The Myth of Sisyphus

Introduction

Camus wrote the essay during the first years of the war and published it in Paris in 1942, a few months after his novel The Stranger, as its philosophical counterpart. The absurd arises from the confrontation between the human demand for clarity and an indifferent world. Camus criticises Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Chestov and Husserl for “philosophical suicide”, a leap into hope that escapes this tension. He describes absurd ways of life – the seducer Don Juan, the actor, the conqueror, the artist – and ends with the myth of Sisyphus, who is condemned to roll his stone uphill forever. A chapter on Kafka was removed from the first edition because of German censorship and restored after the war.

Connections

Builds on

• The Brothers Karamazov1880 · Fyodor Dostoevsky

Criticizes

• Fear and Trembling1843 · Søren Kierkegaard
• Philosophy1932 · Karl Jaspers

More works by Albert Camus

• 1951The Rebel