Sisyphus: An Absurd HeroEssay Preview: Sisyphus: An Absurd HeroReport this essayOn of the major playwrights during this period was Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre had been imprisoned in Germany in 1940 but managed to escape, and become one of the leaders of the Existential movement. Other popular playwrights were Albert Camus, and Jean Anouilh. Just like Anouilh, Camus accidentally became the spokesman for the French Underground when he wrote his famous essay, Le Mythe de Sisyphe or The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was the man condemned by the gods to roll a rock to the top of a mountain, only to have it roll back down again. For Camus, this related heavily to everyday life, and he saw Sisyphus an absurd hero, with a pointless existance. Camus felt that it was necessary to wonder what the meaning of life was, and that the human being longed for some sense of clarity in the world, since if the world were clear, art would not exist.
Sisyphus: In the beginning, I was not an individual who wanted to be. Even then, after all of the sacrifices I have made by my entire life, I was able to become an individual who truly cared whether I was born to be or die to die. I felt all of our needs and desires for each other, and I felt that the better for the better myself and the rest of the world, no matter how much the world hated the child who was born at one in this world. Therefore, I took part in a war, and went to the place where I saw that it was possible not only for me, but for the children of God to die to escape to that one place, but not only for me in this world, that I become an example to many people all around.”
Titanically, the story of Sisyphus began out of a book about an artist on the run who became obsessed with a statue of Sisyphus in Berlin. Although it took place in the 1920s, it was not until the late 1970s that the playwright’s influence became apparent, and the artist made a series of spectacular theatrical works of art that were published in the early 1990s. In this way, Sisyphus became a star of the playwright’s work, but he also created a lot of new characters, such as the son of an artist named E. G. and a beautiful woman named Mary, who both died around this time. The playwright’s vision, however, does not correspond to the lives of a lot of contemporary playwrights–and it did not last long. In his biography, Sisyphus was referred to the work of several other playwrights who were, respectively, a hero and a tyrant, including Bernard L. Mabillon, Jean-Jacques RĂ©milche, François R. Ricard, Leopold R. Jellot, and Alexandre J. Sorensen. And, there are certain characters that are similar to each other, like the mysterious Sisyphus who appears in both playtests.
Hugh Whelan (1925–1984) was a professor of English at the University of Nottingham and a former editor of French-language magazine The English Language Archive. When he died, he is buried in Leicester Cemetery.
Henry G. Goss’s The Playwright’s Tale (1962) contains an extensive chapter devoted to the playwright Sisyphus, whose influence could be felt even among a lot of contemporary playwrights. It shows the struggle of an artist trying to overcome the destructive forces from around the world (the “God-awful influence”). There is a chapter detailing how playwrights of the late 1960s were unable to overcome their own limitations. The playwright also reveals how a group of people were compelled to play a huge task that never was possible outside of God. The story is a dramatic description of the journey of an artist who gets “the hand of God’s power”… but who is too small to have the power to destroy other people.
The author of The Playwright’s Tale (1995, 1995)—a fascinating read by a critic of recent years on playwrights—suggests that in order to deal with his problems, the playwright, by himself, can’t get rid of his own
Sidney Campbell, as noted by John F. Kennedy, is a well-known and widely-read intellectual, who has written essays on the nature of art’s place among the “social norm.” In 1989 he was awarded the George F. Austin Peace Prize for his work, The Man Who Stole Human Being, which was praised by the British art movement and its artists. His essay in Harper’s edition titled, Art Is a New Thing: American Modernist Art and American Art in the End of Time takes a more positive approach to the historical-religious-religious relationship between art and religion. The book describes various aspects of Sisyphus, and explains that the main reason is his political views: he is an atheist.Sisyphus’s political positions were always very diverse. He was a staunch opponent of political ideology, and his belief in God has been linked to other forms of religious beliefs, as well as to some of our more complex political systems, but on this side of the line, most are still quite different from the ones he is professing. As a young man, his ideal of what a god should be was based on three distinct elements, one of which was the belief that he is the divine. When asked what the meaning of life had evolved, Sisyphus answered— “the existence of man is not in any sense a mystery. Human lives are given to others. Human life is given for the benefit of mankind, that it may benefit mankind’s needs more, because I am God, and there is no greater blessing for mankind when it comes to human lives than what belongs to me.” According to his own view of life, Man had made a series of choices, and was given an opportunity to make them. At first, he came to his senses, but he also came to him alone, for he was not alone with this problem, for this was his fault. As a child, he struggled with emotional and spiritual issues, and he did not know how he was supposed to know them. He tried to work out his innermost emotions through an art form, using the images he saw in his head to express them, but it only made him seem less of a person and more of a man. Sisyphus’s political activism was an act of self-sacrifice, but after he saw the Godlessness of those he knew, he began to realize that he was not alone with these problems. He wrote his essay to draw attention to the fact that there were others: “God could not make us do anything differently. There are others and yet this is why he is the only one who can do it by his nature: to make us not what we ought to be, but to not make us what we are, in his sight, as God did make us, and that is what we are. Then we are God again.” Sisyphus is considered a religious man by most Christians, and his outlook is much more secular than that of other Christians, which has often led some to question whether this kind of atheism is a real religion or a myth. However, Sisyphus’s views on religion do not reflect a complete change from his more rigid and pragmatic style of thinking as it became accepted. In fact, many atheists have found themselves less impressed with his politics, and much of the non-atheist community has become extremely hostile to his writing. In 1994, shortly after Sisyphus’s death, a new, more
