Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus is not simply a re-telling of the myth itself, but also an interpretation of the way in which the myth can be related to the life of humanity in general, and in particular to one's understanding and acceptance of the futility of life, which he does not consider to be negative per se. He looks at the nature of Sisyphus' character, the way in which he challenged and defied the gods, and the punishment he received as a result. However, he does not look at Sisyphus' fate as something which defines the gods as victorious and Sisyphus as subjugated to their will, primarily because of the way in which Sisyphus himself perceives his condition. He begins by giving a brief account of the life of Sisyphus and the reasons why he was punished by the gods, which delineates the events, and the particular elements of Sisyphus' character, which have combined to bring him to his current fate, undergoing an endless punishment in the underworld. He has, during his life, been independent and passionate, issuing challenges to the gods and defying them on a number of occasions, which has led to their eventual enactment of his punishment. For example, on finding himself in the underworld as a result, ironically, of his wife's obeying his last instructions, he requests that he be allowed to return to the world of the living in order to chastise her. However, once safely away from the underworld, he refuses to return despite `recalls, signs of anger and warnings'. It is evident that he is an intelligent and forceful individual, who realises that his defiance of the gods cannot continue forever, but he is prepa... ... middle of paper ... ...ard to an entire series of lifetimes, they would all have the same quality of hard work and futility. Camus concludes, however, that like Oedipus, Sisyphus must feel that `all is well'. He has dictated his own fate, he has overcome the gods even in the throes of his punishment, and his entire existence is now focused on an exercise which, by its very futility, has become an end in itself and a demonstration of his own independence of awareness and consciousness. This is, he asserts, the only successful way of perceiving the human condition: to pass through the elements of unconscious absurdity, conscious tragedy and conscious absurdity, and finally arrive at the point where one understands that despite the punishments handed out by the gods, one can still retain the mastery of one's own fate, even while suffering those punishments.
The novel began with the narrator embarking on a journey to the underworld. As he entered the battle royal, Ralph Ellison set up the narrator’s story using the archetype of the Odyssey. The narrator spends the entirety of the book trying to become enlightened, and to prove to his grandfather and Dr.Bledsoe that he is more than what they think he is. However, the book ends with the narrator stuck in a dark hole, living underground, right back where he started. This contrast to the story of odysseus allows Ellison to demonstrate how the narrator failed to become what he had tried so hard to be, and how his enlightenment had been destined to be a troubled one.
...s of The Myth of Sisyphus in The Outsider, and particularly to the discussion of the search for truth. In the Myth Camus goes through an inventory of accepted sources for truth and finds them all lacking: first he tries religion, but surprisingly it is too relative, for which god is god; second he tries science, but finds that it offers not precision but metaphor (the world is like...); third he tries logic, but finds that paradoxically it leads to contradiction (for if "all statements are true" is true then "no statements are true" must be one of the true statements). He is left with the "I" - not the Cartesian "I" - but the Humean "I" (a bundle of perceptions) as the foundation for a meaning system.
“Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given,” (1.32-34) is a simple quote reminding us the entities in charge of all characters in the poem The Odyssey – the gods. Hubris, or excessive human pride, is most detested by the gods and likewise is most punishable by them. The Odyssey is a story about Odysseus and Telemachus, two heroes who throughout their adventures meet new people and face death many times. Telemachus goes to find his father after he learns from Athena that he is still alive. The two meet, and Odysseus attempts to go back to Ithaca after he was lost at sea, and on his way there becomes one of the most heroic characters in literature as we know it. Like all heroic characters, Odysseus began to display hubris as he learned how true of a hero he was. James Wyatt Cook, a historian and an expert on The Odyssey, wrote about how hubris can affect the characters that display it. He says, “Because Homer’s Odyssey is essentially comic, that episode [opened wind bag destroys ship] is only one of a series of setbacks Odysseus experiences before reaching his home in Ithaca and recovering his former kingdom and his family. Such, however, is not the case for those who display hubris with tragic outcomes.” (Cook 1) Initially, Odysseus learns about Aias who died as a cause of the excessive pride he portrays. Proteus warns Odysseus when he says, “…and Aias would have escaped doom, though Athena hated him, had he not gone widely mad and tossed outa word of defiance; for he said that in despite of the gods he escaped the great gulf of the sea, and Poseidon heard him…...
