The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay by Albert Camus, written in 1942. In this essay, Camus explains the philosophy of the absurd, which deals with the theme of man’s futile search for meaning, eternal truths, and values. The essay is divided into four parts: absurd reasoning, the absurd man, absurd creation, and the myth of Sisyphus.

The author begins the essay with the key question of philosophy: suicide. Is life worth living, or rather, what is the meaning of life?—this, according to Camus, is the fundamental philosophical question. He argues that to commit suicide is to admit that life has defeated us and that we cannot grasp its meaning—in other words, to accept that life is meaningless.

Furthermore, a person who realizes this becomes a stranger in relation to everyone else, because they see something others do not. That idea itself is absurd, which again raises the question of whether suicide can then put an end to the absurd. What happens when people lose hope? For some, suicide is a tragic answer. However, Albert Camus insists that the loss of hope need not be a reason for suicide. On the contrary, Camus suggests that recognizing there is no hope for anything except inevitable death (what he calls the realization of the absurd) actually opens up the possibility of a happier existence.

Examples from different works are also very illustrative and instructive. References to the Bible, to Oedipus and Kirilov, as well as to characters from Dostoevsky’s novels, are impressive and support his views on humanity’s futile effort. Man creates his own destiny. He suffers, but also hides the truth with the comfort that “everything is fine.” Oedipus teaches us with the statement that all is well, that nothing is exhausted. Happiness is born from the absurd, and vice versa. Man repeats the same actions because it is his fate. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

The Myth of Sisyphus connects the fate of modern man with that of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is the symbol of humanity. Today’s worker, each day of his life, works on the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd than Sisyphus’s. Like Sisyphus, man makes his own decisions, chooses his own path, and controls his destiny.

Camus says that today’s worker, each day of his life, works on the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only in rare moments when man becomes conscious of it, like Sisyphus during his descent. In moments of awareness, he thinks and feels his desperate state and all the causes that led to it. A man is happy or not, depending on his choices and the effort he invests in what he desires. Camus finds a parallel for the human condition in a world without meaning, a world in which many people do things that are repetitive and senseless, just as Sisyphus must. Like Sisyphus, man experiences both happiness and absurdity.

Happiness and absurdity are closely linked. Both are bound to the discovery that our world and our destiny are our own, that there is no hope, and that our life is only what we make of it. As he descends the mountain, Sisyphus is fully aware of his fate. Camus concludes: “We must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Albert Camus and the Existential Dimensions of the Sisyphus Myth

Sisyphus is probably better known for his punishment in the underworld than for what he did during his life. According to Greek myth, Sisyphus was condemned to push a boulder up to the top of a mountain, only for it to roll back down each time he reached the summit. The gods were wise in this, realizing that an eternity of futile labor was a terrible punishment.

There are several stories that explain how Sisyphus earned his punishment in the underworld. According to one version, Zeus abducted Aegina, a mortal woman who was the daughter of the river god Asopus. Sisyphus witnessed this abduction in his native city of Corinth. He agreed to inform Asopus who had taken Aegina, in exchange for Asopus providing Corinth’s citadel with a fresh water spring. By betraying Zeus, Sisyphus provoked the wrath of the gods, but at the same time earned earthly wealth and prosperity for himself and his people.

Another story says that Sisyphus instructed his wife not to perform any of the traditional funeral rites when he died. When he arrived in the underworld, he complained to Hades that his wife had neglected these rituals and was granted permission to return to earth to set matters right. Once given this second lease on life, however, Sisyphus refused to return to the underworld, living to old age before he finally went back and faced his eternal punishment.

Camus identifies Sisyphus as the archetypal absurd hero, both because of his actions in life and because of his punishment in the underworld. He shows contempt for the gods, hatred of death, and a passion for life. His punishment is to endure eternity in a hopeless struggle.

It is never said exactly how Sisyphus bears his punishment this is left to our imagination. What fascinates Camus is Sisyphus’s state of mind at the moment after the rock rolls down from the mountaintop. As he descends the mountain, briefly freed from his labor, he becomes conscious of the absurdity of his fate. His fate can be considered tragic only because he understands it and knows there is no hope of reprieve. At the same time, this very lucidity elevates him above his fate.

