In addition to those broad themes discussed in the body of this book, Nietzsche’s works incorporate a variety of images that he uses allusively or symbolically. The following are some of those images and their connotations for Nietzsche.
Nietzsche often uses animal images to reflect his belief that human beings are animals and that much of their behavior is no more “rational” than that of other animals. In drawing attention to the “animal” nature of humanity, Nietzsche tries to debunk the tendency of his contemporaries to view humankind as the pinnacle of creation. He also has the more positive agenda of drawing attention to the instinctual nature of humanity and encouraging us to attend to the health of our physical natures. Nietzsche sometimes distinguishes between the strong and the weak by reference to wild and tame animals. Modern human beings take pride in being civilized, Nietzsche notes, but they are actually merely tamed, deprived of strength by calculated means.
Although he uses animals as symbols for aspects of ourselves that we should appreciate, Nietzsche takes issue with those who prefer animals to people. He seems to have Schopenhauer and Wagner in mind in this respect, and he reminds them that it is possible to hate people without loving animals.
Nietzsche also makes reference to particular types of animals, employing common associations with various species to draw attention to specific human traits. The following are among the more prominent animals mentioned in Nietzsche’s writing.
birds 1. Birds generally symbolize the unconstrained movement of the free spirit for Nietzsche. The double-edged nature of freedom is indicated in his image of “Prince Free-as-a-Bird” (Vogelfrei), the pseudonymous author of the poems that close The Gay Science, for the word Vogelfrei suggests someone who can be shot on sight. 2. Birds sometimes connote “flightiness,” as when Zarathustra compares some women to birds. 3. Birds are capable of a higher point of view than other creatures, and they are able to use this for their own advantage. 4. Birds are also able to carry messages a great distance. Hence, when Nietzsche describes having the insight that he may not matter, he describes this as the message of a “mischievous bird.” 5. Birds are also important in the Germanic myth that forms the basis for Wagner’s Ring cycle. The hero Siegfried, after slaying the dragon that guarded the golden hoard, burned his finger and touched his tongue to cool it. As a consequence, he could suddenly understand the language of birds, and he learned in this way of a plot to kill him. (Perhaps Nietzsche’s hint in the coment about the “mischievous bird” is that the messages of such birds can be urgently important.) See also eagle.
buffalo Nietzsche associates the buffalo with the unclean water of swamps in which such creatures bathe. The buffalo is a particularly undignified creature. Zarathustra’s description of poets as peacocks who perform before buffalo portrays poets as being too vain to realize the low sensibilities of most of their audience.
bull Nietzsche associates the bull with stubbornness, its lack of self-restraint, and its ability to use its horns in attack. The bull represents unrelenting will.
camel The camel is the quintessential beast of burden. In Zarathustra’s “Three Metamorphoses” the camel represents the spirit in its first stage of development, in which it reverently bears the burden (but also the wealth) of the tradition.
cat Nietzsche compares women, or at least some women, to cats. He seems to be associating them with slyness and the potential for ferocity.
cattle Cows are paradigmatic herd animals, prone to following each other without any thought to where they are going. Nietzsche appeals to this association when he describes those who are enthusiastic about democratic institutions as “voting cattle.” What they have not noticed, he contends, is that they were only allowed to choose from a few approved candidates, and often follow the lead of others in making their selections. Zarathustra’s town, the Motley Cow, is a community of conformists. Despite the implicit critique of some of Nietzsche’s references to cattle, however, he seems to have fondness for them. He seems to consider them warm, and he even describes having the impression that the temperature was getting warmer just before he turned a bend and came upon a herd of cattle. Nietzsche also appeals to cows’ steadiness, as when he describes a formerly flighty woman becoming content like a cow after marriage in The Gay Science.
dog Nietzsche generally refers to dogs in their role as “man’s best friend,” and the most typical of pets. He also recognizes that dogs are not always well treated by their owners. Thus, when he likens his own pain to a pet dog, he suggests that he can vent his ill-humor on it.
