albert camus the myth of sisyphus and other essays

He is a master of his own days and as he walks back down the hill, he is free to reach a state of accepted content.Ĭamus relates this back to our own lives and that we are in the midst of filling our days with meaningless tasks, such as Sisyphus is. He knows the whole extent of his fate and has discovered what Camus calls the absurdity of the meaningless of the habit of life, from which springs happiness.

The only way for this to happen is for Sisyphus to acknowledge his crushing truth of his eternity, and once he does this, it is just a little less crushing. Now at first, Camus suggests that the gods are clever to give Sisyphus this punishment, but at the end he “conclude that all is well,” with Sisyphus, and that he is a happy man. He is to roll a rock up a hill, only to have the rock roll back down every time it reaches the top. He cheated the gods, and he is faced with an eternity of futile labour. In the story, it is not clear on how he came to his fate, but it does tell the readers that Sisyphus had a passion for life, and a hatred for death. Happiness can be found, and life can be lived passionately, full of experiences, but still have no purpose.įirst, it is necessary to give some context on the myth of Sisyphus.

Life is too much for you, you do not understand it,” and giving up is not the answer. He believes that “killing yourself amounts to confessing. He concludes his thoughts with saying “at that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death.” Although this may seem miserable at first, Camus clarifies throughout his writings that it is possible to find happiness in a meaningless, habitual life. He considers the absurdity of life, how to deal with it, and explains his reasoning throughout the story of Sisyphus. Albert Camus studied the philosophy of the absurd and decided that, to him, the most important philosophical question was “why not commit suicide?” In “The Myth of Sisyphus: An Absurd reasoning” (1942), he discusses his thoughts on the answer to this question.

Albert camus the myth of sisyphus and other essays