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Sisyphus the myth camus6/30/2023 ![]() Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. He was punished for this in the underworld. Together the two works established his reputation, and they are often seen as thematically. ![]() Published in the same year as Camus’s novel L’tranger (The Stranger), The Myth of Sisyphus contains a sympathetic analysis of contemporary nihilism and touches on the nature of the absurd. Thus the absurd man realizes that he was not really free. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. The Myth of Sisyphus, philosophical essay by Albert Camus, published in French in 1942 as Le Mythe de Sisyphe. However far one may remain from any presumption, moral or social, one is partly influenced by them and even, for the best among them (there are good and bad presumptions), one adapts one' s life to them. But at the same time I strengthen my postulate with the beliefs of those around me, with the presumptions of my human environment (others are so sure of being free, and that cheerful mood is so contagious!). I think I can choose to be that rather than something else. Thus I could not act otherwise than as the father (or the engineer or the leader of a nation, or the post-office sub-clerk) that I am preparing to be. ![]() To the extent to which he imagined a purpose to his life, he adapted himself to the demands of a purpose to be achieved and became the slave of his liberty. ![]() But at the same time the absurd man realizes that hitherto he was bound to that postulate of freedom on the illusion of which he was living. ![]()
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