Groundhog Day: On the two metamorphoses

Groundhog Day’s main character experiences a spirit transformation from a camel to a child not by having to become a lion and bit the dragon but by being confronted to an eternal repeat of the same day. You may think that what I say is completely crazy: if the animal thing is a complete nonsense to you it just means that you haven’t done your philosophy homework and it is bad!!So go read the “thus says Zarathustra” prologue. It’s really small and you will be able to understand what I am talking about.  

Until the eternal return of the 2^nd of February Phil Connors is a camel: he is burdened by his work

duty, by his social duty and by the image he has to give to the audience.  It prevents him from acknowledging some of his feelings like the fact that he loves Rita. He is neglecting the value of life by denying his passions.

But then the 2^nd of February doesn’t end, it repeats itself: God id dead, death is dead, future is dead. So he is also dead as a human being who has to follow the ethical rules, the traditional rules of the dragon.  This situation, with much more effectiveness than the tragedy, reveals to Phil Collins that the “truth” that tomorrow is going to happen is a man’s construction.  Phil Collins enters in the affirmation of life stage with an authentic self-relation not by being confronted to death but by being confronted to the death of the future.  But it is not a coincidence if this situation has the same effect than having to face death. When Nietzsche says that the Greeks were able, thanks to the tragic poetry, to face death actually it means that they were able to see the futility of the everyday life, the futility of everyday society rules although we are still mortal.  And the future’s end also signifies that the everyday life behavior rules don’t have any importance.  Life is nothing because it stays the same.

 The difference between Nietzsche’s theory of the three metamorphoses of the spirit and what occurred in Groundhog Day is that Phil Collins transforms straight from a camel to a child. Phil Collins doesn’t provoke the future’s end. This situation just happens without Phil consents and it cuts Phil free from his traditional duty.  It avoids him to fight for his freedom. He doesn’t become a lion and doesn’t clash with the dragon (the dragon is the power of the tradition which keep on saying “thou shalt”) because the eternal repeat of the same day just gives to Phil the possibility to be the master of his life, without having to pay the consequences of his actions in front of the dragon.

Thus, after astonishment the reaction of Phil Connors is to consider the fact that he is delivered from the consequences of his actions. He will then start doing whatever he wants to. He enters in the “everything is permitted” stage.  The world where people are judging you in regard to some fixed values is abolished.  He becomes a child: he plays with the persons; he tries almost everything he can. However, rapidly he gets bored because doing what he can is not necessarily doing what he truly wants. He wants to construct something new. He constructs his own new self who is accepting his feelings, his passions. He constructs a self that is helpful for the other person, that is loved by Rita and who accepts being loved.  That is the pure creation stage of Nietzsche in an individual scale: he creates his own new values to affirm his life.