Jean Sartre Essay, Research Paper

On of the major playwrights during this period was Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre had

been imprisoned in Germany in 1940 but managed to escape, and become one of the

leaders of the Existential movement. Other popular playwrights were Albert Camus,

and Jean Anouilh. Just like Anouilh, Camus accidentally became the spokesman for

the French Underground when he wrote his famous essay, "Le Mythe de Sisyphe"

or "The Myth of Sisyphus". Sisyphus was the man condemned by the gods

to roll a rock to the top of a mountain, only to have it roll back down again.

For Camus, this related heavily to everyday life, and he saw Sisyphus an

"absurd" hero, with a pointless existance. Camus felt that it was

necessary to wonder what the meaning of life was, and that the human being

longed for some sense of clarity in the world, since "if the world were

clear, art would not exist". "The Myth of Sisyphus" became a

prototype for existentialism in the theatre, and eventually The Theatre of the

Absurd. Sisyphus is the absurd hero. This man, sentenced to ceaselessly rolling

a rock to the top of a mountain and then watching its descent, is the epitome of

the absurd hero according to Camus. In retelling the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus is

able to create an extremely powerful image with imaginative force which sums up

in an emotional sense the body of the intellectual discussion which precedes it

in the book. We are told that Sisyphus is the absurd hero "as much through

his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death,

and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole

being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing." (p.89). Sisyphus is

conscious of his plight , and therein lies the tragedy. For if, during the

moments of descent, he nourished the hope that he would yet succeed, then his

labour would lose its torment. But Sisyphus is clearly conscious of the extent

of his own misery. It is this lucid recognition of his destiny that transforms

his torment into his victory. It has to be a victory for as Camus says: I leave

Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But

Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He

too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems

to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake

of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself

towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus

happy. (p.91).Sisyphus’ life and torment are transformed into a victory by

concentrating on his freedom, his refusal to hope, and his knowledge of the

absurdity of his situation. In the same way, Dr. Rieux is an absurd hero in The

Plague, for he too is under sentence of death, is trapped by a seemingly

unending torment and, like Sisyphus, he continues to perform his duty no matter

how useless or how insignificant his action. In both cases it matters little for

what reason they continue to struggle so long as they testify to man’s

allegiance to man and not to abstractions or ‘absolutes’. The ideas behind the

development of the absurd hero are present in the first three essays of the

book. In these essays Camus faces the problem of suicide. In his typically

shocking, unnerving manner he opens with the bold assertion that: There is but

one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. (p. 3).He goes on

to discover if suicide is a legitimate answer to the human predicament. Or to

put it another way: Is life worth living now that god is dead? The discussion

begins and continues not as a metaphysical cobweb but as a well reasoned

statement based on a way of knowing which Camus holds is the only epistemology

we have at our command. We know only two things:This heart within me I can feel,

and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it

exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. (p. 14)With

these as the basic certainties of the human condition, Camus argues that there

is no meaning to life. He disapproves of the many philosophers who "have

played on words and pretended to believe that refusing to grant a meaning to

life necessarily leads to declaring that it is not worth living." (p.7)

Life has no absolute meaning. In spite of the human’s irrational

"nostalgia" for unity, for absolutes, for a definite order and meaning

to the "not me" of the universe, no such meaning exists in the silent,

indifferent universe. Between this yearning for meaning and eternal verities and

the actual condition of the universe there is a gap that can never be filled.

The confrontation of the irrational, longing human heart and the indifferent

universe brings about the notion of the absurd.The absurd is born of this

confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.

(p.21)and further:The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in their

presence together…it is the only bond uniting them. (p. 21)People must realize

that the feeling of the absurd exists and can happen to them at any time. The

absurd person must demand to live solely with what is known and to bring in

nothing that is not certain. This means that all I know is that I exist, that

the world exists ,and that I am mortal. Doesn’t this make a futile pessimistic

chaos of life? Wouldn’t suicide be a legitimate way out of a meaningless life?

