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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
Zarathustra journeys to the other side of his island to catch a ship. As he goes, he reflects that he has always lived, and will always live, as a wanderer. Now, he has to climb his most difficult path, but he does not shrink from it—even though there are no footholds to be found, and he will have to climb beyond himself.
In the following discourses, Zarathustra primarily addresses himself, not his disciples. Here, he consoles himself in the grief of his inescapable solitude and unmarked path.
Themes
Reaching the top of a mountain, Zarathustra laments that he must now descend to the sea, his deepest descent yet. When he reaches the seashore, he senses from the sea’s warmth that it must be having a nightmare. He laughs at himself for wanting to soothe a monster. Love, he thinks, has been his downfall. Then he thinks of his friends and weeps.
This passage recalls the beginning of the book, when Zarathustra first descended to humanity. His desire to “soothe a monster” also anticipates the end of the book, when Zarathustra confronts his weakness—his short-sighted pity for humanity (as contrasted with joy in the coming Superman).
Themes
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