Absurdism In Albert Camus's The Myth Of Sisyphus

Albert Camus’s novel, The Stranger is regarded to the philosophical ideas of Existentialism, yet seems to also incorporate Absurdist tenets throughout the book that show ideals of being a unique type of individual with different actions that society disagrees with.

The focus developed to be more personal rather than the crime he had committed. The trial was meant for Meursault to reflect his life of guiltiness but Meursault denied all his actions, and it was later that the prosecutor had come to a consensus to sentence Meursault to death. That was when I believed Meursault realized the idea that death was the one inevitable face of human life. He was for once afraid of death, and that death symbolized the society’s punishment for what he has done. Furthermore, the prosecution in the form of guillotine brought fear to Meursault’s life.

Meursault manager told him that he lacked ambition (41). He was caught up in the monotony of life, and before he knew it all he had taken for granted was soon taken from him. Meursault's imprisonment is physical as it is metaphoric. It's in prison that he accepts death and wishes through his execution that those that watch him will in turn learn that regardless of how one lives their life death comes for everyone. Meursault comes to the conclusion that it is only through an execution that life can truly be valued.

After Meursault was pronounced guilty and to be beheaded, the chaplain talks to him in his prison cell. Meursault rejects the chaplain’s offer of salvation, causing the chaplain to have an outburst. Eventually, Meursault snaps and starts throwing a temper tantrum, insulting the chaplain. After this tantrum, he realizes, “It was as if I had waited all this time for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to be vindicated. Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why” (Camus 121).

Meursault fully accepts his fate and understands his situation. In a truly absurdist fashion he rationalizes his position where no meaning can be found. He was condemned by his society because he was seen as a stranger. In the beginning Meursault is listening for footsteps, thinking of escape, what he will do after and what he should have done before. However, talking to the priest aggravates him with the talk of God and divine justice, when it is human justice that condemns him. Meursault’s outburst of anger causes him to lose hope in living. Unlike the priest who seems so sure of everything but as a human he cannot, Meursault is sure of himself and in the truth, as he always has been. (He is sure in the truth that he is going to die) In this

At this point in the novel, Meursault offers no explanation for his belief in the equality of human lives. In the novel’s final chapter, he identifies death as the force responsible for the constant and unchangeable nature of human life. A comparison of this quotation to Meursault’s ideas following his death sentence highlights Meursault’s development as a character whose understanding of the human condition deepens as a result of his experiences.

Suffering at the Helping Hands of Society Stemming from their ancient origins and continuing into the modern day, societal standards and moral codes have greatly influenced the development of cultures, nations, and individuals throughout world history. While some believe that these standards are meant to be broken, others feel that breaking these social codes will result in the downfall of the individual. This is the idea that absurdist and existentialist author Albert Camus depicted in his novel, The Stranger. In his novel, The Stranger, author Albert Camus employs the use of point of view in order to convey the idea that those who fail to conform to social standards and moral codes will ultimately fall victim to their societal ineptitudes.

The absurd is a very detailed concept. Camus has this idea that by accepting that life has no meaning, and being aware of this fact, a person can find happiness in a purposeless life. This is the idea that life is absurd, that we are all here living a meaningless life and being aware of it, and continuing to live. Recognizing absurdity means asking “What is the point of doing anything?” Once a person becomes lucid

Facing his imminent death, he realizes that humans could never know if the universe has inherent value and because of death, nothing matters in life other than living itself. The importance of life can only be seen with the anticipation of death. This realization Meursault undergoes is his confrontation with the absurd. Meursault reflects on his indifferent life and realizes that the universe is equally indifferent to himself. Knowing this, Meursault begins to understand that all humans should defiantly continue to search for meaning, even if the universe will never present one. This revolution from one's own fate can be seen with Meursault famous last words before his death, “for everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate" (Camus 123). This ultimately shows how each individual is responsible for their own acts of free will, whether it be good or bad. Meursault decides at the end to act as if his actions mattered, while simultaneously knowing nothing he could ever do would

