Death in Venice Passage Analysis

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December 2, 2014 Death in Venice Passage Analysis The passage, located on pages fifty-six through fifty-seven, serves as a manifestation of Aschenbach’s complete and total dissolution into the Dionysian. Thomas Mann creates a scene where a group of people give themselves over to their carnal desires in homage to Greek god Dionysus, and Aschenbach, although originally very Apollan, longs to and eventually joins the massive, sensual celebration happening in front of him. Before Aschenbach’s dream sequence begins, he is able to feel himself as well as his emotions as he enters the dream and it is described as an event that, “burst upon him from the outside, violently crushing his resistance…the culmination of a lifetime of effort ravaged and annihilated.” (Mann, 56). This shows that although Aschenbach continued to slip further and further into the chaos and madness of his obsession with Tadziu and the Dionysian aspects of his surroundings, there is still a part of him that realizes that his obsessions and desires are both dangerous and unhealthy. Aschenbach’s dream sequence beings on a mountain landscape where he encounters, “People, animals, a swarm, a roaring mob, all rolling and plunging and whirling down from the forested hills.” (Mann, 56). Chaotic scenes, much like this one, are present throughout the passage, and they further bring Dionysian imagery and symbolism to the forefront, showing that Aschenbach continues to journey farther and farther into the chaos and madness of his desires. “Women, stumbling over their fur skirts that hung too long from the belts, moaned… Men with horns on their brows…clashed brazen cymbals and beat furiously on drums, while smooth-skinned boys used garlanded staves to prod their goats, clinging to the horns so they could be dragged along.” (Mann, 56). In non-biblical imagery, the goats that the boys bring with them to
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