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 decides to go to the grave-island with a wreath of life, so he travels over the sea. He sadly recalls the loves of his youth, now dead. He laments that they died too early and curses his enemies whose arrows slew them. When he achieved his overcomings, his enemies caused his loved ones to be hurt by it. The only reason Zarathustra has overcome this youthful pain is that, deep within him, his will to power remains invulnerable. His will destroys all graves, and only among graves are there resurrections.
Zarathustra’s journey to the grave-island recalls Nietzsche’s loss of his youthful friendship with Richard Wagner, the famous composer whom he idealized, befriended, and had a falling out with. The chapter suggests that their separation had to do with misunderstandings or objections to Nietzsche’s ideas. Zarathustra finds comfort in his solitary will to power, which implies that the older Nietzsche has found contentment in this as well.
Themes
