THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2008
Week VIII
We discussed the use of leitmotifs in Thomas Mann's Death In Venice to analyze how and why the red-haired characters unsettle Aschenbach and how they function as narrative warnings about the protagonist's descent into the "abyss." Use this week's entry to reflect on the structure of the novella and how Mann uses symbolism, detailed descriptions of the setting, death imagery, or Venice's environment to enhance our understanding of Aschenbach's mental and psychological state as well as the narrator's attitude toward Aschenbach's precipitous change to a person who abandons all self-discipline in the face of beauty and/or lust.
In terms of structure, think about difference between the first three chapters and the chapters that follow his realization that he is staying in Venice in order to be close to Tadzio. Likewise, how do these various elements work to make the reader more aware of how the character changes from the fastidious writer in Germany to the "aging" and "deluded" man in Italy? How do recurrent elements such as unsettling characters and the discussion on beauty and art establish Mann as a master of his craft in terms of being a novelist who controls all aspect of his art along the lines of the musician Wagner?
Think about the progress of the cholera outbreak in Venice and how it mirrors Aschnebach's moral decline. How do descriptions of Venice's Byzantine appearance (East meets West) reflect Aschenbach's struggle with his Apollonian and Dionysian impulses? How do Aschenbach's and the narrator's philosophies of art, artists, and artistic creation in Chapter 2 and in the Socrates and Phaedrus section reflect the protagonist's situation?
One of the larger and probably more weighty and frightening examples of leimotif within Death in Venice that stood out to me were the philosophies of art discussed by Aschenbach and the narrator, and in turn its relationships to intellect and beauty. For throughout the novella art is a constant theme. Of the most notable examples is when Aschenbach recalls, almost as if in a daydream, those passages of dialogue between Phaedrus and Socrates. And in these passages, the parallelism between Socrates’ teachings and Aschebach’s situation are quite apparent.
In the second chapter of the book, the narrator states for us the intellectual career of Aschnebach, and he is portrayed in the manner of being a staunch intellectualist, free of frivolous emotion and passion. He is shown as a disciplined and patient artist, who knows how to get things down. And yet in the teachings of Socrates quoted in the book, he seems to tell us that no matter what, any artist will eventually end up enfolded in passion and beauty. For in the final chapter, Socrates speaks of how poets and artists such as himself and Phaedrus, although they continually speak against and renounce “the abyss”, are naturally attracted to it. This “abyss” seems to be defined as the passion of the human soul, and it’s inherent addiction to emotion and beauty.
And in the paragraph preceding this final quotation of Socrates’ teachings, the narrator describes all of the accomplishments of Aschenbach’s career: “He sat there, the master, the artist who had attained dignity, … who … had renounced bohemianism and the murky depths, had abrogated his sympathy for the abyss … he whose fame was official, whose name had been ennobled and whose style boys were exhorted to take as a model” (59). And then, in heart-wrenching irony, Socrates states this line: “The master’s pose of style is a lie and folly, our fame and honorable status are a farce, the confidence the crowd has in us couldn’t be more laughable, and education of the people and of youth by means of art is a risky enterprise that ought to be prohibited” (60). He says this because art, no matter how intellectually or profoundly it is portrayed, will always lead even the most noblest of men to committing “horrifying crimes of the passion”. This is huge, because it tells that everything that Aschenbach has built up in his life career amounts to nothing. He is to be laughed at and ridiculed. And it shows us that in his giving in to passion, in his addiction to beauty, to Tadzio’s beauty, and the resulting decay of his intellectual self, he has finally fallen head first into the abyss.
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