eagle 1. The eagle in Thus Spoke Zarathustra represents Zarathustra’s pride, we are told. The eagle’s capacity to soar and move freely contrasts with the gravity that Nietzsche associates with tradition thus far. If we interpret tradition as having undercut human pride in our own capacities, the eagle represents the buoyant health of the person whose pride has been recovered. 2. The eagle is a bird of prey, hungry for meat, and powerful enough to satisfy its hunger with more docile and less active animals, such as lambs. 3. Nietzsche sometimes uses the eagle to represent solitary nature because eagles hunt as individuals.
fish Nietzsche’s allusions to fish and fishing often make reference to the original vocation of some of Jesus’ disciples. Jesus promised to make these former fishermen “fishers of men,” and Nietzsche himself adopts this image, describing his writings as fishbooks and his potential readers as fish.
lambs Lambs are often emblems of youthful innocence. They are also the image employed in the New Testament to refer to members of Jesus’ “flock,” with Jesus in the role of the Good Shepherd. Nietzsche gives these associations his own spin. In his references, lambs are neither strong nor very bright. They are also vulnerable to fierce birds of prey. Nietzsche hints that those who feel safe in the flock are unaware of the more powerful who are delighted to prey upon them.
lion 1. The lion in Zarathustra symbolizes the strong spirit who has learned how to negate, after an earlier period of simply accepting the teachings of tradition. The lion is characterized by healthy self-assertion and strength. 2. These same characteristics apply to the lion as the “blond beast” in On the Genealogy of Morals. In this context, Nietzsche draws upon the image of the lion as king of the jungle, associating the lion with mastery and a master’s sense of pride.
snake The snake is one of Zarathustra’s animals, and it is associated with his wisdom. This association plays on the Genesis story in which Eve is tempted by a serpent who claims that eating of the tree of good and evil will make human beings as wise as gods. As so often, Nietzsche inverts a traditional image, suggesting that genuine wisdom, not original sin, resulted. As one who crawls into the earth, the snake represents earthly wisdom, as well as insight into the tragic.
spider The spider’s characteristic ability to make a web that ensnares its prey is focal in Nietzsche’s use of this image. In particular, he associates the spider with the Christian worldview that places God in the center and draws everything else into a web of interpretation. The Christian worldview, Nietzsche contends, renders the believer vulnerable to a fate much like that of the spider’s victim.
worm Nietzsche uses the traditional association of the worm with lowliness. He is not flattering the humble when he describes them as being like worms who double up when stepped upon, to make further injury less likely.
Ariadne Ariadne helps the Greek hero Theseus, who was imprisoned in the labyrinth along with the children who were to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, her half-brother. Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of twine that he could unfurl along his route and thus be able to retrace his steps. After slaying the Minotaur, he led the children to safety. Taking Ariadne with him, Theseus set sail for Greece along with the children he had rescued. However, he abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos, according to one version of the story, where Dionysus discovered her and married her. Nietzsche sometimes appears to use Ariadne as an emblem for the obscure object of desire that leads the lover through a labyrinth. At other times, she appears to represent the human being who, after being abandoned by heroes, is approached by the god. Nietzsche takes inspiration from the idea that human failure may be the preamble to encounter with powers exceeding those known to humanity.
arrow Nietzsche uses this image to indicate unswerving movement toward one’s goal and the power to soar above the rest of the world in pursuit of it.
Bayreuth Bayreuth was the location of Wagner’s long-planned theater. The theater’s inaugural festival, involving the performance of the Ring cycle, signaled the culmination of Wagner’s career. This was also the point at which Nietzsche’s disillusionment with Wagner and his associates reached a new level, and he did not stay in Bayreuth for the entirety of the premiere festival, as he had planned. Nietzsche’s references to Bayreuth, therefore, allude to Wagner after he had lost faith in him.
