A Search for the Irrational

A Fairytale Land

Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice is less of a story grounded in reality than a constructed tale that probes the self. One of the main issues Mann examines is the tension between Apollonian and Dionysian principles, between the rational and the delirious, a balance that Aschenbach struggles to maintain. Mann, in particular, relies upon setting, namely the juxtaposition between Munich and Venice, to explore strain between the Apollonian and Dionysian. Place, then, becomes more of a symbol than a locale, a manifestation of the self that lends insight into Aschenbach’s character.

Munich, the original setting for the novel, serves as an image of Apollonian thought, of the ordered world that Aschenbach inhabits. Aschenbach has led a disciplined life and has “never known leisure, the carefree idleness of youth (13). An observer even describes his lifestyle as a tight fist instead of a dangling, free open hand, as he has never unearthed his Dionysian side. He leads a “solid bourgeois existence” in Munich, a rational, disciplined life that he eventually breaks with (23). Aschenbach gives in to his “urge to flee…this yearning for freedom, release, oblivion—an urge to flee his work, the humdrum routine of a rigid, cold, passionate duty (8). To satisfy his Dionysian parts he leaves Munich, a place of order and discipline, and travels to Venice, a fairytale land. Venice, which Mann describes as an “improbable city” is a place that breaks with reality, offering an escape from rational life (34). It’s a city built on water, a wavering, unsteady mass. Aschenbach decides he wants to live by the sea in Lido, fully taking advantage of the water and the lack of grounding it provides. He settles in there, isolated from the rest of Venice, displacing himself even further from reality and into a floating world.

Even the rest of Venice is otherworldly, from the “fantastic architecture,” to the “ethereal splendor of the Place and the Bridge of Sighs, the waterside columns with lion and saint, the majestically projecting flank of the fairy-tale basilica, and the view of the gateway and giant clock” (34). As this description implies, Venice is a dreamlike realm, more mythical than real, a manifestation of the Dionysian principle of the unrestrained and orgiastic. Furthermore, Venice is not a place where people truly live—it’s a place for tourists, a Disneyland that is removed from reality. By traveling to Venice, Aschenbach enters this mythical realm, finally connecting with his Dionysian side because of the ethereal setting.

The one thing that allows him to explore desire and temptation is not Venice itself but Tadzio, a godlike Polish boy. Aschenbach becomes infatuated with him despite never establishing verbal contact, instead creating an extravagant mental image of the boy. Tadzio, as a representation of the Dionysian, resembles Venice in many ways. He is more mythical than real, an emblem of desire and beauty rather than a person. Venice is also a fantasy, a place for the imagination rather than a place for the body to inhabit. Both Tadzio and Venice are fantastical creations, physically real and tangible yet not truly grounded in reality. They are symbols of the Dionysian world, tools to illustrate Aschenbach’s eventual failure to reconcile the two halves of the self, to strike a balance between the rational and irrational.