Aschenbach: In love with Tadzio or Venice? Thomas Mann's Death in Venice presents an artist with a fascination with beauty that overwhelms all his senses. Aschenbach's attraction to Tadzio can be seen as a symbol of his love for the city of Venice. The city, however, is also full of corruption, and it is this corrupting element that kills him. Aschenbach first shows his love for Venice when he feels he has to go to "one of the playgrounds of the gay world in the beautiful south" (6 ). The South, for him, means something new and exciting. He lived a structured life in Germany, full of order and precision. Feels the need to move, to experience new and different aspects of life; for for Aschenbach "there is no doubt that the South will bring him the fulfillment of his desire for self-liberation" (Jonas 35). Upon his arrival, Aschenbach "immediately drinks in the fabulous beauty" of the city. He notices a clear difference between this foreign land and his homeland, for Venice is full of antiquity and classical beauty. Aschenbach's love for the city is already evident... halfway through the paper... he is fascinated by it. He is so fascinated by it that he doesn't realize the problems of the Italian city. Whether Mann is actually attacking Venice or Italy for the corruption of its beauty is a possibility, but it is not very important here. What's more important is to realize that Mann is talking about an infatuation with beauty in general, not an infatuation with a boy. Aschenbach doesn't die for Tadzio, he dies for what that boy represents. The novella is called that for a reason; it is a Death in Venice, or rather a “Death due to Venice”.".