Blessed Isles The Blessed Isles were the abode of Greek heroes after death, also known as the Elysian Fields. In Zarathustra the Blessed Isles are the location in which Zarathustra articulates the possibility of blissful alternatives in the wake of the death of God.
bread When Nietzsche refers to bread, he frequently alludes to the bread used in the Mass, particularly when wine is also mentioned. One case of this is the account of the hermit in the prologue of Zarathustra, who gives Zarathustra bread and wine and insists that everyone, even the dead, must eat what he has to offer. Nietzsche is lampooning the Christian insistence that taking what the Church offers (indicated here by the ritual bread and wine) is the only way to attain salvation.
cave Zarathustra’s cave in Nietzsche’s work is modeled on the reported home of the historical Zarathustra. However, it alludes also to the abode of the population of Plato’s mythic account in the Republic, a society in which people are chained against cave walls and can see only the shadows of things that pass behind them. The philosopher in this story escapes from the cave, goes outside, and sees what the actual world is like. He returns to tell his community, but they insist that his eyes are faulty and try to kill him. By contrast, Zarathustra’s cave is the place where Nietzsche’s hero gains spiritual insight, and the challenge for him is to get the people outside the cave to recognize the riches he discovered inside it.
child The child represents three different notions for Nietzsche. 1. The child stands for innocent, energetic life, unburdened by the past and enthusiastic in trying new things. The child in this sense is the final stage of spiritual development in Zarathustra’s “Three Metamorphoses.” 2. The child represents progeny, or the future. Zarathustra pins his hopes on his future child, and Nietzsche hopes to be posthumously appreciated. 3. The child can also represent immaturity. Nietzsche parodies the New Testament when he suggests that those who urge little children to come to them sometimes ensure that those who approach remain childish.
Columbus Like many Europeans, Nietzsche mythologized Columbus’s discovery of the New World. He uses this discovery as an image for the comparable discovery that humanity might make of the new possibilities available after God has died.
(The) Crucified By this term Nietzsche refers to Jesus’ mission of appeasing a wrathful God by dying on the cross. He considers this doctrine of atonement a barbaric invention of Saint Paul and essential to institutionalized Christianity but not a part of Jesus’ teaching. When Nietzsche uses the expression “Dionysus vs. the Crucified,” he counter-poses this account against the Dionysus myth. Like Jesus, Dionysus is killed, torn apart by the Titans, a symbol of humanity’s being divided through individuation. Followers of Dionysus also believe that their god will be reborn and that humanity will be reunified. The Dionysian myth leaves out the doctrine of sin, and accordingly Nietzsche thinks that it is a superior theological perspective. The Dionysian account treats suffering as being built into the structure of things; yet this suffering is not to be considered punishment for sin but the price of admission to something of incomparable value, life itself.
decadence The decline or corruption of a body, whether that of an individual or a body politic, leads to decadence. Nietzsche suggests that a decadent body seeks its own deterioration, its appetites warped by its basic unsoundness. Not all illness, however, implies decadence. Nietzsche insists that a philosopher must experience various states of health as a means to attaining insight. Moreover, sometimes symptoms of apparent ill health are really manifestations of pregnancy, a condition in which one cannot expend all one’s energy because much energy is being used to nurture developing life.
desert The desert is common to the geography of the Middle East, the point of origin of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as well as the home of the original Zarathustra. For Nietzsche the desert symbolizes the place in which one is completely alone and susceptible to hearing inner voices. In “On the Stillest Hour,” Zarathustra is in such a use of the desert image, recalling both the reluctant Hebrew prophet Jeremiah and the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Sometimes, however, Nietzsche uses the image of the desert with Orientalist associations, conjuring an oasis, a garden of delights, complete with wicked dancing girls. Zarathustra’s “Among Daughters of the Wilderness” is an example of this use.
distance Nietzsche uses distance metaphors to convey the variability of human perspectives, since varying a distance varies optical effects. Vertical distance, specifically, is also used to suggest varying “ranks” of human beings, some being more noble than others. See also height.
dragon The Germanic mythology on which Wagner’s Ring cycle is based features the story of a hero who kills a dragon that guards the golden hoard, including the golden ring with its special power. Siegfried is the hero in Wagner’s version of the myth. Nietzsche casts the dragon as the guardian of traditional Western values in Zarathustra’s “Three Metamorphoses.” The lion, which represents the second stage of spiritual development, challenges the dragon and eventually kills him. Perhaps Nietzsche is drawing on the Judeo-Christian account as well, for the values based on “good” and “evil” are derived, according to the Genesis account, from Adam and Eve’s eating fruit stolen from a forbidden tree. A curse goes with the stolen values, like the curse on the stolen gold in the Germanic myth, even if both confer power.
