Wendy Sze 108349841 PHI247 Professor Hyde The idea of eternal return is the idea of how the time

recurs in the universe infinitely and has been recurring. I know that I could not have been alone in feeling nothing toward this idea upon first hearing it, however, Nietzsche took in this idea and made it the central idea of much of his work. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 1900) was fascinated with the idea of eternal return, though it only occurred at first as a part of a thought in his writing, a hypothetical question more than anything. The proposition he made, which he claimed could change the way one thinks of and lives life, has been described as Nietzsches thought experiment. He presents his hypothetical question of eternal return in The Gay Science, as though a demon comes to curses someone to live their life exactly as it is again and again, experiencing the same feelings and sequence of all events, such as a spider crawling nearby, and the moonlight shining in this way, even the demon himself appearing as he did just then. Nietzsche asks, Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine! If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become favorably inclined to thyself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing? (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 341) The essential question being asked is how would one react to being given this fate? If life were to recur endlessly, how would one be able to go through with it? I imagine eternal return as being trapped to watch ones life helplessly on repeat countless times. One would not be able to change anything, and would still feel the same feelings as they were experienced, since they were ones own life. What I find most interesting, is that Nietzsche basically asks if there was ever a time so great, a tremendous moment, where one would have been glad and even thankful for eternal return; for being able to experience it not only once more, but for all eternity. Reliving life endlessly can be viewed as both a gift and a curse to Nietzsche, as he called this the heaviest burden. The last sentence of the passage above is Nietzsches best guess at the best way to go through with eternal return. Eternal return is the major theme and problem of the film Groundhog Day, though it is not the same criteria for eternal return as Nietzsches ideas. The film follows a day in the life of Phil Connors,

specifically Groundhog Day, as he experiences the same day over and over again, waking up every single morning at 6am on February 2nd. Groundhog Day has a different take on eternal return, as it only follows a single day, but they key difference besides this is that Phil keeps his consciousness of the eternal return. He is completely aware of the fact that he is reliving this day again and again, unable to escape. Another noteworthy difference is that he was able to kill himself and in general, is able to change what happens through the day, as opposed to Nietzsches eternal return to the same life. Phil Connors takes steps forward and backward in his development throughout the film, but the most fascinating thing about the film is that it is the thought process of a real human being through actually being stuck in Nietzsches thought experiment, but with a way out in the end. The films parallels to Nietzsches thought experiment are not exact, but uncanny and can be used to sum up the way Nietzsche might have thought through his own thought experiment. Phil Connors begins the film an arrogant, self-important, sexist and self-righteous man, who at first thinks of his eternal return as strange dj vu and uses a broken pencil to test if tomorrow ever happens, which it doesnt. He even gets an appointment with a psychiatrist for tomorrow. He stops and thinks to himself that he would have rather gotten a different day to repeat, one where he was happy on vacation, Why couldnt I get that day? Over and over, exactly as Nietzsche described a tremendous moment. Phil even proposes the thought experiment to a pair of friends asking them, What would you do if you were stuck in one place and everyday was exactly the same, and nothing you did mattered? (Groundhog Day)The viewer sees Phil go through a phase of doing whatever he wants because it doesnt matter he essentially gave in to the ideas of nihilism. He was doing anything and everything his heart desired again and again, to the point where it wasnt enough for him anymore. Nietzsche did not have the purpose of driving anyone into nihilism, though the notion of it in this thought process is almost inevitable. One of the ways to interpret this thought experiment is definitely, what then is the point of any choice for any reason? Despite being so focused on how nothing mattered and how nothing had meaning, he found himself looking eventually for meaning in something, something he felt was important. For him, that thing was love. He begins to want to experience reiterations of the day just to find love and find his tremendous moment. The most important development in Phil was that his reasons for doing what he did changed from self-centered reasons, to doing things for other people. Although this came later in his search for love, he developed compassion for the people of Punxsutawney. He met most of the people in the town and began to do good things for them, beginning with the old beggar man when he realized that every

day that he has been reliving, this man has died by the end of it. He tries to do everything that he can to figure out what he could do to keep this man alive by the end of the day, giving this mans life, and all the lives of the people of Punxsutawney a real value to him. When Nietzsche wrote, Perhaps the very renunciation will also furnish us with the strength with which the renunciation itself can be borne; perhaps man will ever rise higher and higher from that point onward, when he no longer goes out into a God, it was meant to show that people should become better so that they would not have look to God for their salvation, but to be better for themselves and others. (Nietzsche The Gay Science, 285)With becoming better, and enduring eternal return Nietzsche believes, To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means against the fact of pain (pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure...); the enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity; abolition of the "will"; abolition of "knowledge-in-itself." (Nietzsche The Will to Power, 1060) This passage relates strongly back to the previous passage from The Gay Science, where one must be able to embrace what comes and what already is, as in the events that happen and the self it happens to. Both of the ways Phil develops, finding a better reason to live his life and a better way to view his life, come down to the fact that Phil has to accept that this is the way his life is, and that it is up to him to make the best of it all. In other words, he had to accept his everything about his fate and embrace it. Phil emerges in the end of the film a changed man a man who has completely reevaluated the way he lives his life, who is completely ready to live the next day when it finally came, and is happy with the way he lived the day before. Nietzsche believes this is the way peoples lives would change for the better when given this thought experiment, and the film is an example of the struggle with coming to these conclusions, it is what would crush thee.

Works Cited Groundhog Day. Dir. Harold Ramis. Perf. Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell. Columbia Pictures, 1993. DVD. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Walter Arnold Kaufmann. The Gay Science. 1st ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1974. Print. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Walter Arnold Kaufmann. The Will to Power. Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. Print.