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The Ass Festival
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 and the Higher Men go outside to admire the silence and beauty of the night. At last, the ugliest man breaks the silence, acknowledging that he is content with his entire life for the first time, as Zarathustra has taught him how to love the earth; he is happy to live it again. The rest of the Higher Men realize that they, too, are recovered, and they embrace and adore Zarathustra. (2) Zarathustra grows silent and staggers as if drunk. Then, he hushes the rest, saying, “Come!” They all hear the sound of a bell: midnight is coming.
The ugliest man, who appears to be closest to Zarathustra in his progress, first expresses his will to power and embraces the idea of the Eternal Recurrence. This development overwhelms Zarathustra, presumably because he has worked toward it for so long. If noontide heralded the arrival of the Higher Men, midnight signals their progress toward perfection.
Themes
(3) Zarathustra tells the Higher Men that things are being spoken at midnight which cannot be said by day. (4) The sound of the tolling bell asks who will be “master of the world.” (5) Zarathustra calls upon the Higher Men to revive the dead. (6) The tolling bell sounds forth the pain of their forefathers. The world has now grown ripe and smells of eternity.
At midnight, Zarathustra summons the Higher Men to their calling as masters of a new society. They must summon others to be like themselves. Eternity—not in the form of an afterlife, but as an expression of the Higher Men’s collective will to power—is near.
Themes
(7) The world having just become perfect, Zarathustra feels both happiness and woe. (8) The wind, howling as if drunk, speaks both joy and agony. (9) Everything ripe wants to die; everything unripe wants to live. But everything that truly lives wants to grow joyful, and joy wants eternity and recurrence, for things to be the same forever.
Zarathustra’s conflicted mood symbolizes the paradoxical struggle toward the Superman and Eternal Recurrence. Those who embrace life joyfully are most ready for death and eternity, while the “unripe,” or immature, aren’t yet ready.
Themes
(10) Zarathustra appeals to the Higher Men—if they say yes to all joy, then they also say yes to all woe, because all things are joined together eternally. (11) Joy wants everything for eternity, and it longs for the Higher Men—they must learn this. (12) Zarathustra summons the Higher Men to join him in a song, calling humanity to attend to the voice of midnight, the depth of the world’s woe and joy, and joy’s desire for deep eternity.
Zarathustra gives the Higher Men some closing instructions, summing up the joy and pain involved in embracing the will to power, accepting Eternal Recurrence, and calling others to do the same.
Themes
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