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Gary B. Wack
Dr. Klara Lutsky
GENG 635
March 9, 2011
Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, Exilic Schism and the Mysterium Coniunctionis
Harold Bloom once referred to Thomas Manns Death in Venice as a blend of
myth and psychology with an artist (Aschenbach) caught inside a spiritual crisis (15).
He goes on to suggest that this spiritual crisis is the effect of a torn psyche, or a
struggle between the rational and emotional (18). Sigmund Freuds term for this would
be the Dynamics of Repression where ones hidden desires permeate beneath the
surface of the conscious self inside the unconscious, only to bubble back to the surface
piercing the conscious self and manifesting inside the psyche as a primal force realized
(581). Beyond Freud, there is an even deeper, more pervasive, influence hidden within
Thomas Manns Death in Venice. This deeper influence exists within the exilic schism of
the character Aschenbach as he struggles within his self-imposed lack of personal
freedom, which manifests itself inside his psyche in the form of an alchemical union of
opposites. This alchemical union of opposites is the Jungian concept of the Mysterium
Coniunctionis.
Carl Jung describes the Mysterium Coniunctionis initially as a blend of physical
elements vastly different until joined inside a matrimony of vibrant collision creating a
new form of nature (287). This union of nature begins in the physical sense as a
combination of elements brought together to create a chemical reaction that fuses and
mutates into a new form of being. Jung describes this new form of being as a psychic

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affair involving a self-knowledge brought about by a psychic synthesis of unrelated
stimuli, which in turn enters a chemical process within the unconscious that forms
together to create the end product of the natural vessel or human matrix (290).
Thomas Manns Death in Venice incorporates the Mysterium Coniunctionis
readily through the connection of two unlike characters, that of the aging Aschenbach and
the young Tadzio. Within the story, Death in Venice, one can see three expanding levels
of the Mysterium Coniunctionis. The first level is the physical or corporeal, the next is
the conscious or psychological, and the final is the unconscious or the spiritual. JeanPaul Sartre also alludes to the three dimensions of consciousness as the three ecstatic
dimensions (Being and Nothingness 221). This is to say, Sartres transcendence of the
character embodies a reflection, or self-reflection that brings about a unity of being
despite the lack of freedom one might hold over ones own destiny. In sum, one can
apply and see similarities between the Jungian Mysterium Coniunctionis and the exile of
the self from all three levels. The connection between the union of opposites that
comprise the Mysterium Coniunctionis and the Sartre design of human self-discovery
eschews a clear path toward owning ones destiny in the form of pleasure and pain. Even
Fredrich Nietzsche suggests that the union of opposites is a necessary movement toward
what he calls the higher nature of humankind, where two opposing values coalesce and
drive the antagonism of the human condition in order for progress and evolution to take
form (On the Genealogy 24). In continuance of the main idea, Thomas Manns Death in
Venice procreates this idea within the union of opposites quite well as embodied within
the Mysterium Coniunctionis.

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Within the physical or corporeal level of the Mysterium Coniunctionis we can see
the physical or concrete placement of Aschenbach within his exile from his place of
residency. This is to say; Aschenbach is discontent within his physical place of being
which drives him from Munich to Venice early in the story. His unrest within the
physical being can be seen early in the story. He had sought but not found relaxation in
sleep though the wear and tear upon his system had come to make a daily nap more and
more imperative and now undertook a walk, in the hope that air and exercise might send
him back refreshed to a good evenings work (Mann 3). Although his unrest seems
cerebral, his physical discontent within his lack of sleep initiates what will become his
exodus from the physical surroundings of Munich into the unfamiliar, refreshing, and
invigorating territory of Venice.
Additional physical aspects of the Mysterium Coniunctionis that touch the
character of Aschenbach are the union of opposites between health and sickness as well
as space and time. Health and sickness are the contrast of Aschenbachs existence within
the story that further exacerbates his plight for self-knowledge and illumination. Within
the story, the opposite view of health and sickness seem to transpose themselves upon
Aschenbach as well as the story line and his surroundings. Aschenbach states within the
story, that travel is a necessary evil, to be endured now and again willy-nilly for the sake
of ones health (Mann 6). Oddly enough, it would be his travel to Venice that would be
his eventual undoing with regard to his health. He goes on to say that he yearns to flee
his surroundings to distant scenes where he can obtain this release from the daily grind
and enter the passion of impulse (Mann 6). This passion of impulse is the unraveling of

