The Gay Science And Beyond Good And Evil Analysis

The reasons why each person or nation may experience growth or prosperity may be different; however, the origin of this success is the same. The people who suffer are able to use that suffering to produce better outcomes and experiences. In the absence of suffering, there are no lessons to be learned and no reason to reflect on alternatives. To suffer does not only mean to experience physical pain, but it can also mean to experience emotional pain or be extremely displeased of a current situation. To suffer is to be discontent, and one must do anything to prevent an enduring unhappiness. As a result, growth and success are achieved. In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn identified a link between suffering and learning; suffering being the cause and learning being the effect. In The Gay Science and Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich …show more content…
Solzhenitsyn and Nietzsche identified and explained how overcoming suffering, the obstacle, directly correlates with human flourishing. Solzhenitsyn used the Soviet labor camps to describe how when one is only subjected to suffering (s)he is forced to reflect on the past in hope for a better future and understanding of the self and others who are in similar situations. According to Solzhenitsyn, suffering makes room for social, spiritual, emotional, and even political (in a sense that one may have been a follower of a dangerous/violent regime) growth. Nietzsche provided his audience with metaphors that helped explain his argument. He described how people, who create their own suffering, cannot experience true growth without “bad weather.” Both authors used their works to provide evidence for their claim that suffering leads to human growth; and by doing so, they successfully explained to their readers that one cannot exist without the