizes that he has been pushing himself too
hard. His writerís block is proof of that. He knows that he needs inspiration and that he must
turn to the South, to the warmth, to the emotions. He thinks that he can control how far he
will dip into his emotions: ì. . . not quite all the way to the tigersî (6), he remarks, recalling
the exotic landscape that was conjured up by his encounter with the traveler by the cemetery.
Aschenbach knows that the remedy for his ills lies in the South, and that leads him to Venice.
He needs those southern, Dionysian elements for rejuvenation, but he is unable to integrate
them into his life. Aschenbach recognizes Tadzio as beauty personified. There is no sexual
attraction in the beginning. The beauty of Tadzio is like a door that will lead Aschenbach to
health and balance in his art. Tadzio himself is not important. Like a door, he is a means to an
end, and not an end in himself. Unfortunately, Aschenbach becomes enamored with the
physical beauty of Tadzio and is unable to go beyond it. Although the title of Nietzscheís
book is The Birth of Tragedy, he actually spends more time describing the death of tragedy.
The primary person that Nietzsche blames for the death of tragedy is Socrates. He sees
Socrates as placing undue emphasis on reason and therefore upsetting the balance necessary
for healthy art. An analogy can be made to an iceberg which has one-twentieth of its mass
above the water and the rest hidden below. In this analogy, rationality would be the visible
part of the iceberg; the emotions and the non-rational would be the part below the surface.
For Socrates, it is only the visible that truly exists; he would like to deny what lies below the
surface. Nietzsche describes this as ìaesthetic Socratismî (62) and remarks that the chief law
of aesthetic Socratism ìis more or less: ëto be beautiful everything must first be intelligibleíî
(62). For Nietzsche, this emphasis on visibility and intelligibility emasculates tragedy ñ or
perhaps a more fitting description would be that it hyper-masculinizes tragedy ñ it removes
the mystery, the depth, the chaos of tragedy. This depiction of Socrates as being responsible
for the demise of tragedy creates an interesting dynamic in Mannís Death in Venice. In
preparation for a writing project, Thomas Mann would first collect ideas, concepts, and
quotes related to the topic. Among his notes for Death in Venice are a number of quotes or
paraphrases from Platoís dialogue the Phaedrus. This dialogue addresses a number of topics:
love, beauty, rhetoric, but the topic that interests Mann most is beauty. Necessary background
for understanding the Phaedrus is Platoís concept of the Doctrine of Forms. Plato believed
that all of what humans typically consider ìrealî is a copy of a perfect form that is invisible to
us. A chair that one sits in is a copy, or a reflection, of the perfect form of a chair. It is not
only physical objects that have perfect forms, but concepts do as well. There is a perfect form
of truth, a perfect form of virtue, and, most importantly for Mann, a perfect form of beauty.
Beauty is unusual among these concepts in that ìit is the only intellectual form that is
perceptible to the senses, that is tolerable to the sensesî (Working Notes, 82). The idea here is
that physical beauty can lead us toward the perfect form of beauty. In his notes, Mann
remarks, ìJust as the mathematicians make visible and touchable pictures of spheres, cubes
and dodecahedrons to show to children who are not yet capable of understanding the abstract
forms of incorporeal and immutable substance, so it is that the sensual Amor [also known as
Cupid or Eros] creates for us beautiful mirrors of beautiful 10 objects. In order to make the
divine and intellectual visible to us he makes use of mortal and mutable beings, especially the
shapes, colors, and forms of young people, who are ornamented with the glow of beauty,
achieving gradually, through these means, the most lively remembrance of objects once seenî
(Working Notes, 77). In Death in Venice, Mann has Aschenbach turn to the Phaedrus to help
justify his fascination with Tadzio. In an important episode, Aschenbach writes one of his
eloquent essays as he watches the young boy: ìhe wanted to work here in the presence of
Tadzio, to use the boyís physical frame as the model for his writing, to let his style follow the
lines of that body that seemed to him divine, to carry his beauty into the realm of intellect . . .î
(39). While this seems to be the perfect integration of this Platonic concept, Aschenbach
realizes immediately after writing his essay that all is not well: ìWhen Aschenbach folded up
his work and left the beach, he felt exhausted, even unhinged, as if his conscience were
indicting him after a debauchî (39). The problem is that at this point in the novella
Aschenbach is only considering one portion of the Phaedrus dialogue. Near the end of the
story Aschenbach imagines he hears a later portion of the dialogue which makes it clear that
although physical beauty could lead to the true, intellectual form of beauty, the path is too
dangerous, and always leads the artist astray. ìFor beauty, Phaedrusómark me wellóonly
beauty is both divine and visible at the same time, and thus it is the way of the senses, the
way of the artist, little Phaedrus, to the spirit. But do you suppose, my dear boy, that anyone
could ever attain to wisdom and genuinely manly honor by taking a path to the spirit that
leads through the senses? Or do you rather suppose (I leave the decision entirely up to you)
that this is a dangerously delightful path, really a path of error and sin that necessarily leads
astray? For you must know that we poets cannot walk the path of beauty without Eros joining
our company and even making himself our leaderî (60-61). In the context of Death in Venice
this Platonic dialogue is quite ironic. Typical of this novella, there are several layers of irony.
