The close reading of Thomas Mann’s novel “Death in Venice” leaves no doubt as fact that one of novel’s unannounced topics is decadence. Nowadays, the term of decadence is being rarely utilized, when it comes to explaining what defines an extent of a particular individual’s mental inadequacy. However, this does not mean that the notion of decadence had ceased to represent a conceptual significance – as Mann’s novel implies, it is only the matter of time for an individual who decides to embrace the ways of decadence to begin posing a threat to society’s well-being. In this paper, I will aim to substantiate the validity of this thesis even to a further extent.
As it appears from the novel, before deciding to take a trip to Venice, novel’s main character Gustav Aschenbach used to profess essentially Nordic (Apollonian) values of self-restraint, intellectual exaltation, discipline and existential idealism. According to author, Aschenbach was: “Too much occupied with the duties imposed by his ego and the European soul, too overburdened with the duty of production, too little interested in distracting himself to be a faithful lover of that gay outside world” (4). However, Aschenbach felt as if something important was missing in his life. Apparently, despite Aschenbach’s advanced age, his strongly defined sense of idealism never ceased affecting his attitudes towards surrounding reality. Even though Aschenbach was able to gain social prominence as an accomplished writer, he continued to think of his life’s purpose as such that has not been realized yet. In its turn, this prompted novel’s main character to embark upon the trip to a foreign land as the ultimate mean of expanding his intellectual horizons, with Venice becoming the choice for trip’s destination, due to this city’s geographic proximity: “What he was looking for was the unfamiliar and unrelated, which was indeed reached rather easily” (11). It is in the nature of idealistic individuals to seek unfamiliar, as it helps them too boost up their existential sovereignty, simply because physical emanations of unfamiliarity can be turned into a trophy.
Nevertheless, upon his arrival to Venice, Aschenbach came to realize that there was nothing for him to do there – just as today’s Western tourists, who often refuse to share hotels with Russian tourists, due to these people’s barbarian-mindedness, Aschenbach could not quite relate to what he perceived as the intellectual shallowness and utter materialism, on the part of native Venetians. This was exactly the reason why, instead to acting as conventional tourists do, Aschenbach preferred to spend time alone. And, as psychologists are well aware of – it is only the matter of time for an individual, who had been deprived of socialization with others for prolonged period, to turn behaviorally inadequate: “Solitude favors the original, the daringly and otherworldly beautiful, the poem. But it also favors the wrongful, the extreme, the absurd, and the forbidden” (18). After having met Tadzio, Aschenbach became inspired, in artistic sense of this word, due to young boy’s physical perfection. Yet, he could not stop from continuing to explore the innermost depths of such his inspiration, which in its turn had led Aschenbach to fall in love with Polish boy.
What happened is that, after having allowed its sensual urges to take over his rational mind, Aschenbach had ceased to be affiliated with Western civilization as such that is built upon the conceptual premise rationalistic necessity, rather than upon the premise of sensual lawlessness. In its turn, this endowed novel’s main character with an acute sense of guilt: “In view of that sweet youth that infatuated him his worn-out body disgusted him, his gray hair, the sharp features of his face caused him to feel shame and despair” (49). Yet, for someone who had stepped over the boundaries of perceptional naturalness, there can be no return back.
White people who had betrayed their own biological essence as beings driven by rationale, cannot resort to rationale as the instrument of dealing with psychological anxieties, caused by such a betrayal. As Friedrich Nietzsche once said – if you gaze into abyss for too long, the abyss begins to gaze back at you. This is exactly the reason why, after Aschenbach realized that he had committed a transgression against the laws of nature, he could not tackle his sense of shame in any other way than by savoring this shame with even more passion, while eventually turning himself into a clown: “(Aschenbach) saw in the mirror how his eyebrows arched upwards more elegantly, how his eyes looked larger and more shiny thanks to some makeup, saw his cheeks take on a rosy color, also his lips that had been pale were reddened” (50). The fact that self-proclaimed sophisticates appear particularly jovial and intellectually liberated has nothing to do with them being actually happy with whom they are – their external cheerfulness is nothing but the integral part of psychological defense mechanism, utilized by these people in order alleviate the feeling of existential inadequateness, on their part. In a similar manner, people who had suddenly lost their jobs and money go about addressing their grief – they strive to convince themselves and others that they actually like being poor and miserable more than being rich and happy.
Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that “Death in Venice” contains clues as to what account for the initial stages of otherwise normal individuals embracing the ways of decadence. Apparently, it all begins when they start assessing their animalistic (Dionysian) urges through the lenses of philosophy or art, despite the fact that these urges are best assessed through the lenses of psychiatry. And, it is namely the bellyful idleness, on the part of these sophisticates, which represents foremost precondition for them to begin experiencing an unhealthy curiosity in regards to different emanations of depravity.
As it appears from the novel, it was only the matter of time for Aschenbach to turn psycho, while in Venice – he was White, he was alone, he was an intellectual, and he had plenty of free time on his hands: “Another sunny day full of joyful idleness and ornate with countless occasions for happy accidents in close proximity” (30). It is not a pure coincidence that, according to statistics, serial killers consist overwhelmingly of middle-aged White males – once intellectually advanced Whites suppress rationality within themselves; they begin to act as the agents of destruction and death. As the best-case scenario – they begin to act as promoters of degenerative socio-political doctrines and art.
Therefore, Aschenbach’s rapid transition from an accomplished writer to child-molester-in-making was dialectically predetermined – apparently, he gazed into the abyss of depravity for little too long, which triggered irreversible processes within his psyche. In its turn, this explains how Aschenbach was able to deal the disgust towards his own behavioral abnormality – he allowed his inborn fear of unnaturalness to be suppressed by his sense of curiosity: “Fear was the beginning, fear and lust and a horrified curiosity of what would be coming” (48). Slowly but surely, Aschenbach was turning into a female, in psychological sense of this word, without even realizing it, because it is namely women who become conscious of their individuality by exploring sensual properties of their psyche. Whereas; men attain emotional satisfaction by indulging in activities associated with the notion of intellectual exaltation, women approach the same task from metaphysically opposite perspective – they assess the objective value of their cognitive experiences by the extent of these experiences’ sheer intensity.
The fact that Aschenbach had given in to his irrational sensuality, caused him to act as female: “He added little embellishments to his suits to make them look more youthful, he wore jewelry and used perfume, multiple times a day he required a lot of time for his toilette” (49). Yet, despite his presumed intellectualism, it never occurred to Aschenbach that men do not explore their existential uniqueness by emphasizing the particulars of their physical appearance. This is exactly what constitutes Mann novel’s tragic overtones – once a particular individual decides to adopt the ways of an opposite gender, he or she declares its willingness to defy its biologically predetermined social role. In other words, such individual begins to act as the agent of energetic entropy within a society. And, as we are all aware of, it is namely something utterly unnatural, which people perceive as truly horrible. After all, the images of corpses do not horrify us as much as hypothetical probability for chairs to walk, walking sticks to bloom and animals to talk. It was not the fact that Aschenbach felt a platonic love towards Tadzio, which resulted in his ultimate demise, but the fact this feeling had caused novel’s main character to cease assessing surrounding reality in terms of rationale – thus, turning him into a slave of his deep-seated sensual urges.
As of today, the promoters of political correctness in Western countries have largely succeeded in convincing these countries’ citizens that they should feel shame on the account of their genetically predetermined ability to address life’s challenges in terms of logic, because such their ability is assumed being yet another proof as to their euro-centric evilness. The feminization of Western societies have reached such an extent that the enforcers of tolerance often go as far as taking toy-handguns away from boys in elementary schools and telling them to play with dolls instead. Yet, there can be no redemption for one’s sin of violating the laws of nature. The price for people’s perceptional ignorance has always been the same – degradation, destruction and death. We can use a variety of different euphemisms to make the term decadence sounding more pleasing to one’s ears, but it will not change the fact that, instead of being allowed to expose others to their behavioral abnormality, decadents should be encouraged to seek a professional psychiatric help – this will benefit both: themselves and the society to which they belong. One would only need to read “Death in Venice” to realize the full validity of this suggestion, which correlates with paper’s initial thesis perfectly well.
Bibliography
Mann, Thomas “Death in Venice”. 2005. Free.ProHosting.Com. 2 Mar. Web.