Discuss Thomas Mann's major thematic concerns in Death in venice
Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice
Death in Venice (1912) is a novella by Thomas Mann. It is the story of Gustave von Aschenbach, a successful German writer, who has lived a life of personal discipline and dedication to his art. He is a renowned novelist, who has devoted intense effort toward having a successful career as a writer. He lives a solitary life. His wife is dead, his daughter is married.
One day, Aschenbach takes a walk from his home in Munich to a park that leads to a cemetery. As he is waiting for a streetcar to take him back home, he becomes aware of a tall stranger who is watching him from the chapel in the cemetery. The stranger seems to be staring at him, and has an expression of hostility.
Aschenbach feels a desire to leave the cold spring climate of Munich, and to travel to the warmer climate of the south. He takes a train to Trieste, where he stays for only a day, and then continues his journey. He travels to an island resort in the Adriatic, where he stays for ten days, before leaving on a ship for Venice.
On the ship, the passengers include a group of young clerks, among whom is an old man wearing a wig and false teeth, who is dressed in the clothes of a dandy. The old man is making a ridiculous and ghastly attempt to appear as a younger man. As the ship arrives in Venice, the young-old man says a drunken farewell to Aschenbach, who ignores him.
Aschenbach boards a gondola, but discovers that the gondolier is taking him out to sea, instead of toward the city. The gondolier, in fact, resembles the stranger at the cemetery in Munich, and the gondola resembles a black coffin, and thus the voyage in the gondola becomes symbolic of the journey of life toward death.
The gondolier explains to Aschenbach that a vaporetto will not carry luggage from the steamboat landing, so the gondolier instead takes him to another landing. Aschenbach’s luggage is unloaded from the gondola at the landing, but the gondolier leaves suddenly, because he does not have
Death in Venice (1912) is a novella by Thomas Mann. It is the story of Gustave von Aschenbach, a successful German writer, who has lived a life of personal discipline and dedication to his art. He is a renowned novelist, who has devoted intense effort toward having a successful career as a writer. He lives a solitary life. His wife is dead, his daughter is married.
One day, Aschenbach takes a walk from his home in Munich to a park that leads to a cemetery. As he is waiting for a streetcar to take him back home, he becomes aware of a tall stranger who is watching him from the chapel in the cemetery. The stranger seems to be staring at him, and has an expression of hostility.
Aschenbach feels a desire to leave the cold spring climate of Munich, and to travel to the warmer climate of the south. He takes a train to Trieste, where he stays for only a day, and then continues his journey. He travels to an island resort in the Adriatic, where he stays for ten days, before leaving on a ship for Venice.
On the ship, the passengers include a group of young clerks, among whom is an old man wearing a wig and false teeth, who is dressed in the clothes of a dandy. The old man is making a ridiculous and ghastly attempt to appear as a younger man. As the ship arrives in Venice, the young-old man says a drunken farewell to Aschenbach, who ignores him.
Aschenbach boards a gondola, but discovers that the gondolier is taking him out to sea, instead of toward the city. The gondolier, in fact, resembles the stranger at the cemetery in Munich, and the gondola resembles a black coffin, and thus the voyage in the gondola becomes symbolic of the journey of life toward death.
The gondolier explains to Aschenbach that a vaporetto will not carry luggage from the steamboat landing, so the gondolier instead takes him to another landing. Aschenbach’s luggage is unloaded from the gondola at the landing, but the gondolier leaves suddenly, because he does not have
Bibliography: Mann, Thomas, Der Tod in Wenedig, 1912; trans, H. T. Lowe-Porter, Death in Venice, Penguin, 1928.