Camus ' Argument That Life Is Meaningless Essay

The existentialism of Albert Camus is based on his view of life as the Absurd. This sense of the Absurd derives from the realization that man is destined to die, as if being punished for a crime he never committed. There is no reprieve, and this makes life absurd (Peyre). There is no God in Camus’s conception, and those who hope for an afterlife are thus to be disappointed. Camus understood that the fact that there is no God also means that there is no meaning or purpose to life outside of living life to the fullest, and that there is a destined end. The one saving grace in the world seems to be the fact that while there is no God on which man can depend, man can live as if he can depend on his fellow man, even though he and they will all die (Sprintzen). This is another absurdity, but it is based on the fact that the

Camus states in The Myth of Sisyphus: "Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death, and I refuse suicide. " "Revolt" here refers to the refusal of suicide and search for meaning despite the revelation of the Absurd; "Freedom" refers to the lack of imprisonment by religious devotion or others' moral codes; "Passion" refers to the most wholehearted experiencing of life, since hope has been rejected, and so he concludes that every moment must be lived fully. The naked truth of inevitability of death and stumbling upon a meaning of life (at least for one's own self) and revolting against the whole blind world, surely tranquilizes the mind.

Everyone will die. Meursault’s awareness of death contributes to his nonchalant attitude toward every death he witness or must endure in The Stranger. Death fails to upset Meursault. In The Stranger, Albert Camus emphasizes mortality in order to expose the ignorance humanity has towards the inevitable or unknown end.

In Albert Camus novel, The Stranger (The Outsider), the main character Meursault displays a unique indifference to his surroundings and the world around him. It takes him a degree of time to come to terms with his indifference, but when he does he feels truly free from society's constricting bonds. He leads an apathetic lifestyle that is characterized by his constant lack of a definitive personality. Meursault wanders through life as if in a drunken stupor, living the life of a pleasure seeker. When he accepts his death he is relieved of the pressure of dealing with guilt and with relationships towards other people.

Finding the meaning of life has been an endeavor undertaken by countless philosophers with almost no uniformity from their answers. Ranging from promises of eternal life, to the belief that life has no meaning at all, Albert Camus, a French philosopher, offers his own unique view on the matter. In Camus’ novel The Stranger, he uses the beach scene where Meursault, the main character, kills an Arab in order to signify that life definitely has a meaning at times, albeit with absurd implications.

The core idea of Albert Camus’ philosophy of absurdity centralizes upon the idea that humans exist in a meaningless universe, and follows that humans must simply accept this fact to live life to the fullest. In addition to this absurdist notion, Albert Camus also uses The Stranger to show how humans still strive to create superficial meaning to fulfill their own personal needs. Through the experiences and interactions in Meursault’s life, Camus illustrates that in spite of how events in life follow no rational order, society attempts to futilely create meaning to explain human existence.

This may sound depressing but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to do anything in life, it is yours to live. You aren’t destined to do great things,there are no secrets about you,you are you and nothing more.That means there is no path set out for you.So anything you accomplish anything you become will truly be your own. "As if that blind rage has washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, I that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much life myself - so like a brother, really - I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. 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.(122)” This is where Camus’s message shows the most and summarizes what he is trying to convey. Life owes you nothing but you also owe nothing to life. All the confines of our lives are imaginary and although we do not feel free, nothing is holding us back but ourselves. This book has helped me discover that the meaning of life is truly what you want it to

Camus explanations of the Myth of Sisyphus, presented the concept of the absurd by outlining the beliefs that an individuals life has worth but only his live in a world that denies such worth to survive. Therefore, the absurdity in the statement, explains the fact of a clash between the orders through which an individuals mind hard for, likewise the lack of order that we as humans find in the world.