dwarf In ancient Germanic legend, a dwarf was the rightful owner of the golden hoard. The dwarf put a curse on the ring that was part of the stolen hoard, with the consequence that all who possessed it came to grief, despite the power the ring gave them. The consequences of this theft are elaborated in Wagner’s version of the legend, the Ring cycle. Nietzsche considers dwarves vicious, in light of this mythological background. Hence, the dwarf who leaps onto Zarathustra’s shoulder and urges him to attempt to assess time from outside of time (a feat that diminishes the apparent importance of life within time) pursues a vicious agenda in doing so. Interestingly, the vision that the dwarf proposes to Zarathustra is the alleged perspective of God in the traditional Judeo-Christian account. The image of the dwarf reflects Nietzsche’s conviction that this conception of God in relation to our temporal world is a vicious scheme with harmful consequences for those who accept it.
ears 1. Nietzsche sometimes opposes hearing to seeing, where hearing is a more receptive sensory mode, allowing for more distant communication than does seeing. Hearing also carries the external world into the body, and thus the image of ears represents a more embodied way of encountering reality than Western thought often acknowledges. Nietzsche’s privileging hearing over seeing challenges the supremacy of sight as a metaphor for understanding in Western thought. 2. Nietzsche also associates hearing with music, in particular with being captivated by music. 3. Nietzsche frequently utilizes the Scriptural line, “For those who have ears, let them hear,” to his own ends. He suggests that only those who are receptive are able to comprehend what he has to offer.
gravity Nietzsche often invokes gravity to suggest weight and heaviness, often with a negative cast. Nietzsche’s “gravity” can also mean seriousness, and sometimes he conjoins the two meanings. In calling for a “gay science,” or “light-hearted scholarship,” for example, he proposes an end to “grave” scholarly pursuits that ultimately serve to weigh one down. Sometimes, however, Nietzsche uses the term to refer, quite literally, to the force that keeps us rooted to the earth and our planet fixed in the solar system. In this respect, gravity is essential to our being at home in the world. The death of God, Nietzsche’s Madman reports, unchains the earth from the sun, leaving us lurching through space without a sense of destination. Although this circumstance occasions unprecedented possibilities, the experience itself is terrifying.
hammer In Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche speaks of himself as someone who philosophizes with a hammer, and he describes other genuine philosophers in Beyond Good and Evil as treating everything they grasp as a hammer. This image is a condensation of a number of ideas. 1. Nietzsche suggests that the hammer is an instrument used to “sound out idols” in order to determine whether or not they are hollow. 2. The second allusion is to the sculptor’s hammer. Nietzsche refers to Michelangelo’s description of freeing the sculpture from the stone. 3. According to Luther, God employs a powerful hammer to crush the self-righteous pride of the sinner and provoke despair; only after this experience is the soul open to God’s grace, which converts the negativity of despair into a condition of affirmation. Nietzsche thus puts himself in the position of God, the hammer-wielder, crushing the self-righteous pride of the moralist in order to provoke a similar condition, in which the affirmative character of the natural world can be recognized. Again, the hammer is a tool of redemption, but a different redemption than that recommended by Luther.
hardness 1. Nietzsche advocates hardness as opposed to the softness of the soft touch, the person who is so moved by pity as to give no thought as to what would be genuinely helpful, or so moved as to be diverted from his or her own work. The hardness here is that of the hard-headed and of the Stoic. 2. Hardness is also an image for strength and muscular power. 3. Hardness also has sexual connotations and represents virility. 4. By contrasting the hard diamond with the soft coal, kin in carbon composition, Nietzsche suggests that hardness is a basis for value. Here, hardness involves resistance to breakage, as well as the beauty of the well-defined edge.
