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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 is about to leave, but his shadow begs him to stay, lest they fall into sadness again. (2) The shadow sings a song reminiscing about the desert and the maidens who dwelt there; he summons Europeans to roar like lions before these daughters of the desert.
This rather bizarre section seems to be a response to the sorcerer’s tempting song. The shadow is a wandering freethinker who enjoys lion-like freedom in his search for truth (earlier, Zarathustra used the desert lion as a symbol of the evolving human spirit). The shadow’s racy and seductive song urges his contemporaries to throw off the burdens of convention in order to share his wanderings and his freedom on the way to the Superman.
Themes
