The Myth of Sisyphus
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a
mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with
some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals.
According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of
highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he
became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain
levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was
carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained
to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that
Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he
preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld.
Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the
sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death
from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He
ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus
woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human
love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife.
But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm
stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls,
signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve
of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was
necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching
him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready
for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd 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. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of
this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for
the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole
effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a
hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone,
the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with
arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very
end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose
is achieved. 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. He goes
back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils 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
consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually
sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his
rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be,
indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today
works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is
tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of
the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition:
it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture
at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by
scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy.
This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the
sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory,
when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in
man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too
heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from
being acknowledged. Thus, Oedipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But
from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and
desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a
girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age
and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Oedipus,
like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient
wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of
happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however.
Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It
would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd
discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I
conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the
wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It
drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a
preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled
among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a
thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the
idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little
voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces,
they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow,
and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will
henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at
least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he
knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances
backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he
contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him,
combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of
the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that
the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
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 toward the heights is
enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
---Albert Camus
Sisyphus
 the last example of l'homme absurde is the greatest of them all
 Sisyphus, the hero of the Greek myth
 Sisyphus had been condemned by the gods to roll a great stone everlastingly to the top of a
mountain. There at the top and of its own weight it would roll down to the valley again and
the task would begin again. This hopeless and totally useless task was, in the opinion of the
gods, the worse form of punishment they could inflict on a man.
 Why had the gods inflicted this punishment?
 Sisyphus, having died, and having been allowed by Pluto (god of the underworld) to return
briefly to the world, failed to honor his word and return to the land of the dead
 Sisyphus is the great hero because of his disdain for the gods, his hatred of death, his love
of life
 his punishment, although useless, is not meaningless
 the greatest glory of man is expending all his substance and existence to achieve
precisely nothing
Comment
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Sisyphus is of course a symbol of man
the rock is man's awareness of the absurdity of his existence
Camus' position is that Sisyphus is fully alive and as such expresses his potential fully
he cannot waste any vitality in dreaming or in false hope
he is forced by his knowledge to extract joy from the given, for he knows that there is
nothing else
Sisyphus, in the monotonous limits of his task, is an extreme case
it is just because he is an extreme case that he is a good example
it is also worth noting that at the basis of the story of Sisyphus there is a solar myth
 an attempt to explain the "eternal" movement of the sun, which seems to be
rolled up to the height of the heavens and then rolls down the other side
 this eternally recurrent task seems purposeless, but without the sun there would
be no light, no life
it is curious to note that in Camus the sun holds the same central importance as it does for
Wallace Stevens, the American poet, whose fundamental philosophy was almost identical
with Camus
Stevens has a poem called "The Hero," which is simply about the rising and setting of the
sun
Sisyphus, struggling towards the top of the mountain, knows that he will never reach it; he
continues to try
that is his greatness - that is man's greatness
Summary
Sisyphus is probably more famous for his punishment in the underworld than for what he did
in his life. According to the Greek myth, Sisyphus is condemned to roll a rock up to the top of
a mountain, only to have the rock roll back down to the bottom every time he reaches the
top. The gods were wise, Camus suggests, in perceiving that an eternity of futile labor is a
hideous punishment.
There are a number of stories—ones which are not mutually exclusive—that explain how
Sisyphus came to earn his punishment in the underworld. According to one story, Zeus
carried off Aegina, a mortal woman who was the daughter of Asopus. Sisyphus witnessed this
kidnapping in his home city of Corinth. Sisyphus agreed to inform Asopus as to who had
kidnapped Aegina if Asopus would give the citadel at Corinth a fresh-water spring. In making
this deal and bearing witness against Zeus, Sisyphus earned the wrath of the gods while earning
earthly wealth and happiness for himself and his people.
Another story tells how Sisyphus enchained the spirit of Death, so that during Death's
imprisonment, no human being died. Naturally, when the gods freed Death, his first victim was
Sisyphus. It is also said that Sisyphus told his wife not to offer any of the traditional burial rites
when he died. When he arrived in the underworld, he complained to Hades that his wife had not
observed these rites and was granted permission to return to earth to chastise her. Once granted
this second lease on life, Sisyphus refused to return to the underworld, and lived to a ripe old age
before returning to the underworld a second time to endure his eternal punishment.
Camus identifies Sisyphus as the archetypal absurd hero, both for his behavior on earth and for
his punishment in the underworld. He displays scorn for the gods, a hatred of death, and a
passion for life. His punishment is to endure an eternity of hopeless struggle.
