In his works "Tonio Krager", "Death in Venice" and "Tristan", Thomas Mann discusses the struggle of the artist in terms of who he is, who he should to be, and who he will be. In the three works, the artistic protagonists struggle with a metaphorical or physical illness, resulting mainly from their inability to reconcile the two polarities with which every artist struggles. In trying to overcome these "diseases", artists react to their problems differently, and in each of their reactions one can see Mann's statement about what an artist can become. To overcome his difficulties, Tonio Krager tries to face his problems head on, thus tending to eliminate them. Gustave von Aschenbach, however, turns from his metaphorical illness to its polar opposite, which makes him even sicker. In the end, Deltev Spinell runs away from his problems, but to nowhere, which leaves him perpetually ill. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In all three works, the artist tries to find a medium between the two polarities that drive him. Friedrich Nietzsche's theory on Greek tragedy influences Mann's vision of this artist, who must aim to maintain the balance between the Dionysian forces, i.e. the passionate and intoxicating forces, and the Apollonian ones, i.e. the rational and detached forces. In “Tonio Krager,” Mann portrays these contrasting opposites through Tonio’s parents: his “dark and fiery” Southern mother and “thoughtful and puritanically correct” Northern father. Working as a writer in Munich, Tonio laboriously tries to reconcile his "cold intellect and his burning sense", and finds himself stuck as a "literary man" who keeps himself aloof from the world, capable only of "labeling it, expressing it and discussing it". . and polish it". To face these Apollonian influences and reconcile them with his passion, Tonio decides to return to his childhood home. Addressing his problems directly by returning to his northern roots, Tonio realizes that he is neither entirely comfortable with the artists who call him "bourgeois", or rather the bourgeois who almost arrest him, Tonio, in fact, will never find himself among the blond blue eyes of the world, but as a passionate observer who manages to reconcile his opposing forces by researching. his "bourgeois love for the human, the living and the usual". Thus, Tonio realizes that he may never find the perfect balance between the Dionysian and the Apollonian, or between his mother and his father, but for applying both of these forces to artistic creation, he can accommodate them in his work "Death in Venice," Gustave von Aschenbach has similar difficulties in balancing the Dionysian and the Apollonian, because he is "painfully conscientious", without even traces of the Dionysian. An absolute perfectionist who defends will over nature, Aschenbach's rigor with his art, in which his style is "fixed and exemplary" is described as a disease: an inability to give in to any indulgence and carefully stray from his path tracked. When Aschenbach visits Venice, he can no longer control his dormant Dionysian side, which takes over. He becomes reckless in his pursuit of Tadzio, drinks contaminated water, eats possibly poisonous strawberries, and becomes the very image of the death he once condemned. Instead of balancing the Dionysian and the Apollonian, Aschenbach flees from the Apollonian, the aspect of himself he had known up to that point, and behaves only with passion, rejecting any sort of balance between the two. Through Aschenbach's stay in Venice, which will lead to his death, Mann describes the dangers of a heavy imbalance between Dionysian and Apollonian. In "Tristan", the writer Detlev Spinell surrounds himself with sick people and."