The Myth Of Sisyphus By Albert Camus

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.

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.

Punishment “is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious” is what Camus claims (Myth of Sisyphus). The solution to Meursault’s and Sisyphus’s fatal fates is converting negative emotion, into joy through perception. Some argue that in the beginning, Meursault was hardened and cant be an existential hero because he is mindless, but his perception is clearly outlined and changed. “It was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness,” (59) is what Meursault thought when he shot the Arab another four times. Although some may argue he was committing a hardened act, unhappiness is still an emotion. It isn’t necessarily sadness, which is what society wants to see, but it could be interpreted as being content. Meursault cannot find the happiness in life; he is just okay with it and unconsciously proceeds through his life in a routine of physical happenings. Then, he remembers, “Manman used to say that you could always find something to be happy about,” (113). This alters his perception on the spot, and no longer becomes sad based upon speculating on his memories and how he will lose them. This mirrors Sisyphus and how he finds the “silent joy” by altering his perception of what is currently happening with pushing the rock up the hill. So, Meursault forgets about the past and looks for good from his cell. Outside of those cell bars he can see the green grass, the sky, the stars, and is happy. Now, his happiness is not declared yet, he doesn’t know that he is happy, but he just went into the idea of living a life in death instead of death in life. This realization happens with his impression on the chaplain, which is that “he wasn’t even sure he was alive because he was living like a dead man,” (120). This means that one

“To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.”

Albert Camus argued that human life is rendered meaningless by death, which prevents the individual from making sense of existence.

By referencing the ancient myth of Sisyphus, Taylor made is clear that to him, life is meaningless. He gave us the definition of meaninglessness as being “essentially endless pointless, and meaningfulness is therefore the opposite” (Taylor 5). After being punished by the God’s, Sisyphus rolled a rock up the hill every day, time after time, only for the rock to roll down the hill once again. Taylor sees this

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.

Even though the novel is not uplifting, it is still engaging and thought-provoking. After reading this particular novel that questions an individual's place in society among other existential matters, I changed my naïve way of thinking. One of the key concepts of existentialism is the idea that "Existence precedes essence," which was primarily introduced by Camus's colleague, Sartre. I embodied this philosophy, which states that human beings exist first and only later define themselves through the act of their will, so I can always be responsible for my actions. I can no longer blame others for my adversities and must keep myself accountable for my misdeeds in order to develop as an ambitious and independent human

Not only embodying absurdism but speaking it by the end of the novel, Meursault parrots the same conclusion Camus reached in The Myth of Sisyphus, in which Sisyphus is charged with the meaningless task of pushing a rock up a mountain for eternity, each time watching it role back down to the bottom. He understands why his mother took a fiancé as she was approaching death, as if she were starting her life over: she would have

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.

What makes life meaningless? Taylor states that there are two characteristics of Sisyphus’s life that make life pointless. The main trademark is the purposelessness of his life. Taylor stresses the way that there is no good reason for the labor that Sisyphus is compelled to do because of the gods. I concur with Taylor that the purposelessness in performing this action demonstrates that his life is good for nothing. Perhaps, as specified in class, if his punishment brought about something advantageous. For instance, when Sisyphus rolled the rocks up the hill, rather than falling back down, they shaped into a beautiful architecture, which would give his life meaning. In the book, Taylor stated, “Activity... even long, drawn out and repetitive activity, has a meaning if it has some significant culmination… activity,” showing that possibly if the rocks did form a figure it could give meaning to Sisyphus’s life. The second characteristic that makes Sisyphus’s life meaningless is the idea of endless repetition of his punishment given by the gods. Taylor claimed that if the act of repetition would have led to an achievement or goal his life may not have been meaningless, yet Sisyphus’s labor did not lead to anything besides pointless repetition.

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.

Taylor broke up his paper into two parts: the meaningless existence and the meaninglessness of life. The first part, meaningless existence, is where Taylor first mentions the story of Sisyphus. He uses Sisyphus as “a perfect image of meaninglessness” (Taylor). He describes the awful and meaningless life that he has. He was punished by the Gods to roll up a heavy rock up a hill, only for it to roll back down (Camus). Sisyphus would then do this process over and over again, until the end of time (Camus).