Mannís use of this dialogue is certainly ironic considering his emphasis on Nietzscheís Birth
of Tragedy and its perspective of Socrates as culprit. Mann, as author, is not implying that the
reader should look to Plato for answers, nor is he agreeing that the senses are too dangerous.
Aschenbach, on the other hand, does look to Plato for answers but he wants to pick and
choose among the arguments. He accepts Platoís inference that physical beauty can lead to
the apprehension of true beauty but he does not hear Plato say that this path ultimately leads
to decadence until it is too late. His interpretation of Plato is merely the latest failure of his
Apollonian nature. The other person that Nietzsche holds accountable for the death of tragedy
is the Greek dramatist Euripides. In one of his more provocative unsupported claims,
Nietzsche alleges that there were rumors in Athens that ìSocrates used to help Euripides with
his writingî (64). Nietzsche sees Euripides as following in the footsteps of Socrates by
eliminating mystery from tragedy. Nietzsche particularly dislikes the use of prologues and
epilogues, which Euripides uses to explain, to justify ñ to make more intelligible ñ 11 his
dramas. Euripides was also guilty of emasculating/hyper-masculinizing the chorus. He
reduced the role of the chorus and thus eliminated the destabilizing element of the chorus. On
the surface, this conflation of Euripides and Socrates seems quite odd. Several of Euripidesí
dramas are so full of horror and excess they seem to be the epitome of the Dionysian.
Nietzsche, however, contends that the issue is that everything in Euripides is calculated.
There is no sense of the drama emerging from the depths, no sense of organic origins, but
purely the carefully calculated effort to evoke emotion. This might be compared to soap
operas today. Nietzsche finds no integrity in the work of Euripides. It has none of the
strengths of the Apollonian epic or of Dionysian tragedy. It is a very subtle yet profound
distinction that Nietzsche makes when he discusses the ëstimulií of Euripidean tragedy:
ìThese stimuli are cool, paradoxical thoughts rather than Apolline contemplations, fiery
emotions rather than Dionysiac ecstasies ñ and these thoughts and emotions are highly
realistic counterfeits, by no means immersed in the ether of artî (62). For Nietzsche then,
Euripidesí dramas are too artificial to invigorate Greek art. Rather than leading to healthy
human expression they represent a rational approach to emotion and therefore the death of
tragedy. Just as Mann incorporated Socrates/Plato into Death in Venice, he also incorporates
the work of Euripides. The fate of Aschenbach is very similar to the fate of Pentheus in
Euripidesís tragedy The Bacchae. In a number of ways Death in Venice is patterned after The
Bacchae. Both works have a protagonist who denies Dionysus and both protagonists are first
humiliated and then destroyed by Dionysus. In The Bacchae, Dionysus returns to Thebes, his
birthplace. Dionysus was born from a liaison between Zeus and the mortal woman Semele.
When Hera, Zeusís ever vigilant and justifiably suspicious wife finds out about her husbandís
indiscretion, she dons a disguise and visits Semele. During the visit she convinces Semele to
ask Zeus to appear to her in his godly form knowing that no human can survive the
unmediated sight of a god. When Semele goes to Zeus, he tries to dissuade her, but he has
already promised to do whatever Semele asks. When he appears to her in all his glory the
sight is too much for her earthly form and she is destroyed. Zeus does manage to save the
fetus and implants it into his thigh where the baby can come to term and be hidden from the
jealous Hera. In The Bacchae, the people of Thebes do not believe that Semele had a
relationship with Zeus and gave birth to a god, but that the story was concocted to cover a
youthful dalliance. Following his birth Dionysus lives in the East. At the opening of The
Bacchae he is just returning to Thebes. This is significant for Death in Venice because just as
Dionysus comes to Thebes from the East, Mann traces the cholera epidemic as coming from
the East, and like Dionysus, the cholera epidemic leaves death and destruction in its wake. In
Thebes, Dionysus has driven all of the women into frenzy and they are living outside of town
roaming the countryside. Pentheus, the leader of Thebes, and a cousin of Dionysus, has
vowed to put an end to the madness that has infected Thebes. Pentheus does manage to
briefly imprison Dionysus but soon comes under the godís spell. Pentheus wants to witness
the women performing the rites of Dionysus. Dionysus gladly obliges but tells Pentheus that
he must don the apparel of the maenads (the female cultists). Although Pentheus initially
balks at the suggestion that he dress like a woman, he soon complies. Dionysus places
Pentheus in a tree where he can see better and shortly after alerts the maenads to the presence
of the interloper. Under the 12 spell of the god, the women acquire super-human strength,
enough to enable them to uproot the tree and literally tear Pentheus limb from limb. Agave,
the mother of Pentheus, is among the most vicious of the women. As a trophy for her efforts
she receives the head of Pentheus which she places on her thrysus, the sacred staff carried by
the worshipers of Dionysus. Still under the spell of Dionysus, and thinking she has the head
of a mountain lion on her staff, she proudly processes into Thebes with the head of her son on
display. The parallels with Death in Venice are quite obvious. Both protagonists originally
scorn Dionysus but eventually fall under his spell. Both men are leaders whom others admire
for their discipline and rational point of view. But both men, in the course of the stories,
become the very things they found disgusting. Earlier in the play Pentheus berates his elderly
grandfather and the blind seer Tiresias for dressing like the maenads. Toward the end of the
play Pentheus becomes a follower of Dionysus in full regalia. Early in Death in Venice
Aschenbach is horrified when he realizes that a person he sees with some young men is really
an old man with dyed hair and make up. By the end of the novella Aschenbach has become
the elderly fop. Ultimately, the protagonists of both stories are humiliated and die for their
failure to acknowledge Dionysus. These three works, The Birth of Tragedy, The Phaedrus,
and The Bacchae all wield a powerful influence on Mannís story. Each in its own way
addresses what is healthy and what leads to decadence. None of these stories really offer a
solution or a guide to healthy art. Likewise, Death in Venice offers no road map. In all of
these texts, the reader is left to ponder the ambiguities and forge a path as best one can.
