1. Sisyphus (SIS-i-fus)
Sisyphus was a sinner condemned in Tartarus to an
eternity of rolling a boulder uphill then watching it roll
back down again. Sisyphus was founder and king of
Corinth, or Ephyra as it was called in those days. He
was notorious as the most cunning knave on earth. His
greatest triumph came at the end of his life, when the
god Hades came to claim him personally for the
kingdom of the dead. Hades had brought along a pair of
handcuffs, a comparative novelty, and Sisyphus
expressed such an interest that Hades was persuaded
to demonstrate their use - on himself.

2. And so it came about that the high lord of the
Underworld was kept locked up in a closet at Sisyphus's
house for many a day, a circumstance which put the
great chain of being seriously out of whack. Nobody
could die. A soldier might be chopped to bits in battle
and still show up at camp for dinner. Finally Hades was
released and Sisyphus was ordered summarily to report
to the Underworld for his eternal assignment. But the
wily one had another trick up his sleeve.
He simply told his wife not to bury him and then
complained to Persephone, Queen of the Dead, that he
had not been accorded the proper funeral honors.
What's more, as an unburied corpse he had no business
on the far side of the river Styx at all - his wife hadn't

3. placed a coin under his tongue to secure passage with
Charon the ferryman. Surely her highness could see that
Sisyphus must be given leave to journey back topside
and put things right.
Kindly Persephone assented, and Sisyphus made his
way back to the sunshine, where he promptly forgot all
about funerals and such drab affairs and lived on in
dissipation for another good stretch of time. But even
this paramount trickster could only postpone the
inevitable. Eventually he was hauled down to Hades,
where his indiscretions caught up with him. For a crime
against the gods - the specifics of which are variously
reported - he was condemned to an eternity at hard
labor. And frustrating labor at that. For his assignment
was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. Only every
time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil,
attained the summit, the darn thing rolled back down
again.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what
Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a
fundamental conflict between what we want from the
universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and
what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will
never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find.
Either we will discover that meaning through a leap of
faith, by placing our hopes in a God beyond this world,
or we will conclude that life is meaningless. Camus
opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that
life is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit
suicide. If life has no meaning, does that mean life is not
worth living? If that were the case, we would have no
option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide,
says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third
possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid
of meaning or purpose.

7. The absurd is a contradiction that cannot be
reconciled, and any attempt to reconcile this
contradiction is simply an attempt to escape from
it: facing the absurd is struggling against it.
Camus claims that existentialist philosophers
such as Kierkegaard, Chestov, and Jaspers, and
phenomenologists such as Husserl, all confront
the contradiction of the absurd but then try to
escape from it. Existentialists find no meaning or
order in existence and then attempt to find some
sort of transcendence or meaning in this very
meaninglessness.

8. Living with the absurd, Camus suggests, is a
matter of facing this fundamental contradiction
and maintaining constant awareness of it. Facing
the absurd does not entail suicide, but, on the
contrary, allows us to live life to its fullest.
Camus identifies three characteristics of the
absurd life: revolt (we must not accept any
answer or reconciliation in our struggle), freedom
(we are absolutely free to think and behave as
we choose), and passion (we must pursue a life
of rich and diverse experiences).

9. Camus gives four examples of the absurd life: the
seducer, who pursues the passions of the
moment; the actor, who compresses the
passions of hundreds of lives into a stage career;
the conqueror, or rebel, whose political struggle
focuses his energies; and the artist, who creates
entire worlds. Absurd art does not try to explain
experience, but simply describes it. It presents a
certain worldview that deals with particular
matters rather than aiming for universal themes.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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."

13. Critical Analysis
Camus has argued that the absurd hero sees life as a
constant struggle, without hope. 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's single requirement for the absurd
man is that he live with full awareness of the absurdity of
his position. While Sisyphus is pushing his rock up the
mountain, there is nothing for him but toil and struggle.
But 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.

14. We react to Sisyphus's fate with horror because we see
its futility and hopelessness. Of course, the central
argument of this essay is that life itself is a futile struggle
devoid of hope. However, Camus also suggests that this
fate is only horrible if we continue to hope, if we think
that there is something more that is worth aiming for.
Our fate only seems horrible when we place it in contrast
with something that would seem preferable. If we accept
that there is no preferable alternative, then we can
accept our fate without horror. Only then, Camus
suggests, 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.

15. The theory of tragedy is a vast and complicated subject beyond
the scope of this commentary, but a brief discussion of Camus's
angle on tragedy may be valuable. 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. He also remarks that both Sisyphus and
Oedipus are ultimately happy, that they "conclude that all is well."
Tragedy, Camus seems to be suggesting, is not pessimistic. On
the contrary, it represents the greatest triumph we are capable of
as human beings. So long as Sisyphus and Oedipus continue to
hope and to deceive themselves, they are not heroic. With tragic
recognition comes a full acknowledgment of our fate and our
limitations, and with that acknowledgment comes an acceptance
of who we are and what we are capable of. Tragic fate only seems
horrible in contrast to the hope for something more. In accepting
their fate, Sisyphus and Oedipus have abandoned hope, and so
their fate does not seem horrible to them. On the contrary, they
have finally found the only genuine happiness.

16. Camus concludes his essay by arguing that happiness
and absurd awareness are intimately connected. We
can only be truly happy, he suggests, 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." But why must we imagine Sisyphus happy?
Camus's wording suggests that we have no choice in the
matter. But 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. And yet he is above that fate precisely because he
is aware of it. 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.

17. 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, then happiness would essentially be an escape. Life
itself would be inherently unhappy and happiness would be a
sham born out of denial. We must imagine Sisyphus happy if we
want to believe in genuine happiness. Though this is the last
sentence of the essay, we might see it as the initial premise that
starts Camus's reasoning. Because Camus essentially believes in
the idea that individual human experience is the only thing that is
real, 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. 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.

18. Camus’s Rhetoric
In this essay, Camus describes about the Greek
mythology, giving us details as they appear on Homer
and other classical writers. Then he describes about
Sisyphus and his punishment given by the gods. These
entire things is presented metaphorically and is
compared with the situation of the people.
Camus uses the aphorism/pity statement( resembles all
the wise old sayings that have been passed through the
ages) which serve to make the entire tone of the
passage seem wise and logical. In the text, Camus uses
the aphorisn statement such as:
•There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.
•There is no sun without shadow.
•One always finds one’s burden again.

19. Camus uses “absurd” as the theme of his writings. He
treats ancient myth as an allegory for our own life. The
clarity, simplicity, and elegance of his language and style
have made his works accessible to each new
generation.