The question has been raised as to whether Oedipus was a victim of fate or of his own actions. This essay will show that Oedipus was a victim of fate, but he was no puppet because he freely and actively sought his doom, although he was warned many times of the inevitable repercussions of his actions.
In The Bacchae, Euripedes portrays the character of Pentheus as an ignorant, stubborn, and arrogant ruler. These character flaws accompanied with his foolish decisions set the stage for his tragic downfall. Pentheus' blatant disregard to all warnings and incidents, which prove that Dionysus is truly a god, lead him to his own death. In the end, his mistakes are unforgiving and his punishment is just.
These few instances of revenge: Orestes’ revenge on Aegisthus, Zeus’ revenge on Odysseus and his men, and Poseidon’s revenge on Odysseus in The Odyssey, lay the background for Odysseus’ story of struggle in his journey home from Troy. Revenge proves to be the main reason not only as to why Odysseus cannot return home, but also as a means of proving the importance of the gods’ role in the epic journey. Without these occurrences of the gods getting revenge on Odysseus and other mortals, there would be no passionate tales of the perseverance that Odysseus had in achieving his goal: getting home to Ithaca.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the aburd hero. He is,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.
Taylor is careful to identify exactly which features of Sisyphus predicament account for the lack of meaning. He argues that the facts that Sisyphus task is both difficult and endless are irrelevant to its meaninglessness. What explains the meaninglessness of Sisyphus’s life is that all of his work amounts to nothing. One way that Sisyphus’s life could have meaning, Taylor proposes, is if something was produced of his struggles. For example, if the stone that he rolls were used to create something that would last forever then Sisyphus would have a meaningful life. Another separate way in which meaning might be made present is if Sisyphus had a strong compulsion for rolling the stone up the hill. Taylor points out, though, that even given this last option, Sisyphus’s life has not acquired an objectives meaning of life; there is still nothing gained besides the fact he just ...
While mortals do not unjustly complain about their fates, they fail to acknowledge that they are also responsible for their ill fate, as mortals themselves, possess a sizable degree of control. There is little doubt that Odysseus and his crew are unlucky, but had it not been for their brash decisions they would have reached Ithaca much sooner. After Od...
Situational Irony: When Zeus sent Thanatos (Death) after Sisyphus because of his betrayal. Sisyphus was able to outwit Death because he asked Thanatos to demonstrate how a pair of handcuffs worked and then locked them on Death himself or he used some trick to entrap Death in heavy chains. But you would expect that there was no way that Sisyphus was able to escape Death but his intelligence outsmarted Thanatos and he trapped Death.
Several philosophers have made differing viewpoints regarding the outlook of life. Richard Taylor and Albert Camus are notably known for presenting their thoughts on whether life is meaningless or not through the use of the Greek myth of Sisyphus. The two philosopher’s underlying statement on the meaning of life is understood through the myth. The myth discusses the eternal punishment of Sisyphus who was condemned by the Gods to take a large boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down, forcing him to repeat this task endlessly. Each conceive the myth in their own way and ultimately end with a conclusion that differs from each other. Taylor’s ideals and his take on the meaning of life contrast with what Camus presents in his argument. While Taylor suggests that there is a subjective meaning to life, Camus states that life is ultimately meaningless.
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus covers an existentialist perspective to the meaning of life and claims that the absurd; the inability ...
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.
Camus believes that Sisyphus’s fortune is similar to human life. Through all the activities and events people do throughout life, simply nothing is accomplished in the end. Sisyphus is a direct ...
When I think of Sisyphus and start comparing him to people in my life one person that stands out is my uncle Jessie. In his younger years my uncle lived his life as he pleased, and that led to him spending several years in prison. After he was released from prison, he started a family. There are not too many prestigious careers that an unskilled felon can acquire, so my uncle Jessie became a welder at a local fabrication company. Instead of having a normal nine-to-five, forty-hour a week job he works seventy-two hours Monday thru Saturday. This job allows him to provide for and be close to his family, that is the only motivation for maintaining a job he hates. On my uncle’s one day off, his attention it devoted to his two kids and wife.