Death in Venice is about artistic failure, death, and the inability to find love or human connection. As the title tells us at the outset, there is no happy ending to this kind of story. Nonetheless, this failure comes about because of certain cultural tensions that cannot be resolved by or for Aschenbach.
(a) What are some of the cultural tensions?
(b) What makes them peculiar to modernity?
(c) Is it significant that the story is set in Venice?
(d) Is it significant that Aschenbach, like Thomas Mann, is a writer?