We are not told how Sisyphus endures his punishment in the underworld: that much is left to our
imagination. What fascinates Camus is Sisyphus's state of mind in that moment after the
rock rolls away from him at the top of the mountain. As he heads down the mountain, briefly
free from his labor, he is conscious, aware of the absurdity of his fate. His fate can only be
considered tragic because he understands it and has no hope for reprieve. At the same time, the
lucidity he achieves with this understanding also places him above his fate.
Camus suggests that Sisyphus might even approach his task with joy. The moments of
sorrow or melancholy come when he looks back at the world he's left behind, or when he hopes
or wishes for happiness. When Sisyphus accepts his fate, however, the sorrow and melancholy of
it vanish. Camus suggests that acknowledging "crushing truths" like the eternity and
futility of his fate is enough to render them less crushing. He refers to Oedipus, who, having
suffered so much, is able to "conclude that all is well."
Happiness and the absurd are closely linked, suggests Camus. They are both connected to
the discovery that our world and our fate is our own, that there is no hope and that our life
is purely what we make of it. As he descends the mountain, Sisyphus is totally aware of his
fate. Camus concludes: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Analysis
The Absurd Hero - Life as a Constant Struggle without Hope
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any attempt to deny or avoid the struggle and the hopelessness that define our lives is an
attempt to escape from this absurd contradiction
Camus' single requirement for the absurd man is that he live with full awareness of the
absurdity of his position
in those moments where Sisyphus descends the mountain free from his burden, he is
aware. He knows that he will struggle forever and he knows that this struggle will
get him nowhere
this awareness is precisely the same awareness that an absurd man has in this life
so long as Sisyphus is aware, his fate is no different and no worse than our lot in life
Futility and Hopelessness
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the central argument of this essay is that life itself is a futile struggle devoid of hope
this fate is only horrible if we continue to think that there is something more that is worth
aiming for
if we accept that there is no preferable alternative, then we can accept our fate
without horror
only then can we fully appreciate life, because we are accepting it without reservations
Therefore, Sisyphus is above his fate precisely because he has accepted it. His
punishment is only horrible if he can hope or dream for something better. If he does
not hope, the gods have nothing to punish him with.
Tragedy, Consciousness, & Happiness
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Camus tells us that the moment Sisyphus becomes aware of his fate, his fate becomes
tragic
he also alludes to Oedipus, who becomes a tragic figure only when he becomes aware
that he has killed his father and married his mother
both Sisyphus and Oedipus are ultimately happy, that they "conclude that all is well."
Tragedy, Camus seems to be suggesting, is not pessimistic
o it represents the greatest triumph we are capable of as human beings
o as long as Sisyphus and Oedipus continue to hope and to deceive themselves, they
are not heroic
o with tragic recognition comes a full acknowledgment of our fate and our
limitations
o with that acknowledgment comes an acceptance of who we are and what we
are capable of
o in accepting their fate, Sisyphus and Oedipus have abandoned hope, and so
their fate does not seem horrible to them
o on the contrary, they have finally found the only genuine happiness
Connection between Happiness and Absurd Awareness
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we can only be truly happy when we accept our life and our fate as entirely our
own—as the only thing we have and as the only thing we will ever be
the final sentence reads: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." WHY?
o Camus's wording suggests that we have no choice in the matter
o Is there an alternative?
 Sisyphus is the absurd hero, the man who loved life so much that he has
been condemned to an eternity of futile and hopeless labor
 yet he is above that fate precisely because he is aware of it
Logical Leap
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if Sisyphus is not happy in this awareness, then absurd awareness does NOT bring
happiness
it would then follow that happiness is only possible if we evade absurd awareness, if
we leap into hope or faith
o IF the leap into hope or faith represents an attempt to escape from the reality of
our fate and IF happiness is only possible through such a leap
o THEN happiness would essentially be an escape
 life itself would be inherently unhappy
 happiness would be a sham born out of denial
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THEREFORE, we must imagine Sisyphus happy if we want to believe in genuine
happiness .
o because Camus essentially believes in the idea that individual human experience
is the only thing that is real
o if he wants to show that happiness is real he must show that individual
humans can truly be happy based on their experiences, not on their denial of
experience
o if happiness is real, we must be able to find happiness without relying on
hope, faith, or anything else that goes beyond immediate experience
The Myth of Sisyphus is essentially an elaborate attempt to show that
this is possible, and it concludes with its starting premise:
If genuine happiness is possible, then Sisyphus must be happy.
Source: crsd.org