The Absurd In Albert Camus The Myth Of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus is the most revealing commentary on Albert Camus’ reasoning. Defining the absurd as arising from the meeting of two elements: the absence of meaning in the natural world, and mankind’s inherent desire to seek out meaning. The author projects his philosophy of devoid from religious belief and middle-class morality through an unremarkable protagonist throughout the novel. Sisyphus, an absurd hero due to embracing his ludicrous task and chooses to find meaning in rolling a huge stone uphill only to have it to roll back to be pushed up the hill. The face of the Absurd feels that the world becomes strange and inhuman. No longer recognizing the beauty in nature but instead, views the world for what it is – strange and incoherent.

“A face that tolls so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing space, which returns as, surely as his suffering, that is the hour of conscious. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights… he is superior to his fate.” (Camus, P.1) The conscious hero with the understanding that there can be for him no divine hope to sustain him in his struggle undertakes the confrontation. Sisyphus knows that he is at an inevitably bound for extinction, but he brings a dignity and a grandness to his task that sustains him which lends to his existence the only meaningfulness it can have.
The author presents imagery into Sisyphus’ huge effort; readers can imagine the protagonist’s face screwed up with the effort of it, his face pressed against the rough stone, his shoulder fully pressed against the dirty surface. It is similar personally when it comes to daily life struggles, not particularly pushing a rock up a hill but always striving for something and looking forward to what is over the hill. Life itself is a huge rock that needs to be pushed and I am stronger than a rock. Sisyphus has determination that is relatable. At the moments Sisyphus is struggling, Camus writes, “Sisyphus is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.”