In Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" the reader is presented with the story of a man who cannot find the delicate balance between his emotions and his intellect. It is this delicate psychological balance that the author wishes most to address. Through the protagonist of the story, Gustav Aschenbach, we as the reader learn of the potentially deadly effects of not being able to find this balance, of letting either one of these polarities in our thought's overwhelm us. In the case of Aschenbach, it is his inability to find this balance that leads his inevitable destruction

From the dream passage (pp 1604-1605) the reader gets an ideal of just how unbalanced Aschenbach's mind really is. The dream is highly symbolic of Aschenbach own insecurity regarding his behavior towards the child Tadzio. By the time we arrive to the point of the dream in the text it has become fairly obvious that Aschenbach has become compulsively obsessed with Tadzio. Aschenbach begins to contemplate everything from the boys physical stature to his illustrious behavior (which he often compares to that of various Greek gods). The dream that Aschenbach has is his minds way of alerting both him and the reader to the unbalanced state in Aschenbach mind.

In the dream we are presented with a grotesque image of people engaged in a lewd acts of worshipping. Their descriptions as being "men with horns over their brows" (p1604) is significant in that we are being presented with an image of sinister depraved beings. In addition, we can affirm by this image by the authors description of their behavior. The women "swing blazing torches", "brandish naked daggers" and carry "snakes with flickering tongues" (p 1604). The men are "beating a furious tattoo on the drums" (p 1604) while the boys prod at goats and cling to their horns "yelling with delight as the beast drag them along." (p1604). It is this image of sinister depraved beings engaged in this heathen type of behavior that the author uses to represent the inner conflict and struggle that Aschenbach feels.

Towards the last of the dream we began to realize more fully that the behavior exhibited by these sinister beings (which the author feels should obviously be seen as a revolting sort of behavior) begins to entice and lure Aschenbach ("Was it not enticing him..." p 1605). The enticement that he feels toward joining in on this tabooed behavior is symbolic of Aschenbach's growing infatuation with Tadzio ("and his soul craved to join the round dance of the gods" p 1605). In the end we find that Aschenbach cannot find a balance with his emotional desires but in fact plunges himself in to this ritualistic behavior ("But the dreamer was now with them and in them" p1605). What's more we find out that Aschenbach has willingly degenerated himself to the level of those sinister beings as the authors quotes "And his very soul savored the lascivious delirium of annihilation." (p 1605)

It is from this dream we are able to conclude that Aschenbach is unable to find that delicate psychological balance. Even with all of his logical prowess (from what we know about him in the beginning of the story) Aschenbach is unable to find that balance between sensuous experiences (his complete enamorment with Tadzio) and intellect (which tells him that his behavior is completely inappropriate), a balance between unselfconscious feelings, immorality and decadence (symbolized most vividly by the imagery in the dream) and icy intellect and moral respectability (the realization that that behavior is indeed tabooed). Being unable to find this balance is what inevitable leads to Aschenbach death, for as the author puts it, though there may be no immediate resolutions for these extreme polarities in thought, if either overwhelms the other (as what happens when Aschenbach gives in to his impulses in the dream) than tragedy must inevitably follow.