Analysis Of Nietzsche's Twilight Of The Idols

Fredrich Nietzsche’s father was a Lutheran pastor. However, Nietzsche’s father only lived until Nietzsche was five. After his father died, Nietzsche’s brother only lived for six more months and died at the age of two. Nietzsche attended boarding school and university in the hopes of becoming a minister like his father was. Although, after one semester at university of studying theology, Nietzsche had a crisis of faith. It was a delayed reaction to the death of his father and brother. He couldn’t come to terms with a God who would be willing to take both his father and his brother. Thus, he decided that God must be dead and started to search for another meaning. As Nietzsche explained to his sister, if looking for peace of mind follow faith, …show more content…
The Madman was written earlier on Nietzsche’s life; one could argue when he was a disillusioned youth. However, the Twilight of the Idols was written closer to the end of Nietzsche’s life or at least the end of his sanity. The Twilight of the Idols has more of an optimistic edge than the Madman did. The Twilight of the Idols relates to the idea that the sun is setting on the idols and they are also near their end. Examples of idols are the ideas of one standard of Truth, Morality, and Justice. All idols aspired to by different philosophers from the past. Descartes chased truth through bridging the gap between his mind and reality with God, Moses received morality through God, and Plato came to Justice through belief of his own personal God. Nietzsche’s assertions that God is dead is metaphorically pulling the rug from under these idols. They no longer have the foundation needed for these standards. In the Twilight of the Idols, “idols that are touched here with the hammer as with the tuning fork…none more assured, none more inflated…And none more hollow” the idols are weak. The idol is monolific. They no longer have their foundation and are only filled with “bloated innards” that only the individually weak believe in. These idols carry surface cracks as they are too archaic to stand tall in today’s society. Even though these idols are so disconnected from society, they are more believed than they should be. Those who believe in the ideas behind these idols, fail to recognize that these are idols and instead believe them to be absolute