Perhaps the closest Mann came to describing a theme in Death in Venice was in a letter to
Carl Maria Weber dated July 4, 1920: ì. . . passion as confusion and degradation was actually
the subject matter of my storyî (Extracts from Letters, 97). This is, of course, a simplification,
but it underlines the basic irony and ambiguity of the story. 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. Aschenbachís life up to his meeting with
Tadzio has been extremely Apollonian; therefore his swing to the Dionysian will be equally
extreme. This is a book about the creative process and the importance of finding a balance
between Apollo and Dionysus. It does not, however, tell how to achieve this balance. The
importance of this work to Thomas Mann is evidenced by the degree to which he identified
with Aschenbach. Mann openly acknowledged that the novella was based on personal
experience: ì. . . in Death in Venice nothing was invented. The Traveller at the north
cemetery in Munich, the gloomy Polesian ship, the old dandy, the suspicious gondolier,
Tadzio and his family, the unsuccessful departure due to a mix-up with the luggage et cetera,
et cetera ñ it was all thereî (Extracts from Essays, 109). But this novella is more than just a
recounting of a personal experience. I believe that Mann was writing about his fear was that
he was overly Apollonian, that he repressed the sensual, and that if he did not find the proper
balance he would end up like Aschenbach. I believe his experience in Venice gave him a
glimpse of a possible future, one that he wanted to avoid. After all, Mann was in his mid-
thirties when he wrote this tale; we know that his protagonist is over fifty. 13 Mann was
certainly concerned about health and decadence in his art. In a letter he comments on a
review of Death in Venice by the German poet Stephan George (1868- 1933): ìGeorge did
say that in D. i. V. the highest is pulled down into the sphere of decay, and he is rightî
(Extracts from Letters, 98). In this statement, Mann acknowledges that the Apollonian
aspirations of Aschenbach are ìthe highest.î These are truly good aspirations, but they are
ìpulled down into the sphere of decay.î Mann is attempting to discern why this happens.
Ultimately he wants to discover how to keep his art vibrant and healthy. Mann addresses this
issue in his essay ìOn Myself:î ìIt is really a question of vitality whether or not one clears a
critical hurdle . . . whether one is capable of loosening up what has become tight,4 what has
really taken on form, and keeping his productivity alive, of letting new content flow into
it . . .î (Extracts from Essays, 111). That Aschenbach is unable to do this is best illustrated in
the critical scene where Aschenbach decides that he must at least say hello to Tadzio.
Aschenbach realizes that he must somehow incorporate this ìrelationshipî into the natural
order of life. The best way to do this would be to develop an acquaintance with the boy, but
Aschenbach fails at his one attempt to even say hello to Tadzio. Aschenbach has become so
ìtightî that he is unable to allow his fantasy to face the scrutiny of reality, a reality where
Tadzio would become just another young boy instead of the embodiment of a god. Mann
realizes that the only way to keep art fresh is by being able to incorporate all aspects of life
into art. The act of writing Death in Venice is an excellent example of this. Surely Mann
thought twice before writing such a revealing story of sexual attraction. But in writing this
story I believe he was able to exorcise the tension surrounding his experiences in Venice.
Writing this novella was Mannís equivalent of Aschenbach talking with Tadzio. This was
Mannís attempt to keep his desires within the natural order. Had he not written the story he
may have obsessed over the experience much as Aschenbach did and met a similar fate.
Instead, Mann found a positive way to deal with his impulses and to keep his art healthy and
invigorated.