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
One evening Zarathustra walks through the forest with his disciples, looking for a well. In a meadow, he finds a group of girls dancing together. The girls stop dancing, but Zarathustra urges them to continue—he is not the Devil, or the Spirit of Gravity! He accompanies their dance with a song praising Life. After the girls go away and the sun sets, Zarathustra grows sad.
Dancing represents the freedom and joy of a fully exercised will to power. Zarathustra counters the dancing girls’ shyness by reminding them that a heavy spirit of guilt and restraint has nothing to do with him; he stands for a whole-hearted embrace of life.
Themes
