Appeal to Aesthetics in Death in Venice Essay

Using descriptive diction such as “eerie” and “swamp” readers can imagine an unpleasant city rustling with filth and crime. Larson exposes that Chicago had “auras of mosquitoes” in its midst. Readers automatically see Chicago as a filthy and troublesome town when they associate it with mosquitoes. This view of Chicago created by Larson further achieves his purpose to show the downside of Chicago during the time the World Fair was being constructed and attended. When the World Fair was finished, Larson described the nights, “the lamps that laced every building and walkway produced the most elaborate demonstration of electric illumination ever attempted” (254). Larson says the lamps “laced” the walkways in the white city which allows readers to picture the city in a whimsical way. The feeling of the word “laced” sits with readers in a positive way. Thus, Larson can achieve the purpose of forcing readers to see the white city in a luxurious fashion. Also, Larson mentions that the lighting was “elaborate.” Readers see the white city as a sophisticated and lavish place rather than how they see the black city. Larson again is able to persuade readers into believing the magic of the white city. Larson calls upon imagery to construct the two sides of Chicago.

Illness is never a pretty scene, it can leave a devastating path of destruction. Illness embodies many complex meanings encrypted within a text, and it's rarely just illness. Sickness can show paralysis of a character, the character can be unknowing death, it can show symbolic immortal, or illustrate wholesome destruction. The French Revolution was a battle between the the wealthy and the poverty stricken, and with poverty comes disease. Illness illustrates many pictures, and the physical illness usually ends up a bonus to the story; this can be seen embodied within The Tale of Two Cities.

The author uses raw descriptive words such as “iron,” “tarry,” and “tin,” to display this city as superficial. The city is just made out of these substances that the people have made these buildings out of. These substances all conduct heat and present this madness and anger of the man in the poem. These materials present a manmade structure that displays the city as shallow.

Chapter One of of Jim Murphy’s book, An American Plague, opens with the quote, ‘About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us” (Murphy 1). This quote is accredited to Mathew Carey in November, 1793. The term scourge is defined as, “a person or thing that cause great trouble of suffering,” and the term malignant is defined as, “tending to produce death or deterioration.” These are very strong terms with extremely negative connotative meanings. The figurative language which is evident in the quote at the opening of Chapter One is personification. Carey’s quote give yellow fever an eerie, human-like quality when he writes, “the destroying scourge, the malignant fever, CREPT in among us” (Murphy 1). CArey’s word choices and use of personification help to create a powerful image in the reader’s mind of the threat looming over the city of Philadelphia.\

In the novel The Devil in the White City, Author Erik Larson uses imagery, irony, and juxtaposition to parallel the good and evil sides of the city of Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair. Larson takes a more upbeat, joyous tone while following the story of Burnham and the architects designing the World Fair, but the tone turns much darker when perspectives change and we follow the plot of H.H. Holmes, America’s first known serial killer. Using rhetorical devices like imagery, diction, and syntax, Larson is able to paint a picture of Chicago from both the good and evil side, setting a more serious and ominous tone for the novel.

In “it was a blighted, hellish place full of noise and dust and smoke and inhuman towers that blocked the sun and she hated it—hated especially this gloomy building and the ceaseless clamor of construction” (Larson 123), the black city is described through selective connotation and word choice. Larson creating an unpleasant mood by using such negative and degrading words such as “blighted,” “hellish,” and “inhuman” to describe Chicago, readers can envision a hateful and dull place. By placing “and” in front of the negative words: blighted, hellish, and inhuman and repeating “and” multiple times, the list of unappealing attributes of the city is elongated. Essentially, Chicago is envisioned in a worse way than if the negative adjectives were just listed one after another without the effect that “and” carries, emphasizing the hatred the character held towards

Daniel Ridgway Knight was an odd American artist who loved to paint relaxed French peasants in luscious landscapes. Ironically, he lived during a stressful time when the Industrial Revolution displaced numerous farmers and polluted the environment. He seemed to ignore the harsh truth and shut himself in his imaginary serene world. For instance, In the Premier Chagrin, translated as The First Grief, Knight paints two healthy girls conversing on a stone wall in front of gorgeous fields. At first, it appears as merely a pretty painting that is nicely contrasted to show depth and realism. Yet, with a closer look, this contrast in the colors and lines of the landscape and the figures creates tension to suggest the painter’s conflict between longing for serene freedom and feeling trapped within the stiff society.

Young, beautiful, and doomed; In several, if not all, works of Edgar Allan Poe, there is a not so subtle theme that is found. One of the death and beauty. How is the death of a young woman romanticized within selected works of Edgar Allan Poe? In such works as “Lenore”, “Ulalume”, popular “Annabel Lee”, “The Raven”, and short story “The Oval Painter” ,the “death of a beautiful woman” theme is prevalent and strongly noted within context, word choice, and imagery. In the eyes of Edgar Allan poe, death, especially that of a woman, to be lamented and mourned by a “bereaved lover”, is the most valued tool to have and utilize when writing. In his own life, Poe was able to relate to the subject matter, as many of his heroins are believed to be based upon his wife Virginia, who had died at a young age. Unraveling the methods to how Poe romanticized death of young women in his literature might give insight to not only Poe’s life, but humanity in general..

