Aschs meeting with the red-haired man

induces wanderlust within him,

manifesting in a daydream of a tropical
swampland

Aschenbachmomentarily masters his

desire to travel, returning to his usual
state

DEATH IN VENICE
BY THOMAS MANN
THOMAS MANN

1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate

Written works noted for insight on

psychology of the artist and intellectual

CHARACTERS
GUSTAV VON ASCHENBACH

Nationally renowned but aging writer

Repressed; disciplined and ascetic

[Aschenbachs] young days never knew the

sweet idleness and blithe laissez aller that
belong to youth.

However, Aschenbachultimately decides

to travel as a way to rekindle his passion
for his work
CHAPTER 2

Aschenbach is revealed to be the son of

an upper official in the judicature and a
daughter of a Bohemian musical
conductor

Disciplined conscientiousness comes

from his fathers side and ardent,
obscure impulse comes from his
mothers side, making Aschenbach into
the artist he is now

Aschenbach achieves fame before

graduating high school, being pressured
to achievement from a young age

His young days never knew the sweet

idleness and blithe laissez aller that
belong to youth.

TADZIO

A perfect beauty, like a Greek sculpture

Picture of innocence

DEATH IN VENICE
CHAPTER 1

Aschenbach takes a walk in order to

clear his head after being overwrought
by work

After noticing a storm brewing,

Aschenbach decides to head back

While waiting for a tram,

Aschenbachstops by to read the
inscribed text on a Byzantine mortuary
chapel

Aschenbachis brought back to reality as

he notices a red-haired man staring back
at him with some hostility

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

Aschenbachs work ethic leads to a

naturally fragile state of health, and thus
he is constantly battling sickness

This leads Aschenbach to believe that all

great things exist in defiant despite of
suffering, poverty, physical frailty,
corruption, and passion

Art to Aschenbach is to contrive to

greatness despite the above burdens;
heroes of the age are those who
attempt to do so

Aschenbachs own work is celebrated

due to it being in itself a celebration of
his generationshis peershard work

and perseverance

Aschenbach ultimately considers his

greatest achievement to be his path
towards dignity

CHAPTER 3

Two weeks after his encounter with the

red-haired man, Aschenbach decides to
travel

He first travels to the Adriatic island, but

there was rain of heavy air; the society
at the hotel was provincial Austrian, and
limited [and] it annoyed him not to be
able to get at the
sea . . .

Aschenbach made all the haste to

correct his vacation, booking a ticket to
Venice ten days after arriving at the
Adriatic

Aschenbach boards the boat and sees

an old man pretending to be a much
younger man, wearing a wig and false
teeth and having rosy painted cheeks
and a dyed moustache

CHAPTER 3

The sight of the old man induces a

dreamlike distortion of perspective for
Aschenbach

Aschenbach orders a gondola to row him

to Lido once he arrives in Venice, and he
subsequently steps into a black boat
likened to a coffin and linked with death,
the last journey
The gondola starts to head out to ocean
instead of the steamboat landing, and
Aschenbach orders the gondolier to head
there. However, Aschenbach notices that
the gondolier is another red-haired man

CHAPTER 3

The gondolier ultimately takes

Aschenbachstraight to the shore near

Lido, but runs away while

Aschenbachgoes inside to gets change

An old boatman subsequently informs

Aschenbachthat the gondolier operates
without a licence and is in fact a known
criminal, and left in order to avoid the
police

Aschenbachsettles into his room, takes

tea on the terrace facing the sea, and
goes for a walk along the shore
promenade

Aschenbach goes back in time for dinner,

changing into dinner clothes and waiting
in the parlour for dinner to be served

CHAPTER 3

While waiting in the parlour, Aschenbach

notices a family composed of three
severely dressed adolescent girls and
Tadzio, a boy who immediately catches
Aschenbachs eye

The following morning, Aschenbach

notes that the skies remain grey,
recalling a previous visit to Venice where
similar weather caused him to be ill and
subsequently return home

Aschenbach again notices the Polish

boy, Tadzio, arriving late to breakfast,
and Aschenbach is again taken by the
boys beauty, likening him to Eros, the
Greek god of love

Aschenbach subsequently proceeds to

the beach after breakfast, dragging a
reclining chair close to the sea

CHAPTER 3

Aschenbach meditates upon the sea and

the sight of sophisticated society giving
itself over to a simple life at the edge of
the element

