Death in Venice

Death in Venice

Author Thomas Mann

Original title Der Tod in Venedig

Country Germany

Language German

Genre Novella

Publisher S. Fischer Verlag

Publication date 1912

Published in English 1924 (periodical), 1925 (book)

OCLC 71208736
 Text Death in Venice at Internet Archive

Death in Venice (German: Der Tod in Venedig) is a novella by German

author Thomas Mann, published in 1912.[1] It presents an ennobled writer who visits
Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a boy
in a family of Polish tourists—Tadzio, so nicknamed for Tadeusz. Tadzio was based
on a real boy named Władzio whom Mann had observed during his 1911 visit to the
city.

Plot
The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous author in his early 50s
who recently has been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (thus acquiring
the aristocratic "von" in his name). He is a man dedicated to his art, disciplined
and ascetic to the point of severity, who was widowed at a young age.
As the story opens, he is strolling outside a cemetery and sees a coarse-looking, red-
haired foreigner who stares back at him belligerently. Aschenbach walks away,
embarrassed but curiously stimulated. He has a vision of a primordial swamp-
wilderness, fertile, exotic and full of lurking danger. Soon afterward, he resolves to
take a holiday.
After a false start in traveling to Pula on the Austro-Hungarian coast (now in Croatia),
Aschenbach realizes he was "meant" to go to Venice and takes a suite in the Grand
Hôtel des Bains on the island of Lido. While shipbound and en route to the island, he
sees an elderly man in company with a group of high-spirited youths, who has tried
hard to create the illusion of his own youth with a wig, false teeth, make-up, and
foppish attire. Aschenbach turns away in disgust. Later, he has a disturbing
encounter with an unlicensed gondolier—another red-haired, skull-faced foreigner—
who repeats "I can row you well" when Aschenbach orders him to return to the wharf.
Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish
family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy of about 14 in a sailor
suit. Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek
sculpture. His elder sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like
nuns.
Later, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears Tadzio,
the boy's name, and conceives what he first interprets as an uplifting, artistic interest.
Soon the hot, humid weather begins to affect Aschenbach's health, and he decides to
leave early and move to a cooler location. On the morning of his planned departure,
he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he
reaches the railway station and discovers his trunk has been misplaced, he pretends
to be angry, but is really overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his
lost luggage. He happily returns to the hotel and thinks no more of leaving.
Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach's interest in the beautiful boy develops
into an obsession. He watches him constantly and secretly follows him around
Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him, looking, Aschenbach
thinks, like Narcissus smiling at his own reflection. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes
outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud "I love you!"
Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly
worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and
advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odor
everywhere, later realising it is disinfectant. However, the authorities adamantly deny
that the contagion is serious, and tourists continue to wander obliviously round the
city.
Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that
the city's disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy. During
this period, a third red-haired and disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach's
path; this one belongs to a troupe of street singers who entertain at the hotel one
night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have
despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby
parapet in a classically beautiful pose. The boy eventually returns Aschenbach's
glances, and although the moment is brief, it instills in the writer a sense that the
attraction may be mutual.
Next, Aschenbach rallies his self-respect and decides to discover the reason for the
health notices posted in the city. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco is
the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is
a serious cholera epidemic in Venice.
Aschenbach considers warning Tadzio's mother of the danger; however, he decides
not to, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him. But
Aschenbach is not rational; "nothing is as abhorrent to anyone who is beside himself
as returning into himself.... The awareness that he was complicit, that he too was
guilty, intoxicated him...."[2]
One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual
nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterward, he begins staring at the boy so openly
and following him so persistently that Aschenbach feels the boy's guardians have
finally noticed, and they take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too near
the strange, solitary man. However, Aschenbach's feelings, although passionately
intense, remain unvoiced; he never touches Tadzio or speaks to him, and while there
is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing
more than occasionally surreptitious glances.
Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more
attractive, he visits the hotel's barber shop almost daily, where the barber persuades
him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. The result is a
fairly close approximation to the old man on the ship who had so appalled
Aschenbach.
Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the
oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted
and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned
square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amid the ruins of his own once-
formidable dignity.
A few days later, Aschenbach goes to the lobby in his hotel, feeling ill and weak, and
discovers that the Polish family plans to leave after lunch. He goes to the beach to
his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there, unsupervised for once, and accompanied by
Jasiu, an older boy. A fight starts between the two boys, and Tadzio is quickly
bested; afterward, he angrily leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach's
part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea, then turns
halfway around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning
to him: He tries to rise and follow, only to collapse sideways into his chair.
His body is discovered minutes later.