The Senses Of Tragedy For The Existence

Nietzsche’s primary concern is the problem of existence. To answer this question, heasks firstly the nature of the world, which determines the state of the existence. In "TheBirth of Tragedy"’ the theme is tragedy, but Nietzsche’s intention is to manifest theexistence through tragedy. He tried to learn the right way of life inspired by the ancientGreeks.In "The Birth of Tragedy", Nietzsche was profoundly influenced by Schopenhauer intwo ways. First of all, Nietzsche follows Schopenhauer’s division of the world into twoparts. Schopenhauer’s idea is that the world is divided into “Will” and “Representation”.For Nietzsche, the world is constituted by the “Original One” and its representation andappearance. Sometimes he calls also the “Original One” as the will, the nature, or theworld’s original Artist. These two world views are basically the same, but there is also alittle difference. Schopenhauer’s will is the thing-in-itself, and the pain exists only in theworld of the individuals; but for Nietzsche, the pain exists not only in the individual butalso in the will, because the will itself is the original pain and the eternal conflict.Secondly, Nietzsche, just like Schopenhauer, recognized that the individual existenceis painful. The existent suffers from great pain both from empirical facts and activethinking,, which leads to the negation of existence itself. As a result, we find fromSchopenhauer fatalistic helplessness and devoid of life will, but in Nietzsche solution, sothat the existence can continue.In order to survive the existence looks forward to a salvation. Nietzsche summed upthe three rescues: Socratic optimism, the Apollinian art and the metaphysical comfort inDionysian tragedy. Nietzsche criticizes the shallowness of the Socratic optimism, andpoints out the vulnerability of the Apollinian art, but he puts hope on the metaphysicalcomfort in Dionysian tragedy. However in fact, all these three rescues prove to be of noavail in saving the existence from the pain."How to survive a world full of pain" is still aproblem. On this issue, The Birth of Tragedy does not provide a good solution. But theimage of Dionysus in this book breeds the self-affirmation of the existence.Dionysus is certainly the God of affirmation. Firstly, Dionysian spirit, represents Nietzsche’s later view of the world, that is to view the world in the making; Secondly, theDionysian affirmation means the existence’s unconditional self-affirmation. The existencedoes not need to be saved, it affirms itself, including the affirmation of pain. There is afaint paradox, which forced us to reflect on between the pain and survival. For the peoplewho believe in Dionysian, the pain of existence not only does not result in the denial ofsurvival, but acts as stimulating factors to promote individual’s search for a more activeexistence.In light of Dionysus, tragedy has a positive significance for the existence. First of all,as an honest art, the tragedy reveals the painful truth of existence, so that every spectator ofthe tragedy knows well the possible pain and misery of experience, so that they are readyfor every hard possibility. Secondly, the tragedy has demonstrated a positive way of life.Positive existence always desires sufferings and seeks to overcome the pains of existence.Unsatisfied desire is the driving force of his behavior that encourages him to realize aricher life.