That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. Or rather, could be happy.Īt the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Learn more.Īlthough bound to this utterly ineffective (and harsh) existence, Sisyphus, Camus argues, was happy. The artist’s choice to depict the tragic hero carrying (rather than pushing) the boulder heightens the drama and our empathy. Camus looks at Sisyphus as a representative human: one engaged in endless mechanical and meaningless toil. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a precocious human punished by the gods to push a boulder to the top of a mountain only to have it roll back down again. Meaning, if the world is indifferent, should we too be indifferent to a meaningful life or even life itself? 1 Try to ignore the fully-packed context of the word “suicide” in a mental health capacity Camus means it as a philosophical question.
The answer, underlying and appearing through the paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate. The fundamental subject of The Myth of Sisyphus is this: it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face to face.
#The story of sisyphus series
Albert Camus‘ (Novem– January 4, 1960) monumental philosophical work, The Myth of Sisyphus is a series of essays in which Camus makes sense of the human quest for order and meaning in an indifferent (and thus absurd) universe.
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