Nietzsche Philosophy #2 - Apollonian and Dionysian

This Philosophy is fairly obviously reflected in Cloud Atlas by the TRAGEDY of Frobisher.  This is some of what Wiki has to say:

The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology: Apollo and Dionysus. While the concept is famously related to The Birth of Tragedy, poet Hölderlin spoke of them before, and Winckelmann talked of Bacchus. One year before the publication of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche wrote a fragment titled "On Music and Words". In it he asserted the Schopenhauerian judgment that music is a primary expression of the essence of everything. Secondarily derivative are lyrical poetry and drama, which represent mere phenomenal appearances of objects. In this way, tragedy is born from music.

Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism found in the so-called wisdom of Silenus. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering depicted by characters on stage, passionately and joyously affirmed life, finding it worth living. A main theme in The Birth of Tragedy was that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian "Kunsttrieben" ("artistic impulses") forms dramatic arts, or tragedies. He goes on to argue that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians. Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity and logic, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion and ecstasy. Nietzsche used these two forces because, for him, the world of mind and order on one side, and passion and chaos on the other formed principles that were fundamental to the Greek culture. Apollonian side being a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian being the state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and dissolution of boundaries.

The relationship between the Apollonian and Dionysian juxtapositions is apparent, in the interplay of tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, the main protagonist, struggles to make order (in the Apollonian sense) of his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate, though he dies unfulfilled in the end.

So the author has cast Sixsmith as Apollonian [but with "a twist" of "love conquers all" in there] and Frobisher as Dionysian, and has the two as homosexual lovers [Paglia explains this trait per: "Rejection of – or combat with – Dionysian by socially constructed Apollonian virtues accounts for the historical dominance of men (including asexual and homosexual men; and childless and/or lesbian-leaning women) in science, literature, arts, technology and politics], with Sixsmith the dedicated scientist, not afraid to be the one off whistleblower, and Frobisher the "intoxicated" Tchaikovsky facsimile, albeit most of their relationship is via letters [a reference to Tchaikovsky and his letters to Mde von Melk].

Of course the tragedy does get played out eventually but not before some very entertaining scenes including a Dionysian plate smashing scene [where Sixsmith allows himself some "slack"] that puts Lester Burnham to shame in the asparagus scene as he morphs from Apollonian to Dionysian.