"No." "No." answers Camus. Although the absurd cancels all

chances of eternal freedom it magnifies freedom of action. Suicide is

"acceptance at its extreme", it is a way of confessing that life is

too much for one. This is the only life we have; and even though we are aware,

in fact, because we are aware of the absurd, we can find value in this life. The

value is in our freedom, our passion, and our revolt. The first change we must

make to live in the absurd situation is to realize that thinking, or reason, is

not tied to any eternal mind which can unify and "make appearances familiar

under the guise of a great principle," but it is: …learning all over

again to see, to be attentive, to focus consciousness; it is turning every idea

and every image, in the manner of Proust, into a privileged moment. (p. 20)My

experiences, my passions, my ideas, my images and memories are all that I know

of this world – and they are enough. The absurd person can finally say "all

is well".I understand then why the doctrines that explain everything to me

also debilitate me at the same time. They relieve me of the weight of my own

life, and yet I must carry it alone. (p. 41)Camus then follows his notions to

their logical conclusions and insists that people must substitute quantity of

experience for quality of experience. The purest of joys is "feeling, and

feeling on this earth." This statement cannot be used to claim a hedonism

as Camus’s basic philosophy, but must be thought of in connection with the

notion of the absurd that has been developed in the early part of the essay. Man

is mortal. The world is not. A person’s dignity arises from a consciousness of

death, an awareness that eternal values and ideas do not exist, and a refusal to

give in to the notion of hope or appeal for something that we are uncertain of.

In the following essays, Camus presents examples of the absurd person. We are

given Don Juan, the actor, and the conqueror as examples of people who multiply

their lives in an attempt to live fully within the span of their mortality. But

more important is the creator who is discussed in the essay "Absurd

Creation". "The absurd joy par excellence is creation." For in

creating a work of art the creator is living doubly in as much as his creation

id a separate life. "The artist commits himself and becomes himself in his

work." Works of art become, then, the one means for a person to support and

sustain a lucid consciousness in the face of the absurdity of the universe. The

present and the succession of presents before an ever conscious mind, this is

the ideal of the absurd man. (p. 81)Art is for Camus an essential human activity

and one of the most fundamental. It expresses human aspirations toward freedom

and beauty, aspirations which make life valuable for each transient human being.

Art defies that part of existence in which each individual is no more that a

social unit or an insignificant cog in the evolution of history. In The Myth of

Sisyphus then we find the philosophical basis for the stranger, the doctor, and

the judge-penitent. This is the starting point of Camus’s thought. Camus is

concerned here as in his other works with persons and their world, the

relationships between them, and the relationships between persons and their

history. In The Myth of Sisyphus he opposes himself to the rationalism of

classical philosophy which seeks universal and enduring truths or a hierarchy of

values which is crowned by God; he believes that truth is found by a subjective

intensity of passion; he maintains that the individual is always free and

involved in choice; he recognizes that persons exist in the world and are

naturally related with it;he is deeply concerned with the significance of death,

its inevitability and its finality. The absurd is a revolt against tomorrow and

as such comes to terms with the present moment. Suicide consents to the absurd

as final and limitless while revolt is a an ongoing struggle with the absurd and

brings with it man’s redemption. One can see now why Sisyphus is the absurd

hero. He is conscious of his plight: it was his scorn of the gods, hatred of

death, and passion for life that won him the penalty of rolling a rock to the

top of the mountain forever, and he does not appeal to hope or to any uncertain

gods. His is the ultimate absurd, for there is not death at the end of his

struggle. All is not chaos; the experience of the absurd is the proof of man’s

uniqueness and the foundation of his dignity and freedom. All that remains is a

fate whose outcome alone is fatal. Outside of that single fatality of death,

everything, joy or happiness, is liberty. A world remains of which man is the

sole master. What bound him was the illusion of another world. The outcome of

his thought , ceasing to be renunciatory, flowers in images. It frolics – in

myths, to be sure, but myths with no other depth than that of human suffering

and like it inexhaustible. Not the divine fable that amuses and blinds, but the

terrestial face, gesture, and drama in which are summed up a difficult wisdom

and an ephemeral passion. (p. 87)One could do worse than to consider the

myths-retold in the works of Camus. Sisyphus is the absurd hero. This man,

sentenced to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain and then

watching its descent, is the essence of the absurd hero according to Camus. In

retelling the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus is able to create an extremely powerful

image with imaginative force, which sums up in an emotional sense the body of

the discussion. We are told that Sisyphus is the absurd hero "as much

through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred

of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the

whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing.? (p.120). Sisyphus is

conscious of his dilemma, and in that lays his tragedy. For if, during the

moments of descent, he nourished the hope that he would yet succeed, then his

labor would lose its torment. Nevertheless, Sisyphus is clearly conscious of the

extent of his misery. It is this logical recognition of his destiny that

transforms his torment into his victory. It has to be a victory for as Camus

says: ?I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s

burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and

raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth

without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that

stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a

world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.? (p.123). Sisyphus’ life and torment are

turned into victory by concentrating on his freedom, his refusal to hope, and

his knowledge of the absurdity of his situation. It matters little for what

reason he continues to struggle so long as he continues on this absurd path and

not venture on to the path of dreaming or wishing. The ideas behind the

development of the absurd hero are present in the first three essays of the

book. In these essays, Camus faces the problem of suicide. In his typically

shocking, unnerving manner he opens with the bold statement that: ?There is

but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.? (p. 3). He

goes on to discover if suicide is a legitimate answer to the human dilemma. Or

to put it another way: Is life worth living now that God is dead? Since Camus

doesn?t believe in the Superior Being, he must find another way to describe

the fate of man. We know only two things: ?This heart within me I can feel,

and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it

exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction.? (p. 19)

