Death in Venice follows an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a boy in a family of Polish tourists. Gustav von Aschenbach is a famous author in his early 50s who recently has been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement. Soon afterward, he resolves to take a holiday and travels to Venice. Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy of about 14 in a sailor suit. Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. He overhears Tadzio, the boy's name, and conceives what he first interprets as an uplifting, artistic interest. On the morning of his planned departure, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. Aschenbach postpones his departure on account of misplaced luggage, and over the next days and weeks his interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession.
