Transcending Nothingness - The Existential Heroes of Ernest Hemmingway

Abstract

An Existential hero is portrayed in literature as the one who has transcended above the meaninglessness of life and has accepted it with its original harshness and reality. The characters presented in the works of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Hemmingway show stark similarities with the existential characters of Kafka, Camus and Sartre. The European writers regard this concern "with the meaning of identity in the modern world, the nature of good and evil, the possibility of fulfilment in the contemporary society". Hemmingway strongly believed in living a life fully and heroically and he felt that even in the dystopian world after World War man was powerful enough to realize his moral purpose . His true heroes are the ones who have accepted their responsibility towards the world where notions of ultimate truth and reality do not exist anymore.