Eternal Recurrence and Joyful Acceptance

Abstract

Finally we come to Zarathustra’s, and Nietzsche’s, joyful acceptance. In the preceding several chapters we have put in place the background against which we must silhouette Nietzsche’s acceptance if we are to perceive its distinctive form. Now we may draw it in against that backdrop. What Nietzsche evokes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra is not merely an image or conception of joyful acceptance; he evokes a movement in the interior of a human life, the life of Nietzsche’s alter ego, Zarathustra, that expresses his conception. Important for Nietzsche’s conception, or for his evocation of it, is Zarathustra’s endurance of a moral trial. Interlaced with Zarathustra’s speeches in Thus Spoke Zarathustra are Zarathustra’s encounters with others, his journeys — and his two trials. As Abraham in Fear and Trembling underwent a trial of faith, so Zarathustra undergoes two moral trials. Each of his trials is of some importance for Zarathustra’s character and for Nietzsche’s message. Moreover the two trials he must undergo are connected. But one of them is particularly relevant to our concern in that the full character of Zarathustra’s joyful acceptance emerges as we follow him through the ordeal of that trial. From it he issues joyful in his acceptance of all that is.