Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Rethinking Morality
The Superman and the Will to Power
Death of God and Christianity
Eternal Recurrence
Summary
Analysis
Zarathustra loves the forest because too many lustful people live in the towns. Zarathustra exhorts his followers to an “innocence of the senses.” For some people, chastity is a virtue, but to others, it could almost be considered a vice. They might abstain, but they do so from a spirit of sensuality. For those not suited to chastity, attempting chastity can become the gateway to a lustful soul. Those to whom chastity comes naturally, however, are hardly aware that they are practicing it.
Zarathustra resists a too-strict approach to the idea of chastity; lust is to be avoided, but there is no universal way of curtailing it. Pursuing chastity too strictly might actually make a person’s soul more lustful, even if they don’t indulge physically. His point is that conventional morality doesn’t necessarily produce ideal behavior—often, people who are naturally inclined to these conventions behave this way without trying.
Themes
