Mid-life Crisis

When Life Just Seems to Pass You By    Even after reading the majority of the articles posted about Death in Venice, I still maintain the first thought that came to me about Gustav Aschenbach when I began the novel, and after I finished; this guy is having a mid-life crisis. We’ve talked about travel as a form of escapism and of discovery, and Aschenbach’s trip to Venice seems to be a combination of the two. He’s not there to change the world or make a political statement, but rather is in desperate need of a change. Aschenbach has reached the point of his life where everything is just okay, and as he notices the people around him, he begins to see his own life flashing before his eyes. He decides to go to Venice after seeing a guy on a train who seems a little bit different, and “grew aware of a strange expansion of his inner being, a kind of restive anxiety, a fervent youthful craving for faraway places… (5).” Basically, the main drive for his travel was simply that he wanted to feel young again. He falls in love with Tadzio, because this young boy symbolizes the youth that Aschenbach has lost and can no longer recognize on his own.

   He’s okay with never talking to the boy, because just the sight and thought of him can help Aschenbach return to that stage of his life in his own mind. Even though he is disgusted by the older man trying to look young on the trip to Venice, once there, Aschenbach decides to go down a similar path in order to impress Tadzio, because by loving this young boy, he feels young again, and doesn’t see this change as being such an alteration. Honestly, it all seems a bit pathetic. Aschenbach clearly considers himself a creative person, and is constantly talking about his art, yet when placed in one of the art capitals of the world, all he can focus on is the beauty of a teenager. He gets so entranced by this child, that he ignores a health warning, just so he can spend more time staring at the unattainable. The scariest part though is that even though the book was written almost a century ago, and I found it quite disturbing, the idea is still a relatable one; aging is hard. While some buy Mercedes convertibles and cheat on their wives, others take exotic vacations and fall in love, or simply idolize, younger spouses, who symbolize the person they once were, and they believe can make them feel younger inside.