ggles, and while both must rise above this dilemma to live fully, the Hemingway tragic hero does not embrace the concept that life is suffering and death as readily as the Greeks. Instead, the Hemingway hero experiences terror at this existential reality and often seeks refuge or escape, though it is only temporary, in sex, alcohol, and, most importantly, action. Both of these constructs of heroism, however, are life affirming. The Hemingway hero is only a hero when he confronts this terror and lives actively despite its slings and arrows. The Greek hero sees overcoming this fact of existence as taking joy in the life force as an inexhaustible force despite it. As Nietzsche said of the Greek tragedy heroic ideal in Twilight of the Idols:
Tragedy is so far from proving anything about the pessimism of the Hellenes, in Schopenhauer’s sense, that it may, on the contrary, be considered its decisive repudiation and counter-insistance. Saying Yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems, the will to life rejoicing over its own inexhaustibility even in the very sacrifice of its highest types—that is what I called Dionysian, that is what I guessed to be the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not in order to be liberated from terror and pity, not in order to purge oneself of a dangerous affect by its vehement discharge—Aristotle understood it that way—but in order to be oneself the eternal joy of becoming, beyond all terror and pity—that joy which included even joy in destroying.
To the Greeks, the living of such a life brought wisdom and meaning to a meaningless existence. We see the following description of the Hemingway hero is similar to the Greek hero, though the Hemingway hero will try temporary attempts at liberation from the terror and pity (i.e., alcohol, sex, action):
The code does not ask that a hero be fearless or entertain illusions about refuge or escape. But it insists that he discipl...