Nietzsche's Zarathustra: An Internal-External Dialectic Representing the Rediscovered Self of Modern Man

Author: Pei-Jing (Came) Li(Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University)

Abstract：

Nietzsche's Zarathustra embodies modern man's endogenous quest, instead of an exogenous one, to rediscover his self as a dynamic balance between opposites, an in-ternal-external dialectic. On a deeper and more psychological level, Zarathustra not on-ly provides a genuine insight into the dilemma of the human condition but also portrays an exorcising power, helping us overcome the ontological predicament of our own hu-man existence.
The first section of this paper will deal with the spiritual dilemma of modern man and the fundamental contradictions lying in the self. The second section will be con-cerned with Nietzsche's use of parody as a reflection of the self dialectic. The third section will delineate Zarathustra as the rediscovered self, an exorcising power on the ontological predicament of human existence. As a matter of fact, Zarathustra embodies an integration/reconciliation of Apollonian and Dionysian perspectives, that is, the op-posites within the self. In other words, Zarathustra represents a dynamic organism, an internal-external dialectic.

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