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At perhaps its most basic level, literature explores how to live, and philosophy, in part, examines what living means. Though seemingly paradoxical, the philosophers who deal extensively with and primarily study questions of existence are the philosophers who most often confront the matter of death. Three philosophers share commonalities among their framings of death: Horace (65 BC-8 BC), Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). Common to each philosopher is the inclusion of death as part of the framework of life and human experience.
While these philosophers pose intellectual answers to questions about existence in light of death, certain American authors provide possible answers through the stories they create in literature as they examine the human condition—the very nature of existing. Dubbed members of the Lost Generation, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) and Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) wrestled with philosophical concerns in their fiction. World War I left Fitzgerald and Hemingway disillusioned and restless, with a desire to search, to wander, and to explore—desires which are reflected in the characters they created, characters who engage deeply in living.
As these two authors work out the question of how to live, they somewhat obsessively include the fact of life’s finitude. The pervading topic of death peppers their narratives, and life seems to be dictated by death. Similarly, Horace, Kierkegaard, and Sartre see death as an informant to life and their philosophies reflect as much. For both the authors and philosophers, to understand how to view life, one must understand how to view death—an understanding which takes into consideration questions of how to exist, explorations of the human condition, and to what end meaning can be found. Their philosophies about death, which illuminates their philosophies of life, are distinguishable and evident in the works of both Fitzgerald and Hemingway.