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
1. Zarathustra leaves the town called the Pied Cow, and many of his disciples follow him. They reach a crossroad, and Zarathustra says that he wants to continue on his way alone, so the disciples give him a golden staff as a parting gift. Zarathustra leans on the golden staff and tells his followers that gold is valuable because, in its shining, it constantly “bestows itself.” As such, gold is symbolizes the highest virtue—this virtue is a bestowing virtue.
Gold is an image of Zarathustra’s wisdom constantly shining forth—and by extension, it’s an image of the creative will to power overflowing from a person and “bestowing,” or giving, constantly and inexhaustibly.
Themes
The bestowing love wants to gather all things into itself so that that they may flow back as gifts of love. This is a holy sort of selfishness. The sick sort of selfishness, on the other hand, wants to steal what the givers have—this is degeneration. Zarathustra and his followers, by contrast, are progressing upward to the Superman.
The “holy” selfishness embraces life in order to give. In contrast, a sickly selfishness grasps things in order to hoard them. The former promotes humanity’s thriving, while the latter thwarts it.
Themes
The body advances through history, and the spirit is its herald. The elevated body wants to become a creator and evaluator of all things. Virtue originates when the will starts wanting to command all things—this is a “new good and evil.” According to Zarathustra, this is the essence of power; it’s a “golden sun.”
This is a summary of Nietzsche’s view of the higher individual (the one who’s capable of evolving to the Superman) within history, and that individual’s role in creating new values. New virtues flow forth from his will to power, meaning that it’s virtuous for higher individuals to follow their natural instincts. Given that the sun is an ongoing symbol for wisdom and the path toward enlightenment, Zarathustra’s comparison of the will to power to a “golden sun” suggests that pursuing the will to power will lead higher individuals toward the Superman ideal.
Themes
2. Zarathustra falls silent for a while and then changes his tone. Lovingly, he tells his disciples to remain loyal to the earth and to bestow their love toward the earth. Too often, virtue has “flown away.” There is much of the earth, and many paths to healing, that are still undiscovered. Today’s solitaries will one day be a “chosen people,” out of whom will spring the Superman. Then, the whole earth will become a place of healing.
Here, Zarathustra gives a charge to his disciples. Even if his disciples themselves do not become the Superman, the Superman might emerge from the class of higher individuals they create. His disciples should strive toward this fate for the sake of the entire planet.
Themes
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3. Then Zarathustra tells his disciples that he is going away alone. They, too, should go away to be alone—in fact, they should guard themselves against him. After all, a pupil should not remain a pupil forever, since this does not repay his teacher well. Belief in Zarathustra himself is not ultimately important—it’s more important that his followers “lose me and find yourselves”; Zarathustra will return to them only after they’ve denied him. Then, he will rejoin them, love them anew, and “celebrate the great noontide” with them.
The point of being Zarathustra’s disciple is not to imitate him perfectly. Higher men are supposed to create their own values rather than copying what’s gone before—even if that means denying Zarathustra himself. Zarathustra sees this separation and denial as a key to the coming of the Superman, which will be signaled by the “great noontide.”
Themes
The great noontide is when a human being stands in the middle of the course between animal and Superman and celebrates his journey toward his highest hope. At that time, the sun of knowledge will stand at noontide, and such a man will be able to say that “all gods are dead.” He will only want the Superman to live.
For Zarathustra, the “great noontide” is the moment when a person has fully rejected belief in the gods and the constraints of lower morality. This is the state midway between animal and Superman, when a person truly desires the Superman’s coming.
Themes
