He Who Fights With Monsters…
Quote
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Examples
Animal Farm
This is one of the best examples I can come up with where the implications of this quote shown. In this case, the pigs start out as the brains behind all of the farm animals’ rebellion, but as time goes on, they adopt the lifestyle and greed of the humans that originally lived there.
See: Animal Farm
Counter Examples
Using Google Gemini, I came across these following examples of literary characters that resist falling too deeply into the abyss such that they can’t get out. These characters are ones that I have personal experience with in books that I’ve read:
- Harry Potter in: Harry Potter Series
- Atticus Finch in: To Kill a Mockingbird
- Samwise Gamgee in: The Lord of the Rings Series
Comments From The Internet
Comment Explanation
Nietzsche loved playing with the ideas of origin, identity, and genealogy.
So.
When you stare into an abyss, you are assuming the position of the observer. A singular and relatively simple and straightforward identity. You’re the regular-person ogler staring into whatever the abyss is. I always imagined it being a giant, bottomless crater-like pit. As you gaze on, you are giving yourself a primary identity, and, to the abyss, a secondary, observable identity. You are the watcher; the abyss is the watched.
As the abyss also stares into you, you are the abyss creates an identity for you. And you can’t control it. You are no longer you when you’re being looked at by someone (or something) else. As it gazes into you, your own identity as an observer begins to shake, crumble, and fall apart.
— SlipperyPolishPickle Reddit Link