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his physical scenery and unveiling of his enlightenment gorging his mind within a new
artistic self-knowledge.
The physical sense of space and time enter the storyline within the union of
opposites, that of youth and aging. Aschenbach reminisces within the story of his writing
and his youth, indeed, the nature and inmost essence of the literary gift had been, to him,
this very scrupulosity; for it he had bridled and tempered his sensibilities, knowing full
well that feeling is prone to be content with easy gains and blithe half-perfections (Mann
7). Aschenbach explains this further, So now, perhaps, feeling, thus tyrannized, avenged
itself by leaving him, refusing from now on to carry and wing his art and taking away
with it all the ecstasy he had known in form and expression (Mann 7). Later in the story,
when he meets the boy Tadzio, we see these lines by Aschenbach as what may have been
the prelude to his yearning for younger days, younger age, and an ecstasy foraged
through a joining of the young with the old both physically and figuratively. It isnt by
accident that Aschenbach mentions, A son he never had preceding the introduction of
the young boy of his desires, Tadzio. Ellis Shookman describes this desire to join with
the young boy Tadzio as an unconscious impulse overwhelming the conscious ego (53).
Shookman goes on to say that Mann and Aschenbach are akin in the unconscious
homosexual desire they both share for that which is forbidden to them (32). More
precisely, Shookman writes, the novella of Death in Venice is the genuine product of the
unconscious laden with images and symbols of both the yearning for a return to youth
and the ever increasing falling away of that youth and innocence (51). The unconscious
opposite within the scope of space and time is perhaps the most evasive as only

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Aschenbach can languish inside his unconscious torment for what he desires of and for
the embodiment of Tadzio.
Another example of the physical Mysterium Coniunctionis level of space and
time is Aschenbachs luggage. His luggage symbolizes a physical manifestation of his
unrest within his place of being. Two times within the story, his luggage is misplaced and
he is forced to remain within the city of Venice. Within both episodes, his sensual and
spiritual satisfaction for being near Tadzio becomes a reflection of his eventual demise.
His luggage is a physical manifestation of his will to remain, although seemingly
unplanned, it is welcomed and accepted as fate for what was meant to be (Mann 38). It
is no accident that his conundrum for remaining lay in his lost luggage, for it is always
baggage that holds one back from the pursuit of happiness and escape from the repeat of
failure. It seems that even the luggage is forewarning Aschenbach of his eventual
demise. Hannelore Mundt motions the idea that like the luggage, his journey rests upon a
critical quagmire, that of a force that is destined to destroy him as he succumbs to his
emotions signified by the return of the baggage that he manages to lose (97). This is to
say, Aschenbachs baggage is his own emotional baggage and the fact that he could not
entirely lose his baggage is symbolic of his eventual demise.
In yet another example of the physical Mysterium Coniunctionis essence of space
and time, we see Aschenbach realizing both the audacity and allure of his own old age
coupled with that of the young Tadzio. This union of opposites and parallax of ideas
between Aschenbach and Tadzios age are seen throughout the story, but more
noteworthy as separate entities littered throughout to add to the repellent and contraction
of physical appearances as well as the question of propriety. Aschenbachs appearance is

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described in one passage as merging on the grotesque, while in another passage, Tadzio is
adorned for his utter beauty (Mann 19). This state of affairs for Aschenbach brings him
to a consciousness that deliberates both with his sensual and platonic views of Tadzio
thereby precluding any resistance he may have had to repel the temptation of pursuit for
Tadzio. Further enhancing the idea of Aschenbachs wish to merge with Tadzio can be
seen in his repeated visits to the barber and the application of makeup masking his middle
aged face, in effect, trying to emulate the Tadzio he can never behold. Within this
psychological twist of fate, we now enter the second level of the Mysterium
Coniunctionis.
The second level of the Mysterium Coniunctionis is that of the conscious or
psychological. Within this level, we first see his break with reality on the arrival and
appearance of the red-haired man within the story. Early in the story, a red-haired man
startles Aschenbach and evokes a consciousness and psychological whirlwind of
description and intimidation. Aschenbach describes the red-haired man as distinctly
exotic, grimacing in visage and a psychical influence that came to play (Mann 5). The
red-haired man he calls a pilgrim, a stranger that stokes his fantasy widening his
barriers and causing unrest and invokes within him a sense of longing for a youthful
scene (Mann 5). The red-haired man may represent to Aschenbach, what he least desires
within himself. This is to say, Aschenbach may see the unattractive physical and psychic
elements of the red-haired man as akin to himself and wishes to put distance between
himself and the stranger that taunts him further beckoning his exile from the old place to
the new or old self to the new.

