Sisyphus - an Existential Man

Albert Camus' 'The Myth of Sisyphus' is a four chapter book that deals with many of the modern philosophical issues concerned with life. Camus discusses the possibilities for a human to commit suicide and the functioning of the individual's brain and its abetting in the act of committing suicide. The fourth chapter retains the title of the book, 'The Myth of Sisyphus'. Sisyphus, a righteous kind, committed the act of divulging a divine secret for water. He chose to enjoy what the Earth could give rather than what the divine decide. Another version puts him in the list of callous men who acted as a highwayman. Yet another version calls him a recalcitrant who chained the powerful Death and made Pluto angry. However all these versions agree on the punishment meted out to him; rolling a boulder to the pinnacle of a mountain whence it would roll down to the abyss of the underworld owing to its weight. Camus considers the mythological Sisyphus a representative of modern man. He compares the unproductive task of rolling the big rock to the pinnacle of a mountain to the day to day labour of men. Only when the labourers get conscious of their activities and their meaninglessness they get frustrated and their day to day life will be torturous. What causes this frustration is the teeny weeny sapling of hope that clings on to this harsh physical activity. Sisyphus is never conscious of his absurdity until he hopes not of positioning the rock on the mountain. When the hope of stationing it on the pinnacle buds in his heart, he is sucked into the vortex of disappointment. He will find himself in the position of doing a useless labour. According to Homer, Sisyphus is condemned by the Gods to this state which according to Them is the most poignant punishment. The strain is only physical until the condemned is not aware and not thinking beyond this hard labour, which turns to be a mental trauma once the victim begins nurturing hope. Camus takes up this Sisyphus who has committed himself to hard labour without an inkling of its consequences. This acceptance of one's predicament as it has been a product of one's own acts eliminates the possibility of a higher destiny. Camus presents Sisyphus as an existential man who never bothers with the ideology of the existence of God. For him everything in

the world exists and interests. Camus is concerned very much with the descending Sisyphus whose contemplation gives energy to his existence and whose reverie puts him in the position of deciding his fate in the world.