A Darker Side of Travel

The Greek God Eros

Death in Venice begins as a story told with a universally grim and pessimistic tone. The main character Aschenbach has startling visions of a man with scary teeth, and the author notably pays attention to things such as shadows and Aschenbach’s history of poor mental and physical wellness. But the tone changes dramatically when the main character begins to encounter a young Polish boy named Tadzio. The impression that the boy has upon Aschenbach is dramatic, where the narrator explains that Aschenbach is “startled by the truly godlike beauty of this mortal being” (52).

But Aschenbach’s infatuation with the boy does not end there. He proceeds to compare the boy to Eros, whom Wikipedia identifies as the “primordial god of lust, love, and intercourse” in Greek mythology. Considering this is a boy “of about fourteen” (45), his obsession is more than a little unsettling, despite his trying to convince himself that his interest is purely artistic. This unease is only amplified as Aschenbach proceeds to obsess about and to stalk the poor boy and his family.

Aschenbach’s obsession with Tadzio is certainly a driving theme in the novel, and it has garnered interest from a number of literary critics. One such critic is Bernhard Frank, who suggests in his article on Death in Venice that the devil himself is omnipresent in the novel, as the man with the scary teeth and the evil gondolier. He then suggests that Tadzio represents Aschenbach’s explicit sexual desires, and points towards a number of notable innuendos to support his claims. Given that the scary man/devil first appeared in the sequence where Aschenbach describes his wanderlust, the situation raises and important idea to consider about travel. While we tend to assume that people are motivated to travel by reasonable positive ideas (to discover themselves, explore a new culture, find love, etc.), we cannot ignore the possibility that people are driven to travel by dark inner reasons, and are succumbing to temptation by leaving the relative shelter of their homes.