The Myth of Sisyphus

The myth

Inspired by philosophy existentialist, it makes the bringing together between the life like an eternal restarting obeying major cycle of the lambda with Sisyphus, hero of the Greek Mythologie. Why such a punishment? Camus quotes several versions of the myth, the majority explaining the punishment of Sisyphus by an insult made to the gods. A version lends to Sisyphus, dying, the will to test the love of his wife, while requiring of him not to give him a burial and to throw its body on the public place, after its death. According to another version, Sisyphus discovered the connection between the Master of Olympe, Zeus, and Egine; he from went away monnayer information near the father, the river Asopos. In exchange of its revelation it receives a fountain for its citadel. Its too great perspicacity irritated the gods who condemned it to carry a stringcourse and to push at the top of a mountain a rock, which rolls ineluctably towards the valley before the goal of the hero is not reached. Camus, the narrator, projects to leave Sisyphus to the bottom of the mountain. Because the hard labor is useless for him.

It bases its reasoning on many philosophical treaties and the work of novelists like that of Dostoïevski and supports that one should live his life in spite of his nonsense.

The revolt

Refusing the Suicide, Camus categorizes three kinds: the absurd hero (of which it gives the example of Don Juan), the suicidal one and the believer:

the absurd hero faces the nonsense of the life. He goes even until appreciating it, always seeking the same flame, the same passion which animates it, like does it Don Juan by always seeking this first passion of woman as a woman.
the suicidal one sees any more any direction with its life, nothing does not attach it on Earth.
the believer, as for him, is devoted to a cause and is not worried gasoline existentialist which corrodes the human ones so much which faced there, having lost the light and finding themselves only vis-a-vis their thoughts.

Behind these three prototypes of the nonsense, Camus intends to show that the revolt is the only means of living its life in an absurd world. This revolt is more important in the fact of revolting than in the causes defended in themselves. Camus thus proposes a theory of the impassioned and conscious engagement which is compatible with the political climate of its time (see Communisme).

Quotations

“the fight itself towards the tops is enough to fill a heart of man. Should be imagined happy Sisyphus. ” (The Myth of Sisyphus)

Philosophical definition

The fact “of living in a myth of Sisyphus” means that one saw a repetitive situation absurdity which one never sees the end or the result.

See too

Suicide and philosophy.