I.A  The  superman or the overman is one of the most problematic concepts in Nietzsche's writing which due to its openness and its ambiguity, and yet centrality , functions as a key concept on which each interpreter builds his own interpretation of Nietzsche's texts. Pearson's essay ‘'The Superman'' tries to with a close reading of Nietzsche's aphorisms to clear the ambiguity that envelopes this concept and focuses on its necessity and human possibility leaving open space to question the extent to which the overman is not tainted with a metaphysical trace. Juxtaposing Pearson's reading of the overman to Nietzsche's chapter "The Seven Seals''  will help us understand and rethink Pearson's conclusions of the Nietzschian overman.

Pearson identifies from the outset a major difficulty in reconciling the two conflicting forces that Nietzsche's overman seems to be embodying: the significance of  concentrating on what is humanly possible ,and the imperative of becoming something other than human (84) suggesting thus a transition and a reliance on a new causality , that of the overman. The first part of ‘'The Seven Seals''  invokes this sense of intermediacy which Zarathustra seems to embody with his wandering ‘'on a high ridge between seas, wandering like a heavy cloud between past and future....prepared for lightening and the redemptive flash, pregnant with lightening bolts that say Yes and laugh Yes''(340). The dilemma of being both a lover of the earth and a celebrator of the human energy rejoicing the death of God, and at the same time advocating what seems to be a new metaphysical idol which prevents us from being content with the ‘'animal certitudes of our existence'' is embodied in the ‘'betweenness'' which Zarathustra illustrates in his pregnancy and his wandering between seas. Though cherishing this faith of giving birth to lightening bolts requires some kind of intuition that can be easily mixed up with a metaphysical trust, the driving force that makes this faith ‘'human'' is simply the connotation of a futurity that is undefined and unfinished which all we know about is its ‘'yeses''. Overcoming the self, overcoming the creation of good and evil, overcoming the individual are all different ways to think about the overman as Pearson illustrates in his explication of morality in Nietzsche. These overcomings which are prescribed as necessary processes to reach (if one really believes it is a static goal in the first place) the overman, sound like obligatory stages of renunciation and do not fail to invoke a heaviness and seriousness of a great task, maybe even a new good and evil as Pearson indicates (88). It is this gravity that nauseates  Nietzsche and makes him emphasize over and over again the laugh and the dance, and Pearson goes even further to claim ‘'it is from Zarathustra ‘s efforts to outwit the spirit of gravity that he gives birth to the word Ubermensch''(88). The significance of self-parody and mockery in ‘'The Seven Seals'' is  a key to understand the chapter, and it is  intensified by the fact that this chapter itself seems to be written as a self parody of the whole third part of the book, especially taking into consideration the previous two chapters ‘'On The Great Longing'' and ‘'The Other Dancing Song'' in which Zarathustra's deep apathy and grief in the first combined with the disappointment in the second seem to threaten the whole project of self-overcoming, not just on a metaphysical level but also on a Nietzschian level since it invokes both the nostalgia for a  metaphysical beyond and the inability to reconcile with life, with all its fluctuations and uncertainties. Zarathustra 's obsessive repetition of  "Oh, how should I not lust for after eternity and after the nuptial ring of rings, the ring of recurrence? Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love: for I love you, O eternity. For I love you, O eternity!'' which is used against Nietzsche by many commentators, especially feminists because of its advocation of a self-reproduction that excludes the other female, deserves more attention regarding its usage and its functioning in the chapter. This insistence on repeating the same love confession and affirmation  does not invoke a belief in its truthfulness, on the contrary it cannot but alert us to its emptiness and its falsehood. There is an attempt to conjure this belief in eternity making its verbal compulsiveness transform it magically into a reality. Moreover, despite the fact that recurrence seems to prevail in all the parts of the chapter perceived with a favorable light, the final note that stamps every part seems to parody it.  Part five in particular seems to be playing loose with two different oppositional entities: unrestricted sailing and becoming, and the eternity prayer. Here it is useful to pause and consider again the overman since he is the promise of becoming and futurity in Nietzsche and he is what constitutes man as a bridge and not as eternity. What Pearson designates as the overman is ‘'the new human type that has digested the news of God's death, seeks to practice the gay science, and renounces the metaphysics of morality'' (92) seems to allude to a Zarathustra like figure who is a ‘'type'' of the great health(85). But can we think of the eternity prayer in ‘'The Seven Seals'' as other than parody and still believe that Zarathustra might be exemplifying the overman? And what are we to make of Zarathustra's being a bridge and at the same time a suggested ‘'type'' of the overman? Does Zarathustra really abide by his own teachings? The only way to look for an affirmation is to follow Zarathustra's own advice to read him with his own ‘' alpha and omega‘' -this might be one of the remarkable spots where Zarathustra clarifies his codes, then we will adopt the laughing sarcasm of part six and sing with him the prayer of eternity only to hollow it and make it light . To dissolve the gravity and the spirit of idealization that seem to permeate the third part of his book, Nietzsche purposefully ends up with the bird-wisdom note that emphatically rejects the ideal ''Behold, there is no above, no below! Throw yourself around, out, back, you who are light! Sing! Speak no more! Are not all words made for the grave and heavy? Are not all words lies to those who are light? Sing! Speak no more!''(343). The bird-wisdom clashes with the eternity prayer and mocks it, but how are we supposed to think of recurrence and overcoming, without eternity? And is the problem which we encounter a problem of interpretation, or a problem of speech? Nietzsche ‘s overman with all his ambiguities seems to be the one who would sing and mocks the spirit of gravity, becomes without idealizing his goal and always ,always belong to the future which would make of  him an eternal bridge- we may venture to ask?