Use of Myth in a Work of Art

¶ … Myth in a Work of Art

Albert Camus was born on the 7th of November 1913 in Algeria from a French father and a Spanish mother. His father died in the First World War (seriously wounded in the battle of the Marne, he died a month later), so that Camus was raised by his mother and never knew his father. Camus spent his childhood in Alger, in his grandmother's house, where he received his first education. Later on, he passed onto to primary school under the tutorship of Louis German, to whom Camus will bear a strong gratitude his whole life and whom he mentioned in his acceptance speech upon winning the Nobel price in 1957. It was German that first encouraged Albert Camus in his studies and who convinced him to pursue a higher education within the Algiers University. During his time at the university, he founded the Theatre du Travail in Algiers, where his first play, Revolte dans les Asturies, was put on scene. After earning a degree in philosophy, Camus quickly established himself as one of the most notable writers of the 20th century with novels like The Stranger (1946), The Plague (1948) and The Myth of Sisyphus (1955). Writer and novelist, philosopher, leader of the absurd school of thought, playwright, actor and translator, Camus was one of the most important literary figure of the 20th century. His life came to a tragic end on the 4th of January 1960, when he was killed in a car crash together with his friend and editor, Michel Gallimard. Ironically enough, Camus had intended to return to Paris by train, because of his dislike for cars, and a return rail ticket was found in his pocket.

Camus's philosophical conceptions start with the contradiction between the absurdity of an existence in an irrational world and the fact that the human being is a rational being and, even more so, a conscious rational being that understands this absurd. Camus's man is an absurd man, that is, one who has had the revelation of the absurd world and is faced with several alternatives. Camus sees three: physical suicide, religion (as a form of philosophical suicide) and the revolt. In his opinion, however, the first two remain empty and coward ways of evasion, so there is only one left: the revolt. In the first stage (as it is in the Myth of Sisyphus for example), the revolt is on a personal, interior level, at a conscience level for each human being in part. However, with his future works, he sees that this kind of revolt will have no chances of success, so he proposes a collective revolt against the absurd. The Plague is an excellent example of this next level of Camus's thinking and ideas. The subject of the novel is quite simple: one morning, the population from the city discovers rats (as always in Camus's novels, the absurd appears suddenly, without any warning. It is also the case here: the first encounter with the rats is in a block and there is no evidence of why they would appear. Similarly, in The Stranger the absurd appears suddenly in the form of an Arab figure on the beach. Again, no explanation, no motivation and no signs of its appearance) and soon the plague devastates the city. The plague is a form of the absurd, the reaction against it (as proposed by Camus) has to be collective: the whole population mobilizes itself against the absurd enemy. The result itself is only significant as a further characterization of the absurd as Camus sees it: the plague disappears just as fast and without any signs as it had appeared. I have described briefly some of Camus's philosophical conceptions so as to be able to fit in the literary current of existentialism. The existentialism puts the human being in the center of its conception, as does Camus, and tries to solve and analyze man's reactions in a hostile and absurd world.

The Myth of Sisyphus represents the theoretical work from which all his novels were written, as it comprises many of Camus's future ideas and thoughts. The camusian man is defined here, as well as many of the existentialist concepts that Camus uses. The myth itself goes back to the Greek mythology and presents Sisyphus as the son of Aeolus, founder and king of Corinthus. Married to Melope, Atlas's daughter, Sisyphus had several children, Glaucus, Halmus and Thersander among them (according to some sources he was also the father of Odysseus). Following Camus's essay, the first part provides quite an extensive historical description of Sisyphus, his life as portrayed by Homer and legend. According to Homer, Sisyphus was "wisest and most prudent of mortals." However, several of his acts prove less his prudence and rather explain how he ended up as a "futile laborer of the underworld." Thus, he told Esopus that his daughter, Egina had been kidnapped by Jupiter in exchange for water for Corinthus. This was not his only deed, however. Homer again tells how Sisyphus stole Death and put her in chains, only to be liberated by Ares, the god of war. His final deed that upset his relation with the gods happened as he was allowed by Pluto/Hades to return to Earth after death in order to chastise his wife. As he enjoyed the beauty of life and of Earth, he no longer wanted to return to the underworld and a decree of the gods was necessary so that Mercury could come and forcefully bring him back. For all these, Sisyphus was sentenced to continuously carry a large boulder up a hill, endlessly, ceaselessly, for eternity.

This is where history and mythology ends and where Camus's philosophy begins. From the very beginning of his philosophical expose, he tells us straightforward that "Sisyphus is the absurd hero." There are two dimensions of this absurd. The first is through his relationship with the gods. The gods are absurd because of their absurd laws and rules and because of the absurd world they have created. Secondly, Sisyphus is an absurd hero through his torture: rolling the stone up for an infinity, only to see his work turned to the bottom of the hill again. We have to read carefully Camus's assertion: his interest towards the character does not relate to the facts that have brought him there or to his way uphill, but to the return way to the plain: "it is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me." Why this very moment? The moment the boulder rolls back into the plain and Sisyphus makes his way down again is the moment most relevant for the conscience of the hero. It is "his hour of consciousness," the hour when he, more than ever, can ask himself questions on the futility of his endeavor and its absurdity. It is the moment where he can fully understand and analyze the absurd of his condition.