height Various height metaphors in Nietzsche are used to indicate the perspective of someone who stands “above” the crowd, a “lofty” soul. Climbing indicates the strenuous efforts required to attain such a height. Mountains are the home of the lofty, the noble type of person. One who is high up can take a broad view of things. Nietzsche also stresses that the air is clear in the mountains. These images are related to the “pathos of distance,” the awareness that human beings have various ranks. One consequence is that the noble person can see lesser souls from above and can recognize that these souls are unable to see very far. Nietzsche warns such a person not to be distracted from important aims by pitying those below him or her. “The abyss,” the inchoate gap in the mountains into which the climber might fall, is a related image. Nietzsche describes tragic insight as “abysmal,” and reminds climbers that they must always be aware of the abyss, lest they inadvertently plunge to their destruction. See also under (down) and over (up).
herd (and flock) See animals.
immaculate perception (disinterestedness) Nietzsche lampoons “disinterestedness,” one of the doctrines of Kantian aesthetics, in the section of Zarathustra focused on “immaculate perception.” Kant’s influential aesthetic doctrine held that one has a “pure” judgment of beauty only when one is free of all desire in connection with it. Nietzsche thinks, by contrast, that beauty incites one to health and sexuality. He caricatures the “disinterested” thinker as a dirty old man who pretends to be too lofty for sexual interest.
nose The nose is the sense organ least appreciated by Western thinkers, a fact Nietzsche deplores. He sees the low status of the nose as being tied to its associations with earthiness and bodily experience. Sight, the most highly regarded sense, is rarely linked to the body; and its high reputation is based partially on sight’s capacity to “get beyond” the body. Nietzsche reminds his readers that the nose and our other bodily means of perception are the sources of information on which all science (typically a source of pride) is based. He describes the nose as a precision instrument, of greater use for knowledge than the most refined pieces of laboratory equipment (which ultimately require refined senses in order to read them). Nietzsche also makes use of the image of the nose to indicate a sensory abhorrence of one’s surroundings. Zarathustra, for example, sometimes leaves his company to get some air, for his nose informs him that something stinks.
over (up) The German prefix Über, meaning “over,” is paired with its opposite, the prefix Unter (“under”), in some of Nietzsche’s prose. He makes use of such over/under word play in Zarathustra’s first speech in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The Übermensch is “over” in the sense of being of higher rank than all presently existing human beings. Yet one of the things that marks the Übermensch is the willingness to “go under,” to risk oneself to the point of perishing in order that something great might be achieved beyond oneself. See also height.
overflow Nietzsche uses this image to describe the external manifestations of great health and inner riches. He emphasizes, however, that actions that might initially appear similar may have very different motives, some driven by strength and others by weakness. The overflow of the great soul in creative efforts and generous deeds expresses strength and health, and it represents something of a Nietzschean ideal. Interestingly, here Nietzsche is borrowing an image from his religious background: Luther had emphasized that while good works would not earn one salvation, good works would be the “overflow” of God’s grace in the believer’s soul.
poison Nietzsche seems to have in mind the slow-acting type of poison that, once ingested, gradually overtakes one’s system. He contends that vindictive attitudes—not to mention the conception of human beings as understood in the Judeo-Christian moral vision—are of this sort. The consequence of ingesting such poison is that it invades one’s entire system, eventually infecting one’s health and one’s every thought.
ring Nietzsche’s references to a ring always appear against the background of Wagner’s account of the Ring of the Nibelungen, about a ring that was made from the gold of the Rhine and gave unlimited power to the person who possessed it. The gold used for the ring was cursed because it was stolen. The story of power struggles over the ring, and the successive ruin of everyone who comes to possess it, is the subject matter of Wagner’s four-part Ring cycle, comprised of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods). Nietzsche conjoins these Wagnerian associations with the image of the wedding ring in Zarathustra as well as with the “ring” shape of time according to the theory of eternal recurrence. Zarathustra weds eternity by conjoining himself with the ring of time; in effect, the human point of connection with eternity is this life in time. The ring of eternal recurrence recalls the ring of the Germanic myth in two respects. The person acquiring the “ring” of time gains power, the capacity for action and transformation in the present, but at the same time is assured that time will cause his or her ultimate destruction.
times of day Nietzsche follows the customary employment of times of day to represent distinct periods of an individual’s life, or the life of a people. Thus, high noon, or midday, represents the high point of energy and activity. Twilight suggests the imminence of night, when energy is in decline and the importance of the day’s concerns recede. Twilight is used with this intent in the title Twilight of the Idols, to suggest that the reign of what Nietzsche considers false gods in the West (including the Western conception of God) is about to end. (This title also puns on the title of Wagner’s opera Götterdämmerung, Twilight of the Gods.)
