Sisyphus And The Stranger Analysis

Sisyphus pushing his rock up the hill is like Meursault’s cycle which all ends in death. Meursault enjoys physical stimuli and becomes very poetic when describing it. He illustrates the countryside by saying, “...the hot red soil dappled with vivid green, and here and there a lonely house sharply outlined against the light” (The Stranger Camus, 11). This makes him the absurd hero because he is living in the moment and taking in his surroundings by really analyzing every detail. Another instense where Meursault’s language becomes very concrete is when a journalist in the courtroom talks to him. In his head Meursault says “...a plump, small man with huge black-rimmed glasses, who made me think of an overfed weasel” (The Stranger Camus, 53). Even the little things Meursault enjoys more than having to go through meaningless events that could be replaced by doing things like going swimming with Marie or people watching. Meursault accepts that death is just apart of life and that makes him the absurd hero. As the novel progresses and finally comes to an end, so does Meursault’s life which he knew did not really have a purpose. Meursault wanted the “crowd to greet [him] with howls

Rubin’s dissection of Meursault in The Stranger details that he “is a man condemned to death not so much for a criminal act as for his attitude.” In regard to this statement, the reader is presented with the idea that he is being put to death as a result of his “attitude,” which is that of an outsider, or someone “removed” from society, and his motives were based on an absurdist mentality that leads one to think of death as “just another thing” because of the pointlessness of life, as there is no hope. We are lead to believe that Meursault is some “sick and twisted” person without realizing his indifference to the emotional expectations of society. The murkiness of his conscience is like a black and white film over his eyes that open to the

With everything going on with the upcoming presidential election, the political community has been very prominent in society the past several months. While doing research on myths, I came across The Myth of Sisyphus and immediately made many connections between the two subjects. Both of these topics have a lot to do with manipulation and deception. With politics especially, people today have a lot of opinions on the dynamics of that community. They both deal with continuous repetition and constantly giving your all to make accomplish a task. What is interesting though is exactly to what extent can The Myth of Sisyphus be related to our modern day political community?

This way of perceiving emotions is taboo in society and shows how the author was able to create a character that was completely different from society’s expectations. During jail, Meursault thinks about how “even after a single day’s experience of the outside world a man could easily live a hundred years in prison. He’d have laid up enough memories never to be bored” (50). This quote is reflecting on Meursault’s realization on how many details went unnoticed in his jail cell such as

In The Outsider, Camus uses the technique of foreshadowing to develop the plot and to create a parallelism between the two parts of the novel. Through foreshadowing the reader has been left with suggestions about Meursault which have helped to develop him as a character. The parallelism between Part I and Part II of The Outsider brings forth emphasis on certain parts of the novel deemed important by Camus. Through foreshadowing, Camus has presented hints that will allow the reader to prepare for upcoming events and further their knowledge on characters and hidden themes and motifs such as

In Greek Mythology, Sisyphus, a sinner condemned to eternally roll a rock up and down a hill, is believed to be a man who lives a meaningless life. Envision the idea that we are able to give Sisyphus a drug that makes Sisyphus want to roll a rock up a hill for all eternity. Would Sisyphus’s meaningless life be revived with meaning as a result? In this paper, I will explain what it means to have a meaningful life and argue that Sisyphus’s life will still remain meaningless.

When a person describes something as a Sisyphean task they are referring to a task that has no point or objective to it. This description derives from the legend of the Greek king of Ephyra, Sisyphus. The myth of Sisyphus is not well agreed upon by scholars but the main theme of the myth is that King Sisyphus angered the Gods of Olympus by showing hubris. As a punishment Zeus condemned Sisyphus to roll a giant boulder up a mountain in the Underworld; however Zeus enchanted the boulder so that every time that Sisyphus reached the top of the mountain, the boulder would roll back down and Sisyphus would have to start all over again. Zeus did this to show that he himself was more cunning than Sisyphus and that he came up with the eternal punishment

The Myth of Sisyphus tells of a mortal who was punished by the gods to push a rock to the top of a mountain which would then roll back to the bottom where he was to start pushing again. Sisyphus was to continuously repeat this task or all of eternity. Many similarities in philosophies can be seen between this myth and The Stranger, both authored by Albert Camus. In The Stranger, Meursault often noted what interested and disinterested him, similarly, the narrator of the myth mentions that Sisyphus return trip down the mountain peaks his interest. Additionally, Meursault never developed any faith in a higher power which correlates to the narrator of the myth stating, “...there is no higher destiny” (Camus, paragraph 9). Next, Meursault clearly

Albert Camus’s use of vivid imagery and the main character’s inner voice helps give the reader a better understanding of Meursault's plight. As said in the story “the first part of which was missing, but which must have taken place in Czechoslovakia. A man had left a Czech village to seek his fortune”. Meursault by describing what the newspaper looked like, then summarizing what was on the paper puts the reader in his shoes, as if they were the ones in prison reading the newspaper article.

