“Let us not become gloomy as soon as we hear the word ‘torture’”

The expression “Let us not become gloomy as soon as we hear the word ‘torture’” serves as an epigraph attributed to Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. Its significance lies in the tension it creates between the gravity of torture and the invitation to find something that might counterbalance it, even provoke laughter.

Wording and Source

The epigraph reads: “Let us not become gloomy as soon as we hear the word “torture”: in this particular case there is plenty to offset and mitigate that word—even something to laugh at.” The attribution names Friedrich Nietzsche and On the Genealogy of Morals. Its wording does not dismiss torture; it asks the reader to resist an immediate, uniformly grave response and points instead to circumstances that may complicate the word’s emotional force.

Irony and Tone

The sentence turns on a sharp tonal collision. “Torture” carries the weight of suffering, while the prospect of “something to laugh at” introduces levity without resolving that weight. The qualification “in this particular case” makes the claim conditional: the epigraph gestures toward an instance in which the usual response may be unsettled, rather than offering a general judgment about torture. That friction between horror and laughter gives the expression its ironic charge.

Placement

The epigraph appears after the dedication “For Lan and Ellison” and before the novel’s title. In that position, its invitation against immediate gloom acts as a threshold: the reader encounters the tension between brutality and laughter before entering the narrative. The excerpt itself does not identify what the “particular case” refers to, leaving the phrase’s application open at this point.