In this novel, Camus sets the story in Oran, Algeria, coincidently , where he grew up. He describes the town as dull, boring, and soulless almost. “ The town itself, let us admit, is ugly”. (Camus, p. 1) The author is showing us that there is nothing really special about Oran, or in existentialist terms, the people don’t make Oran special. Their only concern, or their only focus, was conducting what they called “business”; nothing more. However, the main protagonist, Dr. Rieux, was one of the few in his society to actually question, what is the true definition of life? He seemed like he was the only one that realized that Oran was missing just this; life. He was curious what was a person’s or an individual’s purpose in this dry town. When masses of dead rats were lining the street, the public showed little curiosity with, of course, the exception of the doctor. As the plague soon hit, the attitudes of the public had miniscule change.

Life is often interpreted by many as having meaning or purpose. For people who are like Meursault, the anti-hero protagonist of Albert Camus' The Stranger, written in 1942, the world is completely without either. Camus' story explores the world through the eyes of Meursault, who is quite literally a stranger to society in his indifference to meaning, values, and morals. In this novel, this protagonist lives on through life with this indifference, and is prosecuted and sentenced to die for it. Through Meursault and his ventures in The Stranger, Camus expresses to the reader the idea that the world is fundamentally absurd, but that people will react to absurdity by attaching meaning to it in vain, despite the fact that the world, like

Albert Camus is a famous writer who discusses a wide variety of topics in his works. His account of the myth of Sisyphus touches on a topic that most writers are either afraid of or unwilling to talk about. This is the issue of suicide and how to deal with it as an individual and as a community. The principal point in the story by Camus is the presence of absurdity in our very existence. The presence of life and all living things that we are aware of is an absurdity according to Camus, who questions the plausibility of some people considering suicide to be the best solution to this absurdity. Having an understanding of the elements of nature that make up our world does not mean that it will ever be possible to understand—and fully appreciate—the reasons why our world is as it is. Whether one believes in God and the creation account, in the evolution process or in the Big Bang Theory among others is irrelevant because of the underlying absurdity to all of these scenarios (Camus 3). He writes that it was his intention to find the relationship between suicide and the absurd. This essay by Camus leads the reader to make an assessment of life and arrive at a suitable decision. This paper will provide a further understanding of these thoughts. This paper will show that life is simply meaningless but must be appreciated nonetheless.

The purpose of Richard Taylor’s, “The Meaning of Life,” is to portray the life of Sisyphus in Albert Camus’s, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” as a meaningless life, in which Taylor portrays as a “perfect image of meaninglessness.” In Camus’s story, Sisyphus has committed certain crimes that got him into trouble with the gods. Hence, receiving a punishment by being forced to push a rock up a hill. However, to make it even worse, once he reached the top of the hill, the rock would just roll back down to the bottom, therefore having to repeat this labor for eternity. The motivation behind this discipline was to demonstrate the pointlessness of life since there was no want to demonstrate his life will never end. The question of what’s the meaning of life is compelling to think about, but the more time spent doing it the more fascinating it gets. There are ways to avoid having a meaningless life, but Taylor’s theory sticks to either living a happy life or a meaningless life.

Camus emphasizes absurdity and happiness to the readers. For example, in the “The Myth of Sisyphus”, he illustrates his thought on the plight of all human beings. Camus states that Sisyphus is happy. He says that Sisyphus is happy because he accepted his tragedy. Even though in the miserable situation, Sisyphus embraced the absurdity. He tells the reader to create their own meaning of life and accept the absurdity. In addition, Camus stood upon the justice. Especially, he rejected the concept of the death penalty.

Throughout human existence, people have often contemplated about the meaning of life. Why do we exist? What purpose do we serve as human beings? Who created us? Is there a mission that humans are supposed to complete while alive? Richard Taylor sought out to answer these questions through his paper The Meaning of Life. He particularly uses the myth on Sisyphus and his life throughout the paper to help prove his point.

ABSTRACT: After 350 years of continual social transformations under the push of industrialization, capitalism, world-wide social revolutions, and the development of modern science, what reasonably remains of the traditional faith in divine transcendence and providential design except a deep-felt, almost 'ontological' yearning for transcendence? Torn between outmoded religious traditions and an ascendant secular world, the contemporary celebration of individuality only makes more poignant the need for precisely that religious consolation that public life increasingly denies. People must now confront the meaning of their lives without the assured aid of transcendent purpose and direction. The