One must imagine Sisyphus happy

Abstract

'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’ The final line of an influential philosophical essay written by the father of Absurdism, Albert Camus. Born in Algeria, Camus was a French writer and philosopher who explored around the ideas of suicide and the human condition. After winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, he died in a sudden car accident 3 years later, which was seen by many as a tragic reflection of the doctrine of Absurdism - ‘the confrontation of man with the irrational,’ or more simply put, the conflict between our desire for meaning and the meaningless and indifferent nature of the universe to our existence. This paper begins by recounting the Myth of Sisyphus, a story of Greek mythology where Sisyphus is condemned to rolling a boulder up a hill for eternity. It then moves on to explore the deeper philosophical questions posed by Camus from this Greek myth before delving into the philosophical stance of Absurdism, and questioning the essence of our existence.

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2025-01-10

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