ABSTRACT
Zarathustra is indeed 'a question mark, / a tired riddle', but in the carnival of Part IV, the tired masks fall to reveal an exclamation mark hiding behind every question mark. In this carnival atmosphere of caricature and parody, of metaphor and meaning, of release and revelation, Zarathustra unburdens his soul, and the reader is afforded a comprehensive and interactive view of those multiple selves – previously seen only in isolation – which jointly but not severally constitute the character called Zarathustra. The heroic human being is at bottom a man of ressentiment, a man 'whose strength lies in forgetting himself; and one recalls how Zarathustra's two attempted acts of heroism in Part III fail as a result of self-recollection. Zarathustra is wont to forget himself when intellectual conscience inspires vanity and moral idealism or when his proud and clever animals occupy the affective space recently vacated by his higher men.