Modern society is plagued by incessant monotony. However, Albert Camus’s existential story The Myth of Sisyphus, Joseph Campbell’s interview “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth”, and David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech “This is Water” postulate possible solutions to societal ennui. Albert Camus conveys, in The Myth of Sisyphus, that acceptingf tedium as impermeable, more effectively.

In the novel, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault the protagonist, becomes drawn into a “senseless” murder that has to face the absurdity of life and because of his actions, Meursault is presented as a danger due to his lack of “morality” to society. Meursault who is not able to take control of his life but respond to what life offers him believes in the simplicity of life. He tries to understand the living through logic and objectivity, which ultimately turns futile, as he himself cannot maintain proper control over his thoughts and emotions. From the interactions between Marie, to the murder of the Arab, and the meeting with the Chaplain, Meursault overcomes his indifferent views to form an opinion about what life really means. The central theme presented by Camus is how the threat of mortality becomes a catalyst for understanding the significance of life.

The protagonist wished that “I would feel my heart take at the idea of having twenty more years of life ahead of me”(Camus 114).In addition, Meursault try to convince by saying, “Since we are all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter”(Camus 114). At this point Meursault gradually understands the significance of mortality. And Meursault also believes that,“I had to accept the rejection of my appeal”(Camus 114). And at the end Campus conveys that Meursault is so truthful to himself that even though he can avoid death penalty by saying little bit lie, but he is ready to take the punishment instead of lying. Thus, it’s heroic characteristic of the

Through the death of Madame Meursault, Camus develops Meursault’s character and views past the initial apathy he feels towards everything. Meursault’s lack of emotions is first seen in his actions at his mother’s vigil. The novel begins with Meursault stating “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” (1) One could try to justify this uncertainty by saying that Meursault is grieving and cannot be expected to remember everything except that as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Meursault is just plain indifferent when he smokes during the vigil because it “didn’t matter” (10) and says his mother was “fairly” (16) old because he does not know her actual age. In not knowing how old Madame Meursault was or when she died, and in smoking when he should have been grieving, Meursault reveals himself to be a phlegmatic character who could not care less about the fact that his mother just passed. When he chooses to smoke at the vigil, he betrays his own attitude about his mother’s death, that it did not actually matter or faze him in any way, a mindset typically viewed as abnormal. In a further show of idiosyncrasy, when his mother dies, rather than expand, Meursault makes a prison of his apartment by confining himself to one room. With Madame Meursault

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.

Widely recognized for philosophical writings as a French essayist and playwright, Albert Camus is a major contributor to exploring the absurd in modern Western literature. Characterized by highlighting the human condition, Camus’ writing style focuses on the everyday lives and inner psyche of individuals in both ordinary and extraordinary circumstances. Such a character-driven writing style is most notably displayed in his 1946 work, The Stranger, a tale of an emotionally-detached man known as Meursault, who lives in French-colonized Algiers during the intermission of the two World Wars. Consisting of two parts—The Stranger first explores his daily life as a free man, and in the second, delves more into the character’s own philosophy as Meursault contemplates during his remaining time in jail. At its core, the story explores the relationships and interactions of the odd Meursault through the character’s inner monologue and dialogue with those around him. The story itself is very ambiguous in its’ nature, and the idea of contemplating the meaning of life and purpose is prevalent throughout The Stranger. Evidently, Camus writes Meursault as a man who believes that life has no meaning, and therefore people are free to do as they please. To supplement the protagonist’s view, the author also presents Meursault alongside various personalities of key supporting characters, each with their own unique personality, and differing outlooks on life. Doing so thus enables Camus to get readers to contemplate about meaning through multiple perspectives. Stylistically, through many devices that emphasize diction, imagery, and story themes. Ultimately, The Stranger is a way for Camus to convey that there are multiple ways to perceive the meaning of life, using Meursault to directly project a different view than what readers are used to. Surely, with the intent of crafting a protagonist so strange, that Meursault becomes comparable to other characters; less so as a reflection of what the author personally believes the meaning of life is, but more of what such exploration of the idea could be.