Tadzio catches Aschenbachs eyes, the

formers features distorting in a spasm

of angry disgust as he spots a Russian

family nearby. Aschenbach also notices
Tadzios close companion Jashu

However, he immediately finds out that

his baggage has been mistakenly
brought to Como

Aschenbach resumes his admiration of

Tadzio, beautiful as a tender young god

He thus uses this as a reason to go back

to the Lido and stay there until his
luggage is recovered

Upon arriving at the Lido and spotting

Tadzio, Aschenbach realises that the boy
is the primary reason for his reluctance
to leave Venice

CHAPTER 3

At midday, Aschenbach returns to his

room, examines his features, and
provides to the dining room for lunch

The sight of a sickly Tadzio during lunch

leads Aschenbach to relief that the
former will most likely not live to grow
old

Aschenbach goes for a walk after lunch,

but the climate and weather induces him
to leave Venice for a resort in Trieste; he
immediately informs the hotel
management of his plans

CHAPTER 3

At breakfast the next day, the porter

informs Aschenbach that his
transportation will soon be leaving for the
station

Upon spotting Tadzios sisterswithout

Tadzio himself, Aschenbach becomes
irritated at the pace of the porter

Aschenbach ultimately tells the porter to

have the car go ahead with his baggage,
and eats breakfast at a more leisurely
pace

As Aschenbach rises to leave, Tadzio

enters the room, and the former
immediately feels a twinge of regret at
his decision to leave Venice

CHAPTER 3

Aschenbach arrives at the station still

undecided whether to leave Venice or
not

CHAPTER 4

Aschenbach's lost luggage returns, but

he decides to stay longer; the weather in
Venice has changed for the better.

Aschenbach has been seeing quite a bit

of Tadzio. He wakes up early, heads
down to the beach, and waits for Tadzio
to arriveand then Aschenbach watches
the boy all day. He finally gets the urge to
start writing. He will eventually write an
essay about Tadzio's beauty

The next morning, Aschenbach spots

Tadzio at the beach again, and is
overcome with a desire to speak with
him.

Aschenbach tries to follow Tadzio without

being noticed, but falters just when he's
about to talk to himhe feels a bit
ridiculous because of how afraid he is of
attracting suspicious attention.

CHAPTER 4

At this point, the narrator tells us,

Aschenbach is obviously staying put in
Venice. He has had money transferred,
he's getting a nice tan, he's enjoying
doing absolutely no work on his writing,
andshockerTadzio is pretty much all
he can think about.

Eventually, Tadzio seems to start noticing

all the attention he's getting from

Aschenbach. Their eyes will meet just as

Tadzio is walking by. But it goes no
further than that.

One evening, Aschenbach is anxiously

waiting around to see if the Polish family
will come to dinner. When they (with
Tadzio) arrive unexpectedly, Aschenbach
can't keep himself from giving the boy a
look that shows how happy he is to see
him. In response, Tadzio smiles.
Aschenbach hurries away, feeling like
this smile is some kind of "fatal
gift" (4.20).

CHAPTER 5

Aschenbach has now been in Venice for

almost four weeks, and has had the
chance to notice some weird
developments, particularly that guests
seem to be leaving the hotel even though
it's still vacation season.

One day, his barber accidentally

mentions something about a disease that
the other guests fear.

Deciding to look for Tadzio and his family,

and he finds that the air smells funny, like
disinfectant.

At the hotel, Aschenbach picks up some

newspapers to see what he can read
about the disease. Only the Germanlanguage papers have anything to say,
mostly citing rumors.

At one point, Aschenbach hires a

gondola in order to follow just behind
them as they glide through the Venetian
canals.

One night, a group of street performers

come to serenade the hotel guests.
Aschenbach has the chance to sit just a
few seats away from Tadzio, and the boy
turns around from time to time to look at
Aschenbach, who has begun to notice
that the boy's family is growing
suspicious.

The next day, Aschenbach visits a British

agency to try to find out some more
reliable information on the epidemic.

There, he eventually discloses the truth:

Cholera, a disease originating in India,
has reached Venice, and the local
authorities have been trying to cover up
cases of horrible deaths in order not to
disturb the tourists.

CHAPTER 5

Aschenbach leaves the travel agency,

thinking to himself how he will go up to
Tadzio's mother and tell her to take
Tadzio a away from Venice. But then he
realizes that this will only propel him
back to his normal life again, before
Tadzio came along. So he decides
against telling the family anything.