In the poem, “London” by William Blake and “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg, the speakers in the poem made use of several figurative languages to compliment the style of the poem and also the theme present in both poems. Vampirism is a big theme that presents itself in both poems and both speakers made sure to exploit this general theme. To begin with, the poem “Chicago”, addresses the outlook of Chicago during the period of its development. The speaker of the poem focuses on the things that Chicago is consisted of and in several ways, debunked the misconceptions about Chicago.

Staring from the definition found in the dictionary, the decadence is a literary movement especially of late 19th-century France and England characterized by refined aestheticism, artifice, and the quest for new sensations. [1]

LeGuin’s description of Omelas engages all of one’s senses through her usage of rich visual, auditory and tactile imagery to ‘prove’ to the reader that Omelas is undeniably a utopia. The city of Omelas can be described as a place in which the inhabitants’ senses are constantly overwhelmed by sensations which are pleasing to their eyes, beautiful to their ears and sweet to their tongues. The unchanging state of this society which is surrounded constantly by sensory delight can be found in these descriptions; for instance, the “child of nine or ten [who] sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute […] he never ceases playing” (LeGuin 275). In addition to the wooden flute, LeGuin describes, “a shimmering of gong and tambourine” (LeGuin 273). Following the narrator’s stunning description of everything which makes Omelas a utopia, her statement that the reader may, if he pleases, “add an orgy” in order to make the Omelas less “goody-goody,” makes it apparent that Omelas in many ways does not have to be concrete and limited to the previously provided descriptions. Her aim is not to describe a particular city, although it is named and its characteristics are already expressed, but to present the idea of a perfect city, a utopia in which bliss is fixed, and good fortune is wholly

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is so alike to our financially afflicted world. The rules of law and commerce are subject to deceptive manipulation, fear of "the other" overwhelms respect for a common humanity, duplicity is the norm, sexuality is a vehicle for ambition, and money drives and wraps almost every action. It is a classic tale that includes important details of the financial crisis in the United States during 2007-2009. Shakespeare’s Venice, like the New York of his time - and the financial capitals of ours - is a city based on borrowing, on market speculation and greed masquerading as wealth and sophistication. Behind the curtains of the practice of lending and borrowing money in Shakespeare’s play lay the transition to capitalism: the rise of banking system; the scarcity for credit in developing industrial enterprises; and the growing dispute of default facing both aristocratic landlords and, above all, small, independent early entrepreneurs on trading ventures. Even though almost 600 years apart from each other, both Shakespeare’s tale and the financial crisis in the United States during 2007-2009 have a similar financial dilemma, each has its unique Shylock, Bassanio and Antonio- people who were responsible for causing the meltdown of their days.

The buildings do not literally look like the stomachs of women, but instead the architecture is a reflection of those who live within the city. The comparison of dancing-girls and fat women to the city draws attention to the status of Parisians that the city reflects. Zola implies that the city is a corrupting force because it reflects the same thirst for riches, attention, and power that the regime has. Kenneth Cornell argues that “Paris the monster is [Zola’s] constant image” (Kenneth Cornell). Zola uses his arguments to describe the corruption of the people within Paris and thus demonize the city further his goal of exposing the true nature of the regime. Zola achieves his goal of labeling Paris as a monster. He states that the old buildings in Paris still represent complying and supporting the regime, and thus supporting the government because they support the people. He claims that the city has always been corruptive. Essentially, Zola uses the existing architecture of the city to further enhance the image he is painting.

In Charles Rearick’s book, Paris Dreams, Paris Memories, he describes the various ways in which Paris is “represented” through various images he identifies as the City of Light, Old Paris, the Capital of Pleasures, and Paname. Rearick further writes how and why these images of Paris came of importance and how they shaped the geographical layout of the city we know today. All of these images together have likewise produced the city of Paris while also providing the framework of Parisian events and experiences.

The premise of decadence was tremendously popular in late 19th century European literature. In addition, the degeneracy of the individual and society at large was represented in numerous contemporary works by Mann. In Death in Venice, the theme of decadence caused by aestheticism appears through Gustav von Achenbach’s eccentric, specifically homoerotic, feelings towards a Polish boy named Tadzio. Although his feelings spring from a sound source, the boy’s aesthetic beauty, Aschenbach becomes decadent in how excessively zealous his feelings are, and his obsession ultimately leads to his literal and existential destruction. Thus exemplifying, as will be examined in the following, how aestheticism is closely related to, and indeed often