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 says that life is wonderful, but that the masses poisons the wells from which they drink. Many who think that they’ve turned away from life have, in fact, only turned away from the masses. For a long time, Zarathustra has lived as if deaf and blind, trying to avoid the masses; eventually, however, he learned how to free himself from this disgust. This is only possible in the extreme heights of solitude, where the unclean cannot reach and where one’s purity reflects back to one in the well. Solitaries orient themselves toward the future.
Zarathustra suggests that the masses of humanity aren’t really capable of fully enjoying life, and even those who retreat from life are really just fleeing from the masses in disgust. Only solitary people can truly separate themselves from the masses and enjoy life purely. Zarathustra further suggests that this is possible because solitaries live for the future—for the Superman.
Themes
