How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Yet it cannot be said he was suffering: he was drunk in both head and heart, and his steps followed the dictates of the demon whose delight it is to trample human reason and dignity underfoot. (5.7)
We might wonder why Aschenbach does all the stuff he does. Maybe he's just losing his mind? Well, Death in Venice doesn't give a clear answer to that one, but the story does give us a lot of passages, like this one, that delight in keeping things ambiguous. As he dances according to the "dictates of the demon," we're left to wonder just what motivates him—insanity, despair, or just plain ol' lust.
Quote #8
Thus the addled traveler could no longer think or care about anything but pursuing unrelentingly the object that had so inflamed him, dreaming of him in his absence, and, as is the lover's wont, speaking tender words to his mere shadow. Loneliness, the foreign environment, and the joy of a belated and profound exhilaration prompted him, persuaded him to indulge without shame or remorse in the most distasteful behavior, as when returning from Venice late one evening he had paused at the beautiful boy's door on the second floor of the hotel and pressed his forehead against the hinge in drunken rapture, unable to tear himself away even at the risk of being discovered and caught. (5.10)
Ah, love. And lust. This is another example of the way the narrator portrays, in little descriptive vignettes, Aschenbach's total infatuation with Tadzio. The important moment here is the transition from Aschenbach's secret observations of Tadzio at play to his increasingly bold moves to keep tabs on the boy's every move, "even at the risk of being discovered and caught."
Quote #9
A life of self-domination, of "despites," a grim, dogged, abstemious life he had shaped into the emblem of a frail heroism for the times—might he not call it manly, might he not call it brave? Besides, he had the feeling that the eros which had taken possession of him was in a way singularly appropriate and suited to such a life. Had it not been held in particular esteem amongst the bravest of nations? Indeed, was it not said to have flourished in their cities as a consequence of bravery? Countless warrior heroes in older times had willingly borne its yoke, for no action imposed by a god could be deemed humiliating, and actions that might otherwise have been condemned as signs of cowardice—genuflections, oaths, importunate supplications, and servile behavior—such actions were accounted no shame to a lover but rather earned him praise. (5.11)
We just can't talk about lust in Death in Venice without mentioning the particular form it takes in the novella—that of an older man for a young boy. As we discuss in "Symbols," relationships between men and boys, called pederasty, was culturally acceptable and even prized in ancient Greece. In part, Aschenbach's lust for Tadzio is projected onto that ancient screen. It's also another example of the way Aschenbach's lust looks for different, imaginary, or past worlds in which to live out its fantasies.