That night, Aschenbach dreams of

someone (or something) called "the
stranger god," who is being worshipped
wildly by a "raging horde" (5.37 After his
dream, Aschenbach becomes aware that
the tourists around him are leaving. He
fantasizes about being left all alone with
Tadzio, but Tadzio's family remains

Aschenbach is no longer worried about

arousing any suspicion about his
attraction to Tadzio. On the beach, he
watches him, thinking now that the moral
code is "null and void" (5.38).

Aschenbach doesn't really care either

way; in fact, the idea of an epidemic kind
of excites him. His only concern is that
Tadzio will leave.

CHAPTER 5

In the meantime, Aschenbach has

started secretly pursuing Tadzio and his
family, wherever they may go. Beach,
Venice, in a churcheverywhere.

Aschenbach decides to make himself

look more youthful in order to please
Tadzio. He wears jewels, perfumes, and
dyes his hair and get his face made up to
look a bit more rosy-cheeked.

CHAPTER 5

Aschenbach trails Tadzio one afternoon,

while the boy turns around now and then
to glance back at Aschenbach, until the
family disappears from sight.
Aschenbach, feeling feverish, stops to
rest and eat some overripe strawberries.

A few days later, Aschenbach finds a

large collection of luggage in the hotel
lobby, and learns that Tadzio's family is
preparing to depart.

One of Tadzio's friendsnamed Jasiu

wrestles a little too roughly with Tadzio.
Aschenbach is horrified, while Tadzio
gets up and walks away angrily.
Aschenbach stares after him, imagining
that Tadzio is beckoning to him.
Aschenbach, like many times before,
prepares to follow him.

and the murky depths in a form of exemplary

purity, who had renounced all sympathy for the
abyss and reprehended the reprehensible,
climbed the heights, and, having transcended
his erudi;on and outgrown all irony, accepted
the obliga;ons that come with mass approba;on,
a man whose fame was official, whose name
had been made noble, and whose style
schoolboys were exhorted to emulatethere he
sat, his eyes closed, with only an occasional,
rapidly disappearing sidelong glance, scornful
and sheepish, slipping out from under them and
a few isolated words issuing from his slack,
cosme;cally embellished lips, the result of the
curious dream logic of his half-slumbering brain.
(Chapter 5)

Here, the narrator steps back for a

second, in order to give us the bigger
picture of Aschenbach's situation.

A few minutes later, Aschenbach is found

dead in his beach chair.

TONE
Irony--Death in Venice presents Aschenbach
as the ideal European ar3st of the 20th century.
He holds firmly to the belief that discipline and
duty are the keys to creating works of genius,
and when the story opens, he's at the top of his
game.
But as the story unfolds, Aschenbach
encounters desires within himself that challenge
his steely self-controljust as he is infected
with cholera, he also gets "infected" with a
strange and unfamiliar lust for Tadzio.
So as it turns out, ironically, his longing for
beauty and artistic perfection is more than
tinged with sexual desire.

THEMES

Ideas of death and lust

Although the story ends with in

Aschenbach's deathand
perhaps, Tadzio considering the
disease. Perhaps, this death can
be seen and alluded with the
death of his old self, something
that lust does to him.

There he sat, the master, the eminently

dignified ar;st, the author of "A Wretched
Figure," who had rejected bohemian excess

He's celebrated as "the master," who

"rejected bohemian excess" and has
"outgrown all irony," and yet here he is,
at the end of it all, collapsed on the steps
of some Venetian square, looking a
whole lot like that old guy he sees on the
boat to Venice

Aschenbach's desire for Tadzio

develops from an artist's
admiration of an "exquisite work of
nature" (3.55) into full-blown erotic
infatuation, transforming him from
disciplined, old-school writer into,
well, something more like a
modern artist.

The story borrows concepts from ancient

Greek philosophies (e.g. Socrates) and
Freudian conceptssuch as his work on

dreams in the novella.

These are two ideas that Mann, the author,
greatly delved into and shown interest in.
ORIGINS

There was a real Tadzio

His name was Baron Wladyslaw

Moes

Born in 17 Nov 1900 and died in

17 Dec 1986

The author saw him on a visit he had in

Venice, much like the
character in the story.

The authors wife was aware of Manns

fascination of the boy (but he didnt do anything
creepy)
In an interview that a translator of the book
had with Moes decades later, the latter was said
to have been shocked with the similarity he had
with the character, Tadzio.
THEMES

The artist and the nature of art, turn-ofthe-century Europe

Repressed a state of
imbalance, could not produce truly
inspired art

Explosive release

Dangers of pure form or pure emotion