Chapter Four

Summary

Aschenbach spends hours each day watching Tadzio. They begin to lock eyes every so often. On a chance encounter Aschenbach can not hide his ‘joy’, this does not go unmissed and Tadzio smiles at him.

Character

Aschenbach- obsessive. ‘Intoxicated’ with love. Describes Tadzio to be ‘more beautiful than words can express’. Aschenbach seems to be loosing his rigidness, he occasionally mutters to himself, something he would never have done before he met Tadzio.

Tadzio- deliberately walks past Aschenbach in the mornings. Aschenbach constantly describes him as being pale, and yet this seems to attract him even more.

Themes & Motifs

Religious imagery- particularly words such as ‘god-like’ ‘divinity’ ‘power’ ‘heaven’
Beauty- ‘eternal beauty’, ‘only beauty is at one and the same time divinely desirable and visible’.
Discipline.
Weak vs. strong
Emotions
Death- ‘ghostly twilight’, ‘dying star’
Love- ‘I love you’
Sensuality
Flowers
Colours- crimson, vermillion, violet, golden, colourful
Light and darkness
Escape.

Personal response

It is clear just how obsessive Aschenbach has become. He ‘judges his day to be over’ when Tadzio goes to bed at nine o’clock. The descriptions and the imagery have become more vivid and enriched with colour and vibrancy. In comparison to earlier chapters this seems more real. The descriptions have more life and I am left feeling more involved.