The prosecution uses Meursault’s collected matter and disconnection from what a majority of society would see as personal and emotional events as reasoning to explain that Meursault doesn’t have a sole. Everything that Meursault says to anyone is the truth because he doesn’t see why he would lie about any of it and yet every time that he is honest about what happened and how he feels about it, everyone watching the trial seems to think less and less of him. Society wanted a son that wept at his mother’s funeral even when he did not feel sad or distraught. They wanted a murderer who repented for what they did and put on a big show of asking for forgiveness. It wouldn’t matter if it was true or not as long as it was convincing enough but when somebody said that they wouldn’t play along with that idea when that wasn’t how he was, they demonized him. Humans want a nice, easy idea of what a human behaves like so that they can put everyone in a box and if somebody doesn’t fit into that box, they are expected to pretend that they do. They are expected by society to find a way to bury the ‘strange’ and settle down in the box built for them so that everyone can be packed away together in a nice, neat order. This is the type of thinking that prevails within societies all over the world and is a major theme that shows

What if our past has no importance and the only point in our life that really counts is that point in which is occurring at the moment? Thus, when existence is over, life is also over; The expectation of some sort of redemption from a god is useless. Albert Camus demonstrates his absurdist view of the world in The Stranger, through the protagonist, Meursault. His absurdist view on the world is portrayed by how one simply exists in a world physically and consequently the absence or presence of significance in one 's life is only revealed through that event in which we are undergoing at a specific moment. Camus presents this topic of absurdist in conjunction to several themes, using imagery and symbols.

One concept of existentialism is the Absurd. French philosopher, Albert Camus, was concerned about the human condition. Individuals desire to have a life full of meaning, and for many people, they will devote their entire life trying to find it. However, there are downsides to the human condition, because humans seek rational answers to the philosophical questions they ask. It causes them to look at the universe and expect the universe to provide them with such answers. Even though they receive no response, they persist looking. Thus the Absurd arises. In Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus, he uses the Absurd to describe the “...confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” (Camus 28). It describes a vicious cycle where individuals fail to find answers in the universe, but still continue looking. What humans fail to understand is that life itself is meaningless, and so is the universe. Individuals will eventually die, so whatever gives them a purpose to live, will vanish when they cease to exist. In terms of the universe, it is meaningless in a sense that it provides no fixed guidelines for how an individual should live their life. Thus, it is absurd or irrational for people to keep searching for answers to questions that the universe could not possibly provide.

Morality is a fascinating topic that has no concrete rules. It is a game created by man, where the rules exist only within the human psyche. When humans do not play the game, we end up with situations like Meursault’s who is sentenced to having his “head cut off in a public square in the name of the French people” (107) after being found guilty of killing an Arab man. However, the murder is not what earns him the death sentence, but instead his controversial outlook on life that defies the norm of human morality. Meursault is condemned to die because he does not convene to the game the humanity.

In Camus’s major works, ‘absurdism’ was a frequent subject. The term ‘absurdism’ refers to a feud or conflict between our expectations or ideals and reality. Among his widely praised works, the “The Stranger” and “The myth of Sisyphus” can be read as an example of the absurdism. “The Stranger” is a story of an insensitive individual man, who lives for the

Among the many casualties of World War II was the surviving populace’s faith in the previously unshakable institutions they had defined so much of their life around. Formerly vaunted, unquestionable axes of life - religion, national pride, community life - had been irreversibly stripped of their unquestioned status. One would assume that the dissipation of such illusions would be up the alley of part-time philosopher and full-time writer Albert Camus, who had eloquently laid out his opinions on such human constructs in his Myth of Sisyphus. Much like the cursed king of Greek myth, man’s search for meaning in an absurd world was an endless and fruitless task, doomed to go on forever. Abandoning reason to place one’s faith in an imaginary God or supposedly immutable calling was a worthless effort: one should embrace their own life and live it within one’s own boundaries. Paradoxically enough, the descent of the Nazi war machine upon Europe, and with it the rejection of those leaps of faith, caused camus Myth and devoted himself to resisting the terror of Fascism, a struggle symbolically represented in his novel La Peste (The Plague) by the sleepy Algerian town of Oran and its struggle against a deadly outbreak. In a sense, Camus moved past the personal and perpetual rebellion against the Absurd to confront a ephemeral and collective threat no less existential. Unlike the lone absurd hero of the Myth, who much like Sisyphus we must imagine to be happy even in the face of