Character Clues
Character Analysis
Clothing
Clothing is one of the most important ways Death in Venice portrays characters. What people wear is not the same thing as how they look; clothing can send a different message than physical appearance alone. Think about Aschenbach's transformation in Chapter 5, when he visits a barber to get his hair died and his face made-up, and then starts changing his attire to seem younger and more appealing. Check it out:
Like any lover, he wished to please and dreaded the thought that it might be impossible. He added cheery, youthful touches to his wardrobe, wore jewels, and used scent; he spent long hours several times a day at his toilet, coming to table bedizened, excited, and tense. Gazing at the sweet youth who had won his heart he was sickened by his aging body: the sight of his gray hair, his pinched features filled him with shame and despair. He felt an urge to revitalize himself, restore himself physically, and patronized the hotel barber with increasing frequency. (5.39)
This passage reveals an important tension: Clothing decorates, but it doesn't help Aschenbach forget about his "aging body." This also reminds us of the guy Aschenbach sees on the boat to Venice (see 3.10-12), whom Aschenbach discovers (to his horror) to be an old man trying to disguise himself as young. Ironically, Aschenbach has become him, as his love for Tadzio merges with an obsessive desire to be young forever.
Physical Appearances
Need we say more than Tadzio? As a character, Tadzio is basically equivalent to his physical appearance. His presence in the novella is totally determined by how he appears to Aschenbach—like a work of art. Check out the way the narrator first introduces Tadzio:
Aschenbach noted with astonishment that the boy was of a consummate beauty: his face—pale and charmingly reticent, ringed by honey-colored hair, with a straight nose, lovely mouth, and an expression of gravity sweet and divine—recalled Greek statuary of the noblest period, yet its purest formal perfection notwithstanding it conveyed a unique personal charm such that whoever might gaze upon it would believe he had never beheld anything so accomplished, be it in nature or in art. (3.40)
In Aschenbach's eyes, Tadzio is a vision of "formal perfection," a kind of beauty unattainable to the artist. His beauty is ideal. Now, compare that to the strange "others" Aschenbach encounters in the novella—the guy in the graveyard, the old man on the boat who tries to look young, the southern minstrel. Their unappealing physical appearances seem to give expression to everything that is lustful and corrupt, in opposition to Tadzio, who otherwise seems innocent. For more on this, though, check out the "Characters" section.
Names
Here, too, Tadzio is the name of the game. Before Aschenbach figures out the young boy's name, he hears everyone calling out to him on the beach:
Aschenbach listened to it with a certain curiosity, but could make out nothing more than two melodic syllables: "Adgio" or, more often, "Adgiu," with a final u they lengthened as they called. (3.56)
Well, that's already interesting for one reason—"Adgiu" sounds an awful lot like the French word adieu, which means farewell. The word dieu is also the French word for God. So Tadzio's name recalls his godly beauty but also its fleeting quality, as well as Aschenbach's own, final farewell—a.k.a. his death.
But there's more: When Aschenbach later dreams about the stranger god in Chapter 5, the orgiastic revelers chant "a long-drawn-out u" (5.37), also recalling Tadzio's name. So the idea that Tadzio's name is also a name for a god comes full circle.
Finally, let's think about Aschenbach. His last name literally means "ash creek" in German, which recalls both death ("ashes to ashes") and the canals of Venice. "Death" and "Venice." Get it?
Personification
As a general idea, Venice seems like a pretty swell place—but in Death in Venice, not so much. In fact, in some descriptions, it sounds like Venice—like Aschenbach at the novella's end—is old and diseased, even as it desperately tries to remain appealing to its visitors. Check out this passage:
Such was Venice, the wheedling, shady beauty, a city half fairy tale, half tourist trap, in whose foul air the arts had once flourished luxuriantly and which had inspired musicians with undulating, lullingly licentious harmonies. The adventurer felt his eyes drinking in its voluptuousness, his ears being wooed by its melodies; he recalled, too, that the city was diseased and as concealing it out of cupidity, and the look with which he peered out after the gondola floating ahead of him grew more wanton. (5.9)
This passage is a great example of personification. Venice is described here in terms that make it seem like a person—a "wheeling, shady beauty," "concealing" its disease "out of cupidity." Venice is portrayed as trying and failing to hold onto its glorious past. Just like the old artistic ideals this story takes to task, and just like old Aschenbach himself.