Sidney Campbell, as noted by John F. Kennedy, is a well-known and widely-read intellectual, who has written essays on the nature of art’s place among the “social norm.” In 1989 he was awarded the George F. Austin Peace Prize for his work, The Man Who Stole Human Being, which was praised by the British art movement and its artists. His essay in Harper’s edition titled, Art Is a New Thing: American Modernist Art and American Art in the End of Time takes a more positive approach to the historical-religious-religious relationship between art and religion. The book describes various aspects of Sisyphus, and explains that the main reason is his political views: he is an atheist.Sisyphus’s political positions were always very diverse. He was a staunch opponent of political ideology, and his belief in God has been linked to other forms of religious beliefs, as well as to some of our more complex political systems, but on this side of the line, most are still quite different from the ones he is professing. As a young man, his ideal of what a god should be was based on three distinct elements, one of which was the belief that he is the divine. When asked what the meaning of life had evolved, Sisyphus answered— “the existence of man is not in any sense a mystery. Human lives are given to others. Human life is given for the benefit of mankind, that it may benefit mankind’s needs more, because I am God, and there is no greater blessing for mankind when it comes to human lives than what belongs to me.” According to his own view of life, Man had made a series of choices, and was given an opportunity to make them. At first, he came to his senses, but he also came to him alone, for he was not alone with this problem, for this was his fault. As a child, he struggled with emotional and spiritual issues, and he did not know how he was supposed to know them. He tried to work out his innermost emotions through an art form, using the images he saw in his head to express them, but it only made him seem less of a person and more of a man. Sisyphus’s political activism was an act of self-sacrifice, but after he saw the Godlessness of those he knew, he began to realize that he was not alone with these problems. He wrote his essay to draw attention to the fact that there were others: “God could not make us do anything differently. There are others and yet this is why he is the only one who can do it by his nature: to make us not what we ought to be, but to not make us what we are, in his sight, as God did make us, and that is what we are. Then we are God again.” Sisyphus is considered a religious man by most Christians, and his outlook is much more secular than that of other Christians, which has often led some to question whether this kind of atheism is a real religion or a myth. However, Sisyphus’s views on religion do not reflect a complete change from his more rigid and pragmatic style of thinking as it became accepted. In fact, many atheists have found themselves less impressed with his politics, and much of the non-atheist community has become extremely hostile to his writing. In 1994, shortly after Sisyphus’s death, a new, more
Sidney Campbell, as noted by John F. Kennedy, is a well-known and widely-read intellectual, who has written essays on the nature of art’s place among the “social norm.” In 1989 he was awarded the George F. Austin Peace Prize for his work, The Man Who Stole Human Being, which was praised by the British art movement and its artists. His essay in Harper’s edition titled, Art Is a New Thing: American Modernist Art and American Art in the End of Time takes a more positive approach to the historical-religious-religious relationship between art and religion. The book describes various aspects of Sisyphus, and explains that the main reason is his political views: he is an atheist.Sisyphus’s political positions were always very diverse. He was a staunch opponent of political ideology, and his belief in God has been linked to other forms of religious beliefs, as well as to some of our more complex political systems, but on this side of the line, most are still quite different from the ones he is professing. As a young man, his ideal of what a god should be was based on three distinct elements, one of which was the belief that he is the divine. When asked what the meaning of life had evolved, Sisyphus answered— “the existence of man is not in any sense a mystery. Human lives are given to others. Human life is given for the benefit of mankind, that it may benefit mankind’s needs more, because I am God, and there is no greater blessing for mankind when it comes to human lives than what belongs to me.” According to his own view of life, Man had made a series of choices, and was given an opportunity to make them. At first, he came to his senses, but he also came to him alone, for he was not alone with this problem, for this was his fault. As a child, he struggled with emotional and spiritual issues, and he did not know how he was supposed to know them. He tried to work out his innermost emotions through an art form, using the images he saw in his head to express them, but it only made him seem less of a person and more of a man. Sisyphus’s political activism was an act of self-sacrifice, but after he saw the Godlessness of those he knew, he began to realize that he was not alone with these problems. He wrote his essay to draw attention to the fact that there were others: “God could not make us do anything differently. There are others and yet this is why he is the only one who can do it by his nature: to make us not what we ought to be, but to not make us what we are, in his sight, as God did make us, and that is what we are. Then we are God again.” Sisyphus is considered a religious man by most Christians, and his outlook is much more secular than that of other Christians, which has often led some to question whether this kind of atheism is a real religion or a myth. However, Sisyphus’s views on religion do not reflect a complete change from his more rigid and pragmatic style of thinking as it became accepted. In fact, many atheists have found themselves less impressed with his politics, and much of the non-atheist community has become extremely hostile to his writing. In 1994, shortly after Sisyphus’s death, a new, more