Camus suggests that Sisyphus might even approach his task with joy. There are moments of sorrow or melancholy when he looks back on the world he left, or when he hopes for or desires happiness. But when Sisyphus accepts his fate, sorrow and melancholy disappear. Camus suggests that simply recognizing and thereby destroying “false truths” such as eternity and the futility of his punishment is enough to strip them of their power. This is akin to Oedipus, who suffered greatly but was still able to conclude that “all is well.”

Camus argues that the absurd hero sees life as a constant struggle without hope. Any attempt to deny or escape from this struggle and despair is merely an attempt to flee from the absurd. His only demand of the absurd man is to live with full awareness of the absurdity of his condition. While Sisyphus pushes his rock up the mountain, he has nothing but the effort and the struggle. But in those moments when he descends, relieved of his burden, he is conscious. He knows he will struggle forever and that his struggle will lead nowhere. That consciousness is the same awareness the absurd man has in life. As long as Sisyphus is aware, his fate is no different from, and no worse than, our own struggle in life.

We react to Sisyphus’s fate with horror because we see its futility and hopelessness. Of course, the central argument of the essay is that life itself is a futile struggle without hope. But Camus also suggests that this fate is terrifying only if we continue to hope if we believe there is something higher worth striving for. Our fate appears dreadful only in contrast to some imagined better alternative. 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 accept it without reservation. In this way, Sisyphus rises above his fate precisely because he accepts it. His punishment is dreadful only if he hopes or dreams of something better. Without hope, the gods have no power to punish him.

Camus tells us that the moment Sisyphus becomes conscious of his fate, it becomes tragic. He also alludes to Oedipus, who becomes a tragic figure only when he realizes he has killed his father and married his mother. Yet Camus also notes that both Sisyphus and Oedipus ultimately are happy, concluding that “all is well.” Tragedy, it seems, is not pessimistic. On the contrary, it represents the greatest triumph of which human beings are capable. As long as Sisyphus and Oedipus still hoped and deceived themselves, they were not heroes. Only through tragic recognition comes the full acknowledgment of our fate and limitations, and with that acknowledgment comes acceptance of who we are and what we are capable of. Tragic fate seems dreadful only in contrast with the hope for something more. By accepting their fate, Sisyphus and Oedipus abandon hope, and their fate no longer appears dreadful. On the contrary, they finally find true happiness.

We can only be truly happy, Camus suggests, when we accept our life and our fate as entirely our own the only thing we have and the only thing we will ever be. The essay’s last sentence reads: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” But why must we imagine Sisyphus happy? Camus’s formulation suggests that we have no choice in the matter. Yet is there an alternative? Sisyphus is the absurd hero, a man who loved life so much that he was condemned to an eternity of futile, hopeless labor. And yet he is above that fate precisely because he is conscious of it. If Sisyphus is not happy in this awareness, then absurd consciousness brings no happiness. That would mean happiness is possible only by avoiding absurd awareness by leaping into hope or faith.

But if hope or faith is merely an escape from the reality of our fate, and if happiness is possible only by such an escape, then happiness itself would be an evasion. Life would be intrinsically unhappy, and happiness would be a kind of shame born of denial. We must imagine Sisyphus happy if we are to believe in true happiness. Although this is the essay’s final sentence, it may also be seen as its starting premise, driving Camus’s argument.

Since Camus essentially believes that individual human experience is the only real thing, if he wishes to show that happiness is real, he must show that individual people can truly be happy based on their experience not by denying their experience. If happiness is real, we must be able to find it without relying on hope, faith, or anything beyond immediate experience. The Myth of Sisyphus is fundamentally a complex attempt to show that this is possible, and it concludes with the starting premise: if true happiness is possible, then Sisyphus must be happy.

In the opening section, Camus sets out the core purpose of his essay, describing his concept of the absurd and the consequences of encountering it. The point is to determine whether life is worth living after one becomes conscious of its fundamental absurdity. He defines the absurd as the state in which “the world evades us and becomes itself again,” not as something that belongs to us or to any higher power. He describes the moment of recognition as an encounter with the absurd.

