Death in Venice & Tonio Kruger

This study will compare and contrast two works by Thomas Mann --- Death In Venice and Tonio Kruger --- in terms of the author's treatment of the quest of the artist. Specifically, the study will focus on the different ways the two artists in the stories think of, feel about, and interact with the "outside" characters --- the unsophisticated, blonde, blue-eyed figures of infatuation. For both artists, these characters have great importance, both personally and artistically, as they attempt to formulate ideas about the relationship between art and life. The essence of the difference between the two tales is found in the ultimate isolation of Aschenbach from other human beings as a result of his quest for beauty, as opposed to the ultimate embracing of others on the part of Tonio as a result of his.

Tonio seeks knowledge of the world in order to come to an understanding of it and of other human beings, in order to become a part of life in service of his art. Aschenbach, on the other hand, destroys himself in the name of beauty, turning his back on knowledge: "Knowledge is all-knowing, understanding, forgiving; it takes up no position, sets no store by form. It has compassion with the abyss --- it is the abyss. So we reject it, firmly, and henceforward our concern shall be with beauty only. And by beauty we mean . . . a return to detachment and to form. But detachment . . . and preoccupation with form lead to intoxication and desire, they may lead the noblest among us

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itful. There is longing in it, and a gentle envy; a touch of contempt and no little innocent bliss" (Mann 133-134). So we see that Tonio has not given up his attachment to the blonde, blue-eyed love which spelled doom for Aschenbach, but he has recognized that the pursuit of such a fascination with the intention to possess that which fascinates is finally and completely self-destructive. Aschenbach is willing to throw himself on the funeral pyre of beauty; Tonio decides that such an act would finally be not a fulfillment but a betrayal of his art and of his life. He decides that the deepest impulse of an artist is not to selfdestruct in the name of beauty, but rather to "weave spells to redeem" other human beings. He withdraws from his "deepest and secretest love" (the blond, blue-eyed figures) in order to fulfill a more inclusive duty to other human beings through his art and his life, but he never loses the inspiration that such a secret love brings him. He is inspired by such a love; Aschenbach is devoured by it. As we read in Lukacs, the two stories have a single problem: "the life of the artist himself . . . Of the import of his hero (Mann) says in Death in Venice: 'Gustav Aschenbach was the poet spokesman of all th

Category: Literature - D