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
Once, while Zarathustra was sleeping, a sheep ate the ivy-wreath on his head and declared that he was no longer a scholar. Zarathustra considers this a blessed fate, since he prefers to sleep in the open air rather than on scholarly “respectabilities.” Scholars are mere spectators in the shade, avoiding the scorching sun—they stare at passersby and think about others’ thoughts. Their cleverness is deceitful. Scholars resent Zarathustra for walking apart from and above them.
Here, Nietzsche has German scholars—and his own breach with them—in mind. After Nietzsche published his The Birth of Tragedy, a theoretical book about classical Greek tragedy, he was ostracized by many German philosophers. He now criticizes those philosophers as weak, uncreative, unobjective, and self-deceptive.
Themes
