“Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman — a rope over an abyss.”
One of the most recognizable figures in Nietzchean philosophy is the Overman or Ubermensch. (The use of the translation Superman has fallen out of favor in the wake of its connotation to an even more recognizable figure sharing the moniker.) He represents the next level of evolution (thus, a rope or bridge) for mankind; a representative of a worldview that rejects the slave morality of the past.
Innocent Corruption
Nietzsche distinguishes corrupting influences into two camps: the direct guilty sort that active seeks to undermine the system and the innocent corruption which arises from an absence of notice or action to stop it. In describing innocent corruption, he fasten two similes to create a metaphor:
“In all institutions into which the sharp breeze of public criticism does not penetrate an innocent corruption grows up like a fungus”
Why Nietzsche is Wise
In the section titled “Why I am So Wise” Nietzsche justifies accusations made against him of being unfairly personal is scathing attacks upon others by engaging the power of the comparison in a simile:
“I use a personality merely as a magnifying-glass, by means of which I render a general, but elusive and scarcely noticeable evil, more apparent.”
Beethoven's Melodies
Amidst all the philosophical musing on the issue of slave morality, God being deceased and Supermen it can be easy to forget that Nietzsche is one of the greatest entertainment critics of all time. His affection for Beethoven is made clear in a surprisingly fragile metaphorical image on the subject of how the composer went about creating his melodies:
“He stores them together like a bee, snatching here and there some notes or a short phrase.”
“Similes, are all names of good and evil; they do not speak out, they only hint.”
Leave it to Nietzsche to create a metaphor out of the actual word “simile.” What is especially interesting about this metaphorical characterization of the use of a literary device for making a comparison is that elsewhere Nietzsche seems to implicate the simile even more starkly as a device to avoid when possible:
"By images and similes we convince, but we do not prove. That is why science has such a horror of images and similes."
