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Death in Venice

by Thomas Mann

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Part One: Aschenbach at Home in Munich
1. Many things are obviously lacking in the life of Aschenbach, but what do you think is the most fundamental problem for him? Is it love? Fellowship? Recreation? Or something else?

2. Before he encounters the Pilgrim, Aschenbach reads the religious inscriptions on the chapel. What do these quotations mean, and why are they significant in the story?

Part Two: A Look Back Over Aschenbach’s Life
1. The figure of Gustave von Aschenbach combines, as we have seen, elements of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gustave Mahler, Stefan George and, most significantly, Thomas Mann himself. Look up these figures, and find out what additional traits from them Mann may have given to his protagonist.

2. Aschenbach appears to have lived in a world almost ¬completely without feminine influence. Even his wife and ¬daughter have not, so far as we know, had any lasting impact on him. How do you think that may have affected his character? You may wish to read further about the position of women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries before writing about this.

3. Aschenbach, we have learned, wrote a prose epic about the life of King Frederick the Great of Prussia. This was a king who once dreamed of being a poet but renounced that ambition for the life of a soldier. Prussia was almost constantly at war during his reign, and the country began to emerge as a world power. Read more about Frederick the Great in the encyclopedia. Then decide what this choice of subject can tell us about Aschenbach.

4. In the part of Death in Venice we are examining, there is a description of the sort of hero in Aschenbach’s novels, attributed to “a shrewd critic”: “The conception of an intellectual and virginal manliness, which clenches its teeth and stands in modest defiance of the swords and spears that pierce its side.” Can you think of any other heroes who meet that description? How well do the words of the critic describe Aschenbach himself? Do you think they might also describe Thomas Mann?

Part Three: The Trip to Venice
1. Thomas Mann constantly uses symbols in Death in Venice. Most of these are fairly straightforward, but two figures which are difficult to interpret, the hunchbacked sailor, and the ticket seller with a beard like that of a goat. The sailor sounds a bit like a medieval demon. The beard of the other man recalls representations of Pan, the god of flocks and herds, who is portrayed with the feet and beard of a goat. But the way Aschenbach descends into a dark, cavernous hull of the ship to meet him suggests that the ticket seller might be Hades, the guardian of the dead in Greek mythology. The man might, indeed, even be the Devil, or else he could be yet another incarnation of Death. Do you think he has symbolic meaning? If so, which figure do you feel is most likely?

2. Thomas Mann has several figures in his story which represent Death, but the rakish old man on the boat is probably the most detailed. Look up some medieval woodblocks or paintings representing Death, and compare them with the description by Mann of the rakish old man.

3. Thomas Mann identifies the gondola with the boat of Charon, which carries the dead to the kingdom of Hades, saying that the gondola is black as a coffin. Research the history of the gondola. Can you find any further reasons why Mann may have used it as a symbol?

4. Throughout...

(This entire section contains 1247 words.)

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the novella, death is often associated with beauty. This is certainly so, for example, with the artistic heritage of Venice. Do you think there is a necessary connection between the two? Why, for example, are so many favorite poems written about death?

Part Four: The Frustrated Departure
1. In the family of Tadzio, there seems to be a sort of reversal of what people often think of as traditional gender roles. The girls are all very severe and disciplined, while the boy is the little darling of the family. The girls have their hair cut short and pushed back over their foreheads, while the hair of the boy is long and luxurious. Why do you think this is? What is Aschenbach’s attitude towards women? Do you think this attitude is shared by Mann?

2. If Tadzio has a father, he does not seem to be present with the mother and children. How do you think things might have been different if Tadzio’s father had been present? What influence do you think the absence of the father may have on Tadzio and his sisters. Is it possible that Tadzio may be looking for a father in Aschenbach, and the aging man misinterprets this as coyness? Describe how the events might appear from the perspective of Tadzio.

3. We learned earlier that Aschenbach, because his health was poor, was educated at home. This meant he did not have the experience of playing with other children. He does not really seem to have had a true childhood at all. Do you think this lack helps to account for the way he is attracted to Tadzio? How?

Part Five: The Smile of Tadzio
1. Read “Phaedrus,” a dialogue of Plato. How closely do you think the characters of Socrates and Phaedrus really correspond to the respective characters of Aschenbach and Tadzio? How are the two pairs alike or different?

2. Suppose Aschenbach had actually managed to approach Tadzio and speak with him. Do you think that would have made their relationship normal or only more complicated? Compose a few lines of dialogue which the two might have exchanged.

3. Aschenbach is, apparently, in love with Tadzio, yet he daydreams of killing the young man. Do you find the psychology here believable? Why or why not?

Part Six: Conclusion—The Plague
1. The spread of cholera in the story might be compared with the spread of AIDS in the late twentieth century. In both cases, you have intense debate about, among other things, the seriousness of the epidemic. With AIDS you also have people, like Aschenbach, risking their own lives and the lives of others for the sake of erotic pleasure. Knowledge of the dangers, furthermore, does not necessarily make people more cautious. Compare the responses to cholera in the story with the responses to AIDS in contemporary times.

2. Despite several indications that his health is failing, Aschenbach never even thinks to visit a doctor. What do you think he is afraid of? What might have happened if he had done this?

3. The young Englishman describes the place where the plague originated as a jungle where the tiger crouches in a thicket of bamboo. This is exactly the sort of place that Aschenbach first dreamed of after he had encountered the pilgrim and conceived a wish to travel. Does this mean that the desire to travel was ultimately a longing for death?

4. The stylistic devices for which Thomas Mann is most famous are irony and parody like many other excellent writers; for example, James Joyce, Mann was very good at mimicking the style and tone of others. But, in Death in Venice, the narrator seems to merge with the protagonist to a point where it is hard to tell the two apart. We don’t always know which passages are intended to parody Aschenbach. How do you imagine the narrator in Death in Venice? Does the narrator seem to have any personality distinct from his subject?

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