Midnight represents the silent moment in which one day gives way to another. Nietzsche describes midnight as “the stillest hour,” the point at which significant change occurs, even though it is hardly noted. He also uses midnight as a naturalistic image of temporal recurrence. The suggestion seems to be that the moment of midnight, which serves as a gateway between the previous day and the new day, shows us dramatically what is true of every moment: that the present is always new, but always drawn from the life that precedes it.
ugliness Nietzsche associates ugliness with Socrates, and he suggests that the thinker’s ugly countenance reflected ugliness of soul. “The Ugliest Man,” a character in part IV of Zarathustra, is described as the killer of God, who was moved to his crime because he could not stand God seeing his ugliness in every detail. Nietzsche insinuates that the Christian moral worldview has encouraged human beings to see themselves as hideous, and that God’s waning import in Western society may stem from a similar intolerance with our pathetic self-image.
under (down) Untergehen has multiple connotations in German. 1. It literally means “to go down, or under.” 2. Untergehen is also the verb used to describe the sun’s setting, a “going under” that hints at the sun’s reappearance. 3. It also means “to die” or “to perish.” 4. Nietzsche’s use of the term is informed by Wagner’s dramatic presentation of the “going-down” of the gods. Wagner’s presentation of the god Wotan’s self-willed destruction and the triumph of the hero Siegfried (as a representative of humanity) itself drew on Feuerbach’s image of the rejuvenation of humanity in the wake of the death of God. In this connection, Untergehen brings together Nietzsche’s idea of self-overcoming and the hope that humanity will assert its own natural power after the calamity of the death of God.
wandering Nietzsche advocates that the thinker avoid establishing a permanent “camp” with his or her positions. Instead, philosophy and scholarly disciplines generally should aim to keep wandering and exploring. Gilles Deleuze has emphasized this notion when he describes Nietzsche’s view as promoting “nomadic” thought.
water Nietzsche uses images of water for various purposes: to suggest the energetic flow of reality, and to characterize the human being’s situation, which requires navigation. He makes much of the ongoing movements of ocean waves, which surge forward as if on a mission. He suggests that our own acts of willing are like this, only meaningful inside their projects. Like waves, too, our endeavors dissipate, only to be replaced by new ones. “Water” can also refer to the waters of baptism, although the naturalistic references are more frequent.
weight See gravity.
wine Wine has multiple roles in Nietzsche’s imagery. 1. At times, when paired with bread, Nietzsche is alluding to the motif of Christian communion, in which wine, transformed into the blood of Jesus (or a symbol thereof) is ingested along with bread that has been transformed into Jesus’ body (or a symbol therof). 2. Wine is also the drink associated with Dionysus and the intoxicated frenzy of his votaries. Nietzsche associates the creative rapture of the artist with this frenzy. 3. In Apuleius’s book The Golden Ass, a satire that chronicles the spiritual development of a man who has misused magic and turned himself into an ass, the ass’s fortunes begins to turn around when he is discovered sipping wine from his masters’ pantry. In part IV of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, an ass is said to drink wine, apparently alluding to Apuleius’s satire. 4. Sometimes Nietzsche mentions wine in the everyday sense of a particular alcoholic beverage, though sometimes used to represent alcoholic beverages in general. In these contexts, he usually describes wine as a narcotic and the use of it as a symptom of declining life. He claims that a real enthusiast (a person filled with spirit) does not need wine.
“Yes and Amen” Nietzsche frequently uses this phrase, drawn from Christian usage, as a formula for expressing affirmation. “Amen” means “So be it,” or, in more Nietzschean terms, “Thus I will it.” Accordingly, “Yes and Amen” means “That is how it is, and I will it to be so,” precisely the state of mind that Nietzsche sees as characteristic of life-affirmation: amor fati.
“yes and no” Nietzsche uses this expression to indicate binary thinking. The formulation of any judgment requires some use of “yes and no,” in Nietzsche’s opinion. He objects, however, to those who are unconditional in their application of these judgments.