“Action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things”, I has chosen this sentence of The birth of the tragedy, to be the title of my post because I agreed with Nietzsche. When we have knowledge, we know that the fact of acting is useless, in the sense that, we can act, but it will not make a difference. Because if we “look truly into the essense of thing”, we know the horrible truth of things. We can find this idea in Lorenzaccio of De Musset. Lorenzo knows his actions are ineffective, because he knows the real human nature, he knows perfectly after he will kill Alexandre de Medicis, there will be no changes. Indeed, nothing changes, another Medicis acquires the throne, it’s the eternal circle, the eternal return, but nothing else. Nietzsche explains that, to act, human beings need illusion, and Lorenzo has lost his illusions.

It's the same structure with the dionysian man, Hamlet and Phil. Hamlet can’t act, he tries to, but he can’t, he hasn’t any illusion, only at the end of theatre play, he manages to kill his uncle, and why ? Because he knows he is dying, he has to deliver on his promise, but especially because he is upset with his uncle. It’s the same case with the Dionysian man, both repudiate their existence. Phil, in Groundhog day, tries, at the beginning, when he discovers he is reliving the same day, to change things, by hitting an old acquaintance, by commiting a suicide or by attempting to save the homeless man, for example. But he fails, “action could not change anything in the eternal nature of things”. As the four seasons, which tirelessly, are always the same.

 

Nevertheless, Nietzsche, stipulates that, art saves mens, art would be a “saving sorceress”, but in Hamlet or in Lorenzaccio, art can’t achieve to save them. In my point of view, when someone knows the real human nature, art is unable to save him. It can divert a person who has looked the depths of man, but it can make her forget what she knows. So, there has a solution? Lorenzo has chosen the death. To my mind, death isn’t the solution, commit a suicide is to deny the fact of being human, and after all we are human. Maybe, we just have wait, as Phil...