Notes on Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

I am going to try and make these notes as simple and as easy to understand as I possibly can. This way I hope to make Zarathustra understandable for me and you, my reader.

To begin with I shall give you as much information on Nietzsche as I can and try to make it simple in a bulleted list.

Nietzsche -

• Not a Christian, an atheist.
• He did not like Rome and didnt feel very creative whilst he was there. This may be because of his religion of an atheist and not a christian.
• He said that the late 19th Century in Europe was nihilistic. This meant that they no longer believed in God and that there was nothing to believe in at all. People didn't believe in themselves and this meant that no one believed in anything. Their lives became meaningless. He rightly foresaw that nihilism may lead to nationalism which would then cause wars. For example Hitler and the holocaust. Zarathustra says that everything must obey something. If one cant obey oneself they have to obey someone else. True freedom is only granted to those that can command themselves and obey onyl themselves; no one and nothing else.
• He calls the fundamental force that drives all of life is a 'will to power' although it may also be described as 'an instinct for freedom'.
• He was a lonely man and believed that nobody understood him or his writings. He believed that they would think his writings were ramblings to be ignored. This was mostly true as only very few people believed him to be the genius he was.
• This lead Nietzsche to make his best friend the preacher of his work, Zarathustra.
• The book is about Nietzsches most personal work, "it's about his experiences, friendships and ideals."
• He wrote the book in ten days bursts, which is why he repeats himself and it is quite long. If he had look over his work he may not have repeated himself so much.
• He believed that mankind should strive to create great men and nothing else.
• Nietzsche didn't make it clear if Zarathustra was the overman or not but if he was it wasn't until the fourth book that he became the overman.

Now you have some small facts about Nietzsche, I will explain some of the key points of the book and of Zarathustra.

"God Is Dead"

This is what Zarathustra said to a saint living alone in the forest. It means that God is dead and that although he was alive at some point and preaching he no longer is and people no longer are living their lives by him and his rules.

I hope that these notes have been able to help and that it has made the book seem a little easier to grasp.