With these as the basic certainties of the human condition, Camus argues that

there is no meaning to life. He disapproves of the many philosophers who

"have played on words and pretended to believe that refusing to grant a

meaning to life necessarily leads to declaring that it is not worth living.?

(p.8) Life has no absolute meaning. In spite of the human’s irrational longing

for unity, for absolutes, for a definite order and meaning to the universe, no

such meaning exists in the silent, indifferent universe. Between this yearning

for meaning and eternal truth and the actual condition of the universe, there is

a gap that can never be filled. The confrontation of the irrational, longing

human heart and the indifferent universe brings about the notion of the absurd.

?The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the

unreasonable silence of the world.? (p.28) Yet: The absurd is not in man nor

in the world, but in their presence together…it is the only bond uniting them.

(p. 30) People must realize that the feeling of the absurd exists and can happen

to them at any time. The absurd person must demand to live solely with what is

known and to bring in nothing that is not certain. This means that all I know is

that I exist, that the world exists, and that I am mortal. Doesn’t this make a

useless life? Wouldn’t suicide be a legitimate way out of a meaningless life?

"No." answers Camus. Although the absurd cancels all chances of

eternal freedom, it magnifies freedom of action. Suicide is "acceptance at

its extreme"; it is a way of confessing that life is too much for one. This

is the only life we have; and even though we are aware, in fact, because we are

aware of the absurd, we can find value in this life. The value is in our

freedom, our passion, and our revolt. The first change we must make to live in

the absurd situation is to realize that thinking, or reason, is not tied to any

eternal mind which can unify and "make appearances familiar under the guise

of a great principle," but it is: ?…learning all over again to see, to

be attentive, to focus consciousness; it is turning every idea and every image,

in the manner of Proust, into a privileged moment.? (p. 26) Camus then follows

his ideas to their logical conclusions and insists that people must substitute

quantity of experience for quality of experience. The purest of joys is

"feeling, and feeling on this earth.? This statement cannot be used to

claim self-satisfaction as Camus’s basic philosophy, but must be thought of in

connection with the notion of the absurd that has been developed in the earlier.

Man is mortal. The world is not. It is therefore absurd to try to understand

something we will never have, immortality. A person’s dignity arises from a

consciousness of death, an awareness that eternal values and ideas do not exist,

and a refusal to give in to the idea of hope or appeal for something that we are

uncertain of and cannot know. In the following essays, Camus presents examples

of the absurd person. We are given Don Juan, the actor, and the conqueror as

examples of people who multiply their lives in an attempt to live fully within

the span of their mortality. However, more important is the creator who is

discussed in the essay "Absurd Creation". For in creating a work of

art the creator is living doubly in as much as his creation in a separate life.

The artist gives himself and becomes himself in his work. Works of art become,

then, the one means for a person to support and sustain a logical consciousness

in the face of the absurdity of the universe. Art is for Camus an essential

human activity and one of the most fundamental. It expresses human aspirations

toward freedom and beauty, aspirations that make life valuable for each

short-lived human being. Art defies that part of existence in which each

individual is no more that a social unit or an insignificant cog in the

evolution of history. One can see now why Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is

conscious of his predicament: it was his scorn of the gods, hatred of death, and

passion for life that won him the penalty of rolling a rock to the top of the

mountain forever, and he does not appeal to hope or to any uncertain Gods. His

is the ultimate absurd, for there is not death at the end of his struggle. Not

all is chaos; the experience of the absurd is the proof of man’s uniqueness and

the foundation of his dignity and freedom. ?All that remains is a fate whose

outcome alone is fatal. Outside of that single fatality of death, everything,

joy or happiness, is liberty. A world remains of which man is the sole master.

What bound him was the illusion of another world. The outcome of his thought,

ceasing to be renunciatory, flowers in images. It frolics – in myths, to be

sure, but myths with no other depth than that of human suffering and like it

inexhaustible. Not the divine fable that amuses and blinds, but the terrestrial

face, gesture, and drama in which are summed up a difficult wisdom and an

ephemeral passion.? (p. 117-118)