Since there is no cure for this awareness, Camus proposes revolt, or “constant confrontation” with the absurd. He also suggests that freedom is available within the absurd, since any “scale of values” depends on belief in life’s meaning. The third consequence of the absurd, he says, is passion that is, the enthusiastic embrace of a meaningless life and the rejection of suicide.

Here Camus offers examples of those he believes have deeper insight into the absurd: lovers, actors, and conquerors. Lovers pursue fleeting joys knowing they are transient. Actors make their living through appearances. Conquerors act decisively rather than waste time moralizing. These types, he argues, have an advantage over others because they recognize that any sense of lasting achievement is an illusion.

Camus also discusses the role of art in the absurd. Art neither explains nor resolves the absurd; it merely describes the conditions of existence with an awareness of their futility. Yet creative work gives the artist an opportunity to maximize experience. By creating, artists make the fullest use of their lives.

Sisyphus is a figure from Greek mythology whom the gods condemned to push a stone up a steep hill, only for it to roll back down, forcing him to repeat the task endlessly. Camus asks us to consider Sisyphus particularly at the moment when he must return to his task. Since he accepts that he has no hope of ever doing anything else, each time he acts with “contempt for the gods, hatred of death, and passion for life.”

There is no task more trivial than one whose result returns to the beginning; this is Sisyphus’s fate, decreed by the gods. His divine punishment is to labor eternally at a meaningless task, negating all he once achieved in his free life. And yet, Sisyphus’s story can still yield an outcome deserving of happiness: complete awareness of his fate. His contempt for death and refusal to believe in a divine spirit controlling mankind drive him to reject his punishment.

For a man living in an existence as absurd as Sisyphus’s, Camus brings the inevitability of enlightenment to the forefront. When he says that “happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth,” he asserts that “absurd” and “happy” can be used synonymously here. For example, in Oedipus’s case, his highest point of awareness is also his lowest point of happiness. That moment marks his awakening to a fate he had already unknowingly sealed. Yet even in the face of the terrible irony of his blinded actions, his final remarks still affirm: “Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.” The nobility of his soul, and its relation to his awakening, is the absurd triumph Camus highlights. Oedipus possessed his “rock” (just as Sisyphus possessed his literal one), and thus endured the punishment given by the gods.

The link between absurdity and happiness also lies in the misinterpretation of hope. Hope is not what makes us reject punishment. Rather, Sisyphus’s scorn leads him to consciousness, elevating him above his punishment. As Camus says, “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”

When interpreted concretely, hope can only remind Sisyphus of the earthly pleasures taken from him by the underworld. The simple acknowledgment and contempt for this ruinous truth defeats the very purpose of the rock: he knows the rock, and so he can become the rock.

Since the rock is designed as his grief (“this is the victory of the rock, this is the rock itself”), the moment he transcends its design he becomes aware of his wholeness, and the rock is no longer needed, for he rejects its absurdity. What was once the uphill struggle is now, in the descent, a moment of ultimate serenity. We must imagine Sisyphus happy, because he lived beyond his days as a free, earthly man. His conscious choice to embrace his life, reject death, and scorn the gods is a sign of freedom—to think lucidly about his torment, to silence the idols of a perfect destiny, because Sisyphus fully knows his existence and accepts it in its entirety.

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. To judge whether life is or is not worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest whether or not the earth or the sun revolves around the other is secondary. I see many people die because they judge life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically kill themselves for ideas or illusions that give them a reason to live (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). Hence I conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions. Suicide has never been dealt with except as a social phenomenon. On the contrary, we are concerned here, at the outset, with the relationship between individual thought and suicide.”

In a certain sense, as in melodrama, killing oneself is an admission. It is a confession that life is too much for you, or that you do not understand it.

“To live, naturally, is never easy. You continue to perform the gestures commanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is habit. To die voluntarily implies you have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering.”

The subject of this essay is precisely this relationship between absurdity and suicide—the degree to which suicide is a solution to the absurd. One can establish the principle that, for a man who does not cheat, what he believes to be true must determine his actions. Belief in the absurdity of existence must therefore dictate his behavior. It is legitimate to ask, clearly and without evasions, whether the conclusion of such importance requires one to leave the incomprehensible state as quickly as possible.

