Nirmal Gurung
This study analyzes Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice as a critique of bourgeois ideological structures at the moment of their historical decline. The study argues that the disintegration which defines Aschenbach’s life is not merely personal or psychological but is materially produced by the contradictions of late bourgeois society and the ideological exhaustion of its cultural forms. Most interpretations of the novella have seen Aschenbach’s personal obsession, the conflict between Apollonian discipline and Dionysian desire, or the aesthetic pursuit of beauty.
