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 to frightful emotional excesses, which his own stern cult of the beautiful would make him the first to condemns So they too, they too, lead to the bottomless pit" (Mann 72-73).
This horrific nightmare into which the self-destructing Aschenbach descends to his death stands in powerful contrast to the conclusion to which Tonio comes and which sets him free from the trap of cold beauty into which Aschenbach fell. This is not to say that Tonio turns his back on ...