How does the narrator of Thomas Mann’s ‘Death in Venice’ relate to music?
Take all the scenes where he hears music (either imagined or real) and analyse the passage in depth. Explain the significance of music in relationship to the narrator’s ‘alienation’. In ‘Death in Venice’ music, being related to passion, is actually the enemy of Aschenbach who is an advocate of self-control. However, he gets involved in music and can consequently amid his homosexual feelings towards Tadzio eventually leading to his fall. It follows an analysis of passages where Aschenbach hears music to show his emotional state of mind. After Aschenbach remarks that he is on the gondola with a rower who does not “turn round” (p.933) to bring him to San Marco from where he wanted to use “the vaporetto” (p.933) to get to the Lido, “a boat c[o]me[s] alongside […], full of men and women singing to guitar and mandolin” (p.933). With their “lyric love of gain” (p.933) they fill the silence between the rower and Aschenbach, but after the latter has given them money the “music stop[s] at once
