An Ominous Horizon

Overcast SeaAs a travel nouvella, Death in Venice makes wonderful use of the setting and landscape to establish the novel’s tone and illuminate the protagonist. Mann’s detailed and weighty landscape descriptions are symbolic of the plot arc and Aschenbach’s inner workings. At the beginning of the novel, Aschenbach travels to an Adriatic island before deciding to go to Venice. On the ship, Aschenbach longs for “fresh air, for a look at the sky. Surely it would clear over Venice…Yet both sky and sea remained turbid and leaden” (31). Already, Mann hints that Aschenbach’s “yearning for freedom, release, oblivion” will prove to be in vain (8). The image of the dark sea and sky evokes a feeling of confinement, entrapment. In a sense, Venice, too, traps Aschenbach in the middle of the book: Aschenbach wants to leave, plans to leave, regrets wanting to leave, and then cannot leave. Furthermore, Aschenbach’s internal conflict over his stay in Venice further torments him. When Aschenbach arrives in Venice, he first notices the beach, “all but devoid of people…and the sunless sea, which at high tide was sending long, low waves against the shore in a calm, regular cadence.” (42). Aschenbach hopes to escape “the humdrum routine of a rigid, cold, passionate duty” through traveling to Venice; however, he first notices the “calm, regular cadence” of the sea and the deserted, dreary beach (8). Throughout the novel, Aschenbach both dismisses his instincts about the unhealthy state of Venice and is dismissed by locals who do not want to induce paranoia. While reading the novel, I asked myself periodically if indeed, Aschenbach was overly paranoid or if the situation was indeed dire. Mann answered my question by continuing the menacing weather and landscape descriptions. One morning in Venice, Aschenbach awakens to note that the “weather had not improved…The wind came from the land. The sea was dull and calm, shrunken almost, under a pale, overcast sky, the horizon blandly close; the sea had retreated so far from the beach…A sudden despondency came over [Aschenbach]” (50). Might the image of the near horizon symbolize Aschenbach’s nearing death? Mann’s bleak landscape descriptions symbolize Aschenbach’s physical and psychological confinement and foreshadow the protagonist’s downfall. Despite his rigidity and over-exaggerated discipline, Aschenbach has high hopes for his travels to Venice at the beginning of the novella. Mann’s forebodings, though, are clear throughout the novella: his writing takes on an ominous tone through dark descriptions of Venice’s natural forces that foreshadow the protagonist’s eventual death.