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
As the sorcerer sings, the rest of the Higher Men fall under his spell; the only one who resists is the conscientious man of the spirit, the scientist. He takes the sorcerer’s harp away from him, denounces him, and asks the rest where their freedom has gone. The scientist seeks greater security, while the rest desire greater insecurity—he says that this is because scientists understand fear.
The sorcerer succeeds in tempting the rest of the Higher Men; only the scientist has the presence of mind and strength of will to see what to sorcerer is doing. This suggests that Nietzsche saw scientists as especially capable of seeing through the temptation of false values.
Themes
Just then, Zarathustra comes in and refutes the scientist. He says that courage, not fear, is what has helped humanity reach its current form. Such courage is today called “Zarathustra,” the Men cry in unison. Then they laugh, expelling their sorrow.
Zarathustra elevates the scientist as the highest of modern men, even though he critiques his view of fear. Though fear might motivate the scientific search for truth, joy is actually humanity’s more primal urge—and it coincides with the will to power.
Themes
