One night, Aschenbach dreams of “the stranger-god” surrounded by a crowd of dancing, howling, torch-bearing humans dressed in animal skins while worshiping the god. His infatuation, which never leads to physical intimacy, causes him to follow the boy’s every move, and this pursuit has an effect on Aschenbach’s art–his previous writer’s block disappears and he is able to write freely once again. Despite discovering that there has been an outbreak of cholera, Aschenbach makes only a half-hearted attempt to leave the city before deciding to stay in Venice and continue devoting his time to watching Tadzio. Over time he becomes more and more enamored of the young man, eventually abandoning all discipline and reason in the face of his infatuation. It is here that he encounters a beautiful Polish boy named Tadzio. Aschenbach’s journey takes him to Venice, where, after a ride with a rogue gondolier, he checks into his hotel. This vision causes Aschenbach to temporarily forgo his tightly scheduled life, and he decides to travel south. While walking by a cemetery to the north of Munich, he sees a strange man and has a vision of a jungle. Aschenbach writes under a very strict schedule, working every morning for a set amount of time, but he has recently been troubled by a lack of creativity. The protagonist of Death in Venice is the reputable, fifty-three-year-old writer Gustav Aschenbach, a member of the upper-middle class. This semiautobiographical short story about a writer’s trip to the city of Venice, which uses symbolism and employs Mann’s meticulously written prose, also presents themes relating to modernity.

Death in Venice is Thomas Mann’s most famous and widely read literary work.

Death in venice by thomas mann