Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice is an easy subject for psychoanalytic criticism. Given that Freud’s theory of unheimlich (the uncanny) has been construed as a “latter-day theory of the sublime, of the imagination overwhelmed in a moment of bafflement but also exhilaration,” Aschenbach’s various obsessions make more sense (Sandner, 2004, p. 74). Of course, other aspects of Freudian discourse can be used as lenses through which to read Death in Venice, but unheimlich offers the broadest insight into Aschenbach’s overall character. The entire novella unfolds as a series of cascading coincidences, and if it were not set in the dreamy world of the Venetian archipelago, Mann’s novella would be less believable and even more surreal than it already is. Yet Venice offers the perfect landscape within which to explore the resurfacing of unconscious thoughts, dreams, desires, and fears that occupy the unconscious mind. The reader becomes trapped inside of Aschenbach’s own mind, seeing the strange characters he meets through his warped state of being. Primarily, the reader learns of Aschenbach’s triple obsessions: his obsession with his appearance and simultaneously, his youth; his obsession with Venice; and his obsession with Tadzio. Understood through the principle of unheimlich, Aschenbach’s obsessions intermingle to provide a portrait of an aging man consumed by a fear of losing his sexual and aesthetic potency. For Freud, the uncanny was much more than uncanny coincidences or strange situations at the surface of daily life. Unheimlich has a dual...
It relates first to aesthetics, and paradoxically at the same time to “all that is terrible...all that arouses dread and creeping horror,” (Freud, 1919, p. 1). The juxtaposition of the beautiful and the terrible is one of the primary themes of Death in Venice. Through Aschenbach’s eyes, we see the most hideous of strangers starting with “a man of unpleasing, even violent physiognomy,” (Mann, 1912, p. 15). Mann mingles the grotesque and phantasmagoric with the sublime beauty of his surroundings in Venice and of course, the otherworldly, eternal, but ephemeral beauty of the young boy. As Freud (1919) points out, unheimlich must be understood by contrasting it with heimlich, the familiar. The familiar is stagnant and cannot give rise to the creative impulse that wells up when confronted with the uncanny, which is why writers like Aschenbach must occasionally uproot themselves and place themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, with unfamiliar people, languages, and foods. From an encounter with the uncanny, the writer theoretically delves into the unconscious, the repository of fears, phantasmagoria, and dreams, and then resurfaces in the familiar world with remarkable tales to tell.References
Freud, S. (1919). The ‘uncanny.’” http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf
Mann, T. (1912). Death in Venice. https://archive.org/stream/DeathInVenice/DeathInVenice-ThomasMann_djvu.txt
Sandner, D. (2004). Fantastic Literature: A Critical Reader. Greenwood Publishing.
Death in Venice In Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice, a writer goes to the title city in order to find inspiration and to ease his writer's block. During his time there, he discovers and then becomes obsessed with a young boy who he sees as incomparably beautiful. Instead of physically expressing his emotions for the boy, he forces the emotions to remain internal, something which eventually leads to his destruction.
This depiction of Aschenbach's state of mind can be interpreted as being one way in which Mann suggests his character's definite detachment from the real world. Psychology studies can easily motivate the role a state of crisis plays in taking abrupt and drastic decisions. It most often leads the individual to engage in desperate gestures and irrational actions. Similarly, Aschenbach can no longer control his urges to see Tadzio and
He dies on the beach as he is trying to rise out of his chair and go to meet the boy. Mann's story is reflective of an artist who has come to realize that his art has been false since it has not come from a place of true emotion and passion. The story has parallels with Euripides' The Bachae, in which the hero Pentheus is repressed in his artistic
Thomas Mann- Death in Venice Thomas Mann's Death in Venice is often regard as the first major Gay novel but to categorize this fascinating story in such a manner significantly limits its merits. The novel may contain homosexual love affair but it is certainly a lot larger than that. It explores the psychological influences of a magical city on a person who is running away from himself-of how forbidden love can
English Literature Death in Venice - Cultural Criticism & Reader Response Criticism Reader-Response Criticism is a legitimate, proven method for readers to use when digging into the deeper meaning of a piece of literature; it's always a good idea to broaden one's understanding of literature by gaining a grasp at how others view the same work. And meantime, employing the use of Cultural Criticism as research into the meaning of literature is
The Carnevale and Sensa festivals were outlawed and the Book of Gold, which had recorded the names of patrician families of Venice for more than four centuries, was burned. Before leaving Venice Napoleon instructed his men to take twenty paintings along with five hundred manuscripts of rarity including the 'Wedding Feast at Cana' by Veronese. Napoleon additionally took the four bronze horses of San Marco to be taken from the
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