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In addition to the psychic union of opposites of the red-haired man, we also see
the psychological clashing of desires Aschenbach feels for the young boy Tadzio.
Aschenbach is both titillated and repulsed by his feelings for the young Tadzio. In
solitude, Aschenbach is miserable, but the solitude spurs the longing for what is not
acceptable, tolerable or decent. He further mentions that, Solitude gives birth to the
original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous to poetry (Mann 24). But within this
poetry, there lay something dark and pervasive, something unmentionable, and something
psychically absurd. Aschenbach ends his vision of poetic inspiration by saying, But
also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd (Mann 24).
Within Aschenbachs musing over poetic insight, he precipitates his vises and precludes
any ability to escape the yearning impulses as art or poetry does indeed imitate life within
his erotic dream. Aschenbachs own soul tears asunder as his visions escalate inside a
release of his silent repression. Even Venices death grip upon him and the danger of
disease filter through his dreams, too familiar smell of wounds, uncleanness, and
disease surrounded him (Mann 66). Further down the passage of his dreamlike state, he
is enthralled by the godhead with a whirling lust craving all his soul to join the ring
that form about the obscene symbol of that godhead (Mann 66). Within the everswelling dream, he seems to move about the godhead as if it were indeed the young
beautiful God Tadzio for whom he adored. In the Mysterium Coniunctionis union of
opposites, his dream turns toward embodying and impersonating the godhead, as if
entering the body of Tadzio the former godhead to receive his due share of
promiscuous embraces tasting his eventual bestial degradation and fall (Mann 67).
Hannelore Mundt further mentions that Aschenbach is the embodiment of tragedy as he

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succumbs to his emotions and loses his equilibrium of sensuality and morality within
his lurid dream vision to eclipse the man he was and replace him with a mere pathetic
voyeur solitary man destined for a pointless death (96).
Toward the end of his exotic and erotic dream, he becomes the godhead as the
stranger god was his own (Mann 67). This movement of Aschenbach to impersonate
and envelope the godhead is his unconscious springing forth to swallow the former
godhead Tadzio and assume Tadzios place as the embodiment of youth and virility.
Moreover, art and poetry are empowered by the young beauty that Tadzio represents. Is
this psychic interlude between the aging Aschenbach and the youthful Tadzio platonic?
His descriptions of Tadzios godlike serenity while comparing him to perfection seem
to illustrate that it is platonic (Mann 25). It is not until we see the interlaced words of
phallic gestures that we begin to imagine a more sexual allure and fascination. One
example is the truth that becomes apparent within Aschenbachs heart as he imagines
speaking to Tadzio. After a brief silence within his own mind, a rush of red and flush of
feeling enter his body as if a sexual encounter. He felt the rapture of his blood, the
poignant pleasure, and realized that it was for Tadzios sake the leavetaking had been so
hard (Mann 39). Within this conscious psychic connection that Aschenbach believed he
had with Tadzio, there continues a relationship that is a continual attraction and repulsion,
push and pull up until the very end. This union of opposites is more than mere strata of
misinterpreted and misunderstood psychic vibes; it is sensual love/hate wanderlust of
aggression and submission to a model struggle for redemption and serenity. This leads to
the last Mysterium Coniunctionis, the unconscious and spiritual level.

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Within the unconscious and spiritual level of the Mysterium Coniunctionis or
union of opposites, one can readily see the rise of one God and the fall of another. Joseph
Campbell refers to this union of opposites as the transference of one hero with that of
another in an alchemical transmutation of characteristics that forge and bridge the gap
between paradise and the fall (308). This is to say, the rise of one hero and the fall of
another. Joseph Campbell goes on to refer to Thomas Manns usage therein as the door
of the concidence of opposites or the transmutation of the earthly self into that of the
spiritual self coupled with passion, sorrow, violence, and love (308). More to the point,
the two heroes of Aschenbach and Tadzio represent two sides of a rift, that of the polarity
of experience and that of the imbalance of temporal time. Furthermore, these two heroes
embody what one has and the other lacks. This is to say, Aschenbach envisions himself
the failing hero, Fredrick, who falls in the wake of his affliction for the pain and
inspiration of his passion (Mann 10). He thought of himself as, The new type of hero,
one who was, The conception of an intellectual and virginal manliness for whom
clenched the teeth and pierced the side of any demon in defiance of defeat (Mann 11). It
was, as he said, spirituel and wrought with danger and passivity, beauty and torture, for
the most beautiful symbol he mentions is the art as a whole (Mann 11). This is to
say, Aschenbach envisioned himself as the aged and experienced hero who would climb
the slope of self-knowledge, knowing he would fall from grace in the end. He very well
knew his heroic deed of staying in Venice would and could perhaps cause him to fall prey
to the choleric sickness and die as so many others had, but he stayed to pursue that
coupling with the other hero both physically and spiritually. As such, in the opposite pole
of heroic imagining, Aschenbach saw Tadzio as his alter ego and his eventual demise.

