Читать книгу Thus Spoke Zarathustra - FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Friedrich Nietzsche - Страница 16

Zarathustra opens with a prologue in ten sections that sets the stage for its narrative. It introduces the protagonist – a man who has lived ten years alone in the mountains and now wants to descend to impart his wisdom to the people (Prologue 1).

Arriving as a prophet in a town, Zarathustra presents the ideal of the Übermensch to a crowd on a marketplace (Prologue 3). This higher being will transcend our present conception of man and will become the new meaning of the earth. He will be as superior to our current man as man now is in relation to the ape. (In English, Übermensch is variously translated as “Superman,” “Overman, “Uberman,” “Superhuman,” or “Overhuman.”)

Zarathustra then contrasts his vision of the Übermensch with the reality of the “last” man (Prologue 5). This last man shuns risk and seeks only comfort and conformity. He is like a flea that has overrun the earth with his mediocrity. Despite Zarathustra's disgust with the vision of the last man, the people in the town end by mocking his ideal and clamoring for the last man instead.

Nietzsche then inserts a dramatic interlude with a tightrope walker. He is there to offer the raucous crowd some entertainment (Prologue 6). While crossing over to the other side, the tightrope walker is pushed off by a scheming jester and falls to his death. The crowd is indifferent, but Zarathustra is moved by his plight. Fearful of the mood in the town, he sneaks out at night and buries the body (Prologue 8). Though the tightrope walker was scorned by the crowd, Zarathustra considers him a soulmate who made a vocation out of danger.

The next morning, Zarathustra has a sudden insight. He will no longer preach to the crowd but will seek solitary companions to lure away from the masses. These individuals will become his future target audience (Prologue 9). Zarathustra now embarks on a journey to find sensitive, alienated souls receptive to his superhuman ideal (Prologue 10).

In the space of ten short sections, Zarathustra has undergone a major pivot. No longer a message for humankind, the ideal of the Übermensch has now been narrowed down to a secret promise for a select few.