The Myth Of Sisyphus By Albert Camus

Camus' philosophy is an amalgam of existentialism and humanism. An atheist, Camus did not believe that death, suffering, and human existence had any intrinsic moral or rational meaning. Because he did not believe in God or an afterlife, Camus held that human beings, as mortals, live under an inexplicable, irrational, completely absurd death sentence. Nevertheless, Camus did believe that people are capable of giving their lives meaning. The most meaningful action within the context of Camus' philosophy is to choose to fight death and suffering.

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

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.

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 his literary criticism of “The Old Man and the Sea,” Dwight Eddins argues that Hemingway’s novel ethic and earth-bound metaphysic is highlighted in Albert Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus.” In Camus’s novel “The Myth of Sisyphus,”, Camus analyzes Sisyphus’ lucid struggle against cosmic absurdity and its futility; the parallels between Santiago and Sisyphus’ doomed struggle against meaninglessness depict both as absurd heros.

Camus believes that Sisyphus must be happy doing this meaningless task because he has accepted the pointlessness of the task and can never hope for anything better. Adapting this to a larger audience, it would mean that Camus believes that the lack of choice and options would ultimately make people happy. People would know that there is no choice and not have any hope, which would force them to accept their life as is. This lack of hope would allow people to accept their reality and to be

Camus also plays directly into one of the prominent ideas of the “theater of the absurd” as Meursault believes that life is ultimately meaningless, we simply go travel through it and the only concrete thing is death. Death is humanity’s final destination as Camus wrote, “ ‘If you go slowly, you risk getting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work up a sweat and then catch a chill inside the church.’ She was right. There was no way out” (pg 17).

As Camus believes, despite one’s suffering, one should be satisfied. Instead of pondering on one’s mistakes and flaws, one should be able to say “all is well” at the end of the day. In the end, Camus states that the reason behind Sisyphus strength is not false hope, but facing his punishment and challenges.

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

Camus states “His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols... The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing” (Camus). Meaning Sisyphus is a ridiculous man to look at the rock everyday and think i'm gonna push this rock up this hill even though I will never accomplish anything.

While the story progresses, Camus embeds his theory of Absurdism, a branch of existentialism. Camus, while very subtly, opened my eyes and broadened my mindset, introducing me to a train of thought I had never experienced. Absurdism explains meaning in the universe might not exist, leaving us with a random and vast universe, with possibly no meaning. Camus, unlike Nihilists, urges individuals to seek their own meanings out, while he declares that the universe is blind to you and has no set destiny for

“One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness” (Camus). These words help to explain why Sisyphus is happy while he pushes his rock up his mountain and then runs after it after it rolls down again. Through performing the same absurd act repeatedly he discovers what kind of happiness there is the act. After pushing the rock up the mountain so many times he begins to single out the aspects of the action that make him feel happy, and pays no attention to anything else. In this sense, he has created taken the punishment that was given to him and made it enjoyable, and created his own fate.

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’s separate work, The Myth of Sisyphus, includes imagery that provides an extended metaphor for this idea. The character Sisyphus begins to roll a boulder to the top of a mountain and upon reaching the summit, the boulder rolls back down. Sisyphus’s repetitive actions symbolize man’s constant need for an answer to the purpose of life, and as the boulder rolls back it acts as man’s responses belying his existence (Stanford Encyclopedia). For Meursault, his abnormal reactions and behaviors warrants discomfort from others. His lack of ambition to find an answer for the main question behind absurdism makes his characterization simple. Meursault speaks what he believes and knows. There are no genuine underlying sinister traits behind Meursault’s being, he simply acts upon his whims. The same whims throw him into an agreement to marry a girl, trap an abusive man’s ex-girlfriend, and kill an Arab man. All of which he does not with the intent to harm, but just the inability to explain why he should not. Meursault most often gives up on trying to explain his beliefs or intentions to those who do not immediately understand, such as his neighbors, lawyer, and