The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus

Sisyphus is the absurd hero. This man, sentenced to ceaselessly

rolling a rock to the top of a mountain and then watching it roll back

down, 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 which sums up the intellectual discussion which comes

before 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 troubles

, and this is the real tragedy.If, during the moments of descent, he

had some hope that he might still succeed, then his hard work would

not seem such a torture. Sisyphus is clearly well aware of the level

of his own misery. It is this clear recognition of his destiny that

transforms his agony 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 one's

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 man's heart. One must imagine

Sisyphus happy. (p.91).

Sisyphus' life is transformed into a victory by concentrating on his

freedom and his knowledge of the ab...

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... his struggle. All is not chaos; the experience of the absurd is the

proof of man's uniqueness and the foundation of his dignity and

freedom.

All that remains is a fate whose outcome alone is fatal. Outside of

that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is

liberty. A world remains of which man is the sole master. What bound

him was the illusion of another world. The outcome of his thought ,

ceasing to be renunciatory, flowers in images. It frolics - in myths,

to be sure, but myths with no other depth than that of human suffering

and like it inexhaustible. Not the divine fable that amuses and

blinds, but the terrestial face, gesture, and drama in which are

summed up a difficult wisdom and an ephemeral passion. (p. 87)

One could do worse than to consider the myths-retold in the works of

Camus.