Previous
Of Chastity
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 “I and Me” are always in such earnest conversation that a third person, the friend, is needed. But this longing for a friend is a betrayal of oneself—often, love for a friend is only an attempt to avoid envy. It’s almost better to confront someone as an enemy. If you really want a friend, you have to be willing to wage war for that person, which means that you must be capable of being an enemy. Ultimately, your friend should be your best enemy, and you should feel closest to your friend when you most oppose them.
The novel is marked by Nietzsche’s disillusionment regarding friendship, especially his youthful friendship with composer Richard Wagner. He channels this into Zarathustra’s belief that friends are an interruption to the soul’s inner conversation, and that friendship is inevitably contentious; thus, it becomes an obstacle to evolving into the Superman.
Themes
To your friend, you should be “an arrow and a longing for the Superman.” Man is something that must be overcome; neither a slave nor a tyrant can be a friend. This is why Zarathustra believes that women are not capable of friendship—woman is both slave and tyrant. Women are unjust toward all whom they don’t love. But, for that matter, most men aren’t yet capable of friendship. Zarathustra gives more to his enemy than most can give to a friend.
A friend should be nothing more or less than a spur to one’s pursuit of the Superman. This is why, in Zarathustra’s view, a woman can’t be a friend; Nietzsche held that women lack the will to power and therefore cannot overcome their current selves to evolve into something better.
Themes