“Rising, tramway, four hours of work at the office or factory, meal, tramway, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday all in the same rhythm—this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the ‘why’ arises, and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. ‘Begins’—this is important. Fatigue comes at the end of acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness.”

Yet there comes a day when a man notices or says that he is thirty. He affirms his youth. But at the same time, he situates himself in relation to time. He acknowledges that he stands at a certain point on a curve, and that he must travel it to the end.

“You know the alternative: either we are not free, and God, all-powerful, is responsible for evil. Or we are free and responsible, but God is not all-powerful. All the scholastic subtleties have neither added to nor subtracted from the acuteness of this paradox.”

The god in question is therefore entirely earthly. “For three years,” says Kirilov, “I sought the attribute of my godhead and found it. The attribute of my divinity is independence.” Now the sense of Kirilov’s premise is clear: “If God does not exist, then I am God.” To become a god is simply to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being. Above all, of course, it means drawing all the consequences of this painful independence. If God exists, everything depends on him and we can do nothing against his will. If he does not exist, everything depends on us. For Kirilov, as for Nietzsche, “to kill God is to become God oneself; it is to realize on this earth the eternal life of which the Gospel speaks.”

Camus emphasizes that there is only one world. Therefore man has all kinds of experiences here. He meant to say that both heaven and hell are on earth. God and the devil are here. Happiness and absurdity are inseparable feelings. After every sense of the absurd, man comforts himself and believes what he tells himself.

Like Sisyphus, when the absurd man reflects on his torment, he silences all gods and uncovers the truth of his fate if he is completely honest with himself and ready to acknowledge all the absurdity in his life. The absurd man does all that lies before him. He constantly strives, and if he makes the effort, then he does not fear the outcome of his fate. Beyond death, there is no greater destiny. Man hates death. As long as death has not come, man is master of his life and his choices.

Camus is especially interested in the time when Sisyphus descends the hill to push the boulder up again. This is the moment of awakening of his consciousness. At that time he is the master of his fate and stronger than his rock.

During the descent, Sisyphus reflects and feels the full scope of his desperate condition. In this consciousness he experiences his fate as tragic. At the same time, during this self-awareness in the descent, he also recalls the precious moments of his life on earth. It becomes clear that it was his scorn for the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life that shaped his torment. The memory of rare joyful moments delights his soul. That feeling crowns his victory over the stone and over eternal punishment. He knows that there is no fate that cannot be overcome with scorn.

This myth carries numerous lessons about moral values, human sins, and the inevitable punishment of sinners, no matter how clever or cunning they may be. In Greek mythology as in many ideologies, sins and wrongs were punished with harsh methods. Another key point of the myth is the kind of torment chosen by the gods. Although physical torture is thought to be one of the most terrible punishments, the mythical gods chose instead to make Sisyphus suffer a mental breakdown by working at a fruitless task forever, without any purpose or result. In this way, Sisyphus’s passion for life and struggle is eliminated, for he has no reason to live or to fight. As a result, he is trapped and desperate, able to do nothing but push the rock, waiting only for death to end his misery, though he is already dead and his suffering has no end.

For centuries, the gods’ ultimate victory in this myth was acknowledged without ever questioning their authority, the justice of their decision, or the enormity of Sisyphus’s suffering. Yet in the twentieth century, Albert Camus presented a new perspective on the myth of Sisyphus. Camus used the myth as the foundation of his philosophy, reinterpreting the events described in it. In this way, he linked a story from Greek mythology with his own worldview.

Though Sisyphus remains the same sinful figure who deserves punishment for his various deceits, Camus transforms him into a different kind of character. In Camus’s version, Sisyphus learns to live in the present moment and to rebel against the absurdity of his situation by unconditionally accepting it and ceasing to dwell on what could or should be, since such thoughts destroy him. As a result, he becomes one of the strongest absurd heroes and symbolizes absurdist philosophy. Though an imaginary, mythical figure, he in fact represents modern people who endure endless struggles even when they know they cannot obtain what they desire.

Camus insists that the absurd hero sees life as a constant struggle without hope. Any attempt to deny or escape the struggle and despair that define our lives is an attempt to flee from this absurd contradiction. His only demand of the absurd man is to live with full awareness of the absurdity of his condition. While Sisyphus pushes his rock up