What are Three Metamorphoses in The Madman
To explain why the population in the Madman was not ready to accept his message yet, it is important to first explore the three metamorphoses, because it represents the stages of human growth.
Presentation of the three metamorphoses
Camel: The camel is represented as the beast of burden. He follows the paths that are already made and will not make effort in creating his own. He is ready to suffer to get what he wants. The camel will not think outside the box, and he will not doubt what people say. He takes everything upon him and sees everything in black and white.
The lion: The lion is someone who will fight for freedom, but he will do so by warding off predators. The lion is so busy preying and protecting himself, that he will forget to think for himself. The lion will only fight outsiders, and not necessarily think more deeply about his actions. He tries to fight with the great dragon, thou shalt. The dragon represents god, since every one of his scales says thou shalt on it. The dragon says that "AIl value of aIl things shines on me. AIl value has long been created, and 1 am aIl created value. Verily, there shall be no more '1 will:" (Nietzsche 139). People should stop thinking for themselves, and instead, they should follow god and the path that god created for them. The lion is skeptical about god and will always try to fight him off, but he will not succeed, which is why he is not a child.
The child: The child is the ultimate stage that one could get to. Unlike all others, the child says I will. He unleashes himself completely from god and does not let any intruders affect him. "The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred ' Yes' "(Nietzsche 139) The child forgets about the dragon and starts propelling himself towards a new future and a better version of himself. The child is his own God and nothing could possibly affect him. In the Madman, by Nietzsche, a madman comes into a crowd and yells that God is dead. People all think that he is mad and ignore him. The madman says " We have killed him-you and I." (Nietzsche 181). He goes on by saying that “ …we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward. sideward. forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? "(Nietzsche 181) He says that the earth has nothing to revolve around anymore since we unchained ourselves from the sun, and thus, we have nothing to revolve around anymore. Realizing that the people are not understanding his message, he drops his lantern and says that he has come too early because people are not ready for his message yet.
Nietzsche also says: "The man who breaks their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker; yet he is the creator". (Nietzsche 134) This quote alludes to the ten commandments, and the people who are willing to stop following these rules and start creating their own commandments. People who break their table of values stop following God’s orders, and start thinking for themselves. Just like the madman said, if we unchain ourselves from the sun, we will no longer have anything to rely on and thus, we will be going in all directions. That is why we need to become our own God and learn to revolve around ourselves, and start taking control of our own lives, just like the child does. The child is a self-propelled wheel. He does not need something to rely on, but instead he pushes himself to go further and further since he is his own wheel.
In this aphorism, the madman eventually drops his lantern, after realizing that people do not understand his message. All hope is lost, and so, he concludes that he has come too early. Even if he thinks that he has come too early, he still says that we have killed God. This means that he believes that one day, we will go under and learn to become a child. We will become our own gods. The population in the Madman represents the camel. They might not believe in God, but deep down, they acknowledge his existence, even if they are not necessarily adepts of a certain religion. This can be explained by the fact that they live among people who do believe in God, and so, by always having that idea around them, they end up accepting the idea that some powerful force could possibly exist. That is why they thought the madman was mad when he told them that God was dead. They ignored him since in they are camels and they are satisfied with not knowing the truth.