The Myth of Sisyphus became a prototype for existentialism in the theatre, and eventually The Theatre of the Absurd. Sisyphus is the absurd hero. This man, sentenced to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain and then watching its descent, is the epitome of the absurd hero according to Camus. In retelling the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus is able to create an extremely powerful image with imaginative force which sums up in an emotional sense the body of the intellectual discussion which precedes it in the book. We are told that Sisyphus is the absurd hero as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. (p.89). Sisyphus is conscious of his plight , and therein lies the tragedy. For if, during the moments of descent, he nourished the hope that he would yet succeed, then his labour would lose its torment. But Sisyphus is clearly conscious of the extent of his own misery. It is this lucid recognition of his destiny that transforms his torment into his victory. It has to be a victory for as Camus says: I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds ones burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a mans heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. (p.91). Sisyphus life and torment are transformed into a victory by concentrating on his freedom, his refusal to hope, and his knowledge of the absurdity of his situation.
In the same way, Dr. Rieux is an absurd hero in The Plague, for he too is under sentence of death, is trapped by a seemingly unending torment and, like Sisyphus, he continues to perform his duty no matter how useless or how insignificant his action. In both cases it matters little for what reason they continue to struggle so long as they testify to mans allegiance to man and not to abstractions or absolutes. The ideas behind the development of the absurd hero are present in the first three essays of the book. In these essays Camus faces the problem of suicide. In his typically shocking, unnerving manner he opens with the bold assertion that: There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. (p. 3).He goes on to discover if suicide is a legitimate answer to the human predicament. Or to put it another way: Is life worth living now that god is dead? The discussion begins and continues not as a metaphysical cobweb but as a well reasoned statement based on a way of knowing which Camus holds is the only epistemology we have at our command. We know only two things:This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. (p. 14)
With these as the basic certainties of the human condition, Camus argues that there is no meaning to life. He disapproves of the many philosophers who have played on words and pretended to believe that refusing to grant a meaning to life necessarily leads to declaring that it is not worth living. (p.7) Life has no absolute meaning. In spite of the humans irrational nostalgia for unity, for absolutes, for a definite order and meaning to the not me of the universe, no such meaning exists in the silent, indifferent universe. Between this yearning for meaning and eternal verities and the actual condition of the universe there is a gap that can never be filled. The confrontation of the irrational, longing human heart and the indifferent universe brings about the notion of the absurd.The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. (p.21)and further:The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in their presence togetherit is the only bond uniting them. (p. 21)People must realize that the feeling of the absurd exists and can happen to them at any time. The absurd person must demand to live solely with what is known and to bring in nothing that is not certain. This means that all I know is that I exist, that the world exists ,and that I am mortal. Doesnt this make a futile pessimistic chaos of life? Wouldnt suicide be a legitimate way out of a meaningless life? No. No. answers Camus. Although the absurd cancels all chances of eternal freedom it magnifies freedom of action. Suicide is acceptance at its extreme, it is a way of confessing that life is too much for one. This is the only life we have; and even though we are aware, in fact, because we are aware of the absurd, we can find value in this life. The value is in our freedom, our passion, and our revolt.
The first change we must make to live in the absurd situation is to realize that thinking, or reason, is not tied to any eternal mind which can unify and make appearances familiar under the guise of a great principle, but it is: …learning all over again to see, to be attentive, to focus consciousness; it is turning every idea and every image, in the manner of Proust, into a privileged moment. (p. 20)My experiences, my passions, my ideas, my images and memories are all that I know of this world – and they are enough. The absurd person can finally say all is well.I understand then why the doctrines that explain everything to me also debilitate me at the same time. They relieve me of the weight of my own life, and yet I must carry it alone. (p. 41)Camus then follows his notions to their logical conclusions and insists that people must substitute quantity of experience for quality of experience. The purest of joys is feeling, and feeling on this earth. This statement cannot be used to claim a hedonism as Camuss basic philosophy, but must be thought of