Closer

The ContinuumWe are all going to die one day. That notion is the driving force behind Thomas Mann’s protagonist, Aschenbach, in the story Death in Venice. That notion is also the impetus for the actions of many of the protagonists in the books we have read in class so far. Examples include Jake in The Sun Also Rises, Port in The Sheltering Sky, and Sal in On the Road. They are all are driven by this notion of unavoidable doom to make something of their lives while they still have them. While it can be debated that these characters were productive, lazy, right, wrong, good, bad, or otherwise, there is still a common thread for all of them. They want to forget or otherwise become unconscious of the fact that their death is destined, yet each has a different means of getting there. In Death in Venice Aschenbach has done the same thing all his life as a writer; a creature of routine and habit. In his growing age he begins to come to grips with this notion that he has created a cyclical lifestyle for himself and decides to break it by going to Venice. In doing so he seeks to have something different in his life and he finds it in his beloved Tadzio. In Tadzio Aschenbach sees a beauty that infatuates him to the extent that he cannot stop thinking about him and in these moments he gains a sensation of time-suspended, thus he has overcome the cognizance of his demise which he otherwise knows is ever approaching as does the reader given the story’s title. In The Sun Also Rises Jake is impotent because he fought for a cause he no longer believes in, he has a woman he loves but she won’t stay with him, he hangs out with guys like Robert who he doesn’t even like very much, and he cries at night because he knows he will die and likely unhappily. But he does not give up hope to live through his days despite it all. He takes solace in activities like fishing where a great deal of time must be devoted such that time cannot be considered; the fish bite when they do or not at all and one must wait and see to find out. Thus he overcomes a consciousness of his death for when fishing one cannot be concerned with the passing of time. He drinks quite a bit of alcohol as well, likely to subdue thoughts about his future death and a great deal of other thoughts as well. In the nothingness of his thoughts there is beauty that elates him past a focus on his death. In The Sheltering Sky Port is a man who attaches very little or no meaning to life. He privately romanticizes and revels in the idea of his death and in doing so feels he has overcome its approach because he does not fear it, but embraces it, perhaps even eggs it on. But he does not kill himself. He makes his death a thing of beauty, fashioning himself the fearless traveler who does not charge, but calmly and evenly strolls right into the core of the abyss as if he is above the impulse of self-preservation which cannot help but eventually fail. In On the Road, Sal, in the atomic age, has no reason to feel that his existence is in any way permanent and decides to live it up while he can. So he heads out on adventures with crazy man Dean to have crazy man times. Despite moments of utter self-loathing and feeling purposeless, Sal also has moments where he feels time has been suspended and thus that death is in no way near or even exists. He accomplishes this by taking drugs, having sex, and by being en route to a destination because it is in those times that his concentration can only be present and all else, especially death, become irrelevant. So that’s that. We all paradoxically face death and come closer constantly as we live. So I ask you: are you living or dying?