An Analysis of Chesterton and Nietzsche Imagine the lame giant of the Victorian age stumbling in the darkness, wrestling with an invisible adversary. He releases the crushing grip of a hand from his throat only to discover that hand is his. Imagine two explorers on opposite sides of a large ocean. The anchors are weighed and each explorer sets out to see just beyond the horizon, to sail beyond the sunset. They collide amidships in the fog and midnight breeze, but continue their journey. They reach the land, speak words of praise and thanks, plant their flags and stake their claims only to find that each of them has returned to "conquer" their homeland. GK Chesterton and Friedrich Nietzsche undertook cyclical journeys. Using their explorations in "Orthodoxy" and Beyond Good and Evil, their paths can be mapped towards self-discovery. There is a dynamic relationship in examining and understanding their similar philosophical motivations and resulting overlapping arguments. Both launch ferocious attacks on reason; they hide their ultimate meanings through complexity: one through paradox, the other with the metaphor of the mask; both advocate the awakening of a childlike sense of wonder and, ultimately, base their ethical systems on courage. Using the same philosophical tools, each thinker carves out a completely unique niche in intellectual history: one within the framework of Orthodox Christianity, the other as the ancestor of modern existential thought. Chesterton placed "Orthodoxy" in the context of a personal statement of faith. and as a reply to Mr. G. S. Street's criticism of his previous work "Heretics". Street argued that "Heretics" did not provide the reader with... middle of the paper... lexicity, it may be impossible to tell whether GK Chesterton was secretly laughing, beneath his paradoxes, whether Nietzsche was sneering behind the mask. Works Cited Chesterton, GKGK Chesterton: Collected Works. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986.---. The literature of the Victorian age. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962. Hill, Kent R. “The Sweet Grace of Reason: The Apologetics of G. K. Chesterton.” Rpt. Into the Enigma of Joy.Michael MacDonald and Andrew A Tadie Eds. Grand Rapids Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989.Hollis, Christopher. Chesterton goalkeeper. London: Longman, Greens & Co., 1964. Lea, F. A. Modern Christian Revolutionaries. Donald Atwater Ed. New York: The Devin-Adair Co., 1947. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond good and evil. Walter Kaufmann trans. New York: Random House, 1989.