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Hegel describes this end and eventual demise as the essence of pure consciousness and
the end of a long suffering from the antithesis between purpose and its reality toward
an ethical substance marked by the final state of pure consciousness (253). This is to
say, the effect of the coupling of Aschenbach and Tadzio, both physical and spiritual,
brought about a sense of pure consciousness for Aschenbach just before his final
demise. As if the hero descending into the depths of Hades, so did Aschenbach take the
boat guided by a mysterious gondolier propelling him further into the depths of a passion
for Tadzio that he could not resist (Mann 22). Bloom refers to Aschenbachs guide and
gondolier as the prelude to a danger mooring the lines of what might resemble a floating
coffin (15).
Jung mentions this journey of the hero by a guide as the psychic link between the
body and spirit (290). One can almost imagine Aschenbachs demise even before he
succumbs to the sickness. While Aschenbach sullied his imagination with his own aging
body, he also saw the frail body of Tadzio as beautiful, but flawed. Aschenbach refers to
Tadzios appearance as imperfect, teeth bluish similar to that of chlorotic people. He
goes on to say, He will most likely not live to grow old (Mann 34). Furthermore, He
did not try to account for the pleasure the idea gave him (Mann 34). In essence, the
thought of Aschenbachs young hero Tadzio outliving him was too much for him to bear.
In the very end, it seems he may have gotten what he asked for through the burned image
of Tadzio on the inside of his closing eyelids as Tadzio pierced the waves of the sea in
entering it (Mann 73). Tadzio may have resembled a young hero reentering the womb of
creation as the waves lapped and drew his body further away into the solace of minds
primal genesis, while the old hero Aschenbach lay back and died as a hero of no return.

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Bettina Knapp brings summation to a long-lived and familiar archetype, that
which she calls, the transformative archetype (14). She goes on to say that inside the
psyche there exists a structure, that of the union of opposites that attract and repel each
other for the sake of reestablishing a balance (15). The Mysterium Coniunctionis
embodies this union of opposites with the addition of expansion of the hero archetype,
clawing at the walls of the unconscious, penetrating the primordial and birthing through
the canal of the physical or corporeal, the conscious or psychological and the unconscious
or spiritual. Sartre mentions this particular fulfillment and rebalance of the self and soul
as the point where man will fulfill himself, not in turning toward himself, but in seeking
outside of himself, a goal that is liberation (Existentialism 51). This liberation exists
through examination of the inner and outer self, the native bound and the exiled
(Existentialism 51).
Richard Sugg goes even further by suggesting that Mann turns a mythological
theme into an inwardly guided passage between opposites to the representation of the
psychological metamorphosis of an artist coming to an end, a final visit to a land of no
return (77). Sugg regards Mann as the creator of what lies within and without. The
key, he suggests, is the progression that lies in the stress of the inward journey (78).
Moreover, The outward occasions represent substantial external contexts of their own
(78). This is to say; one is moved to reassess the self and the soul as being driven toward
a final end. I believe that final end is the joining of the Mysterium Coniunctionis, or
union of opposites, with the human condition, then with the unconscious and finally with
the larger collective unconscious.

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Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. Thomas Mann. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Print.
Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Creative Mythology. New York: Penguin Group,
1991. Print.
Hegel, G. W. F., and A. V. Miller. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2008. Print.
Jung, C. G. The Essential Jung. Ed. Anthony Storr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1983.
Print.
Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz. Exile and the Writer: Exoteric and Esoteric Experiences : A
Jungian Approach. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1991. Print.
Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice, and Seven Other Stories. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. New
York: Vintage, 1989. Print.
Mundt, Hannelore. Understanding Thomas Mann. Columbia, SC: University of South
Carolina, 2004. Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble,
2006. Print.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. New York: Washington Square, 1956. Print.
---. Existentialism and Human Emotions. New York: Citadel, 1987. Print.
Shookman, Ellis. Thomas Mann's Death in Venice: A Novella and Its Critics. Rochester,
NY: Camden House, 2003. Print.
Sugg, Richard P. Jungian Literary Criticism. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1993.
Print.