Myth of the Sisyphus

Sinner condemned in Tartarus to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill then

watching it roll back down again. Sisyphus was founder and king of Corinth,
or Ephyra as it was called in those days. He was notorious as the most
cunning knave on earth. His greatest triumph came at the end of his life,
when the god Hades came to claim him personally for the kingdom of the
dead. Hades had brought along a pair of handcuffs, a comparative novelty,
and Sisyphus expressed such an interest that Hades was persuaded to
demonstrate their use - on himself.

And so it came about that the high lord of the Underworld was kept locked
up in a closet at Sisyphus's house for many a day, a circumstance which
put the great chain of being seriously out of whack. Nobody could die. A
soldier might be chopped to bits in battle and still show up at camp for
dinner. Finally Hades was released and Sisyphus was ordered summarily
to report to the Underworld for his eternal assignment. But the wily one had
another trick up his sleeve.

He simply told his wife not to bury him and then complained to Persephone,
Queen of the Dead, that he had not been accorded the proper funeral
honors. What's more, as an unburied corpse he had no business on the far
side of the river Styx at all - his wife hadn't placed a coin under his tongue
to secure passage with Charon the ferryman. Surely her highness could
see that Sisyphus must be given leave to journey back topside and put
things right.

Kindly Persephone assented, and Sisyphus made his way back to the
sunshine, where he promptly forgot all about funerals and such drab affairs
and lived on in dissipation for another good stretch of time. But even this
paramount trickster could only postpone the inevitable. Eventually he was
hauled down to Hades, where his indiscretions caught up with him. For a
crime against the gods - the specifics of which are variously reported - he
was condemned to an eternity at hard labor. And frustrating labor at that.
For his assignment was to roll a great boulder to the top of a hill. Only
every time Sisyphus, by the greatest of exertion and toil, attained the
summit, the darn thing rolled back down again.

Summary

Sisyphus is probably more famous for his punishment in the underworld

than for what he did in his life. According to the Greek myth, Sisyphus is
condemned to roll a rock up to the top of a mountain, only to have the rock
roll back down to the bottom every time he reaches the top. The gods were
wise, Camus suggests, in perceiving that an eternity of futile labor is a
hideous punishment.

There are a number of stories—ones which are not mutually exclusive—

that explain how Sisyphus came to earn his punishment in the underworld.
According to one story, Zeus carried off Aegina, a mortal woman who was
the daughter of Asopus. Sisyphus witnessed this kidnapping in his home
city of Corinth. Sisyphus agreed to inform Asopus as to who had kidnapped
Aegina if Asopus would give the citadel at Corinth a fresh-water spring. In
making this deal and bearing witness against Zeus, Sisyphus earned the
wrath of the gods while earning earthly wealth and happiness for himself
and his people.

Another story tells how Sisyphus enchained the spirit of Death, so that
during Death's imprisonment, no human being died. Naturally, when the
gods freed Death, his first victim was Sisyphus. It is also said that Sisyphus
told his wife not to offer any of the traditional burial rites when he died.
When he arrived in the underworld, he complained to Hades that his wife
had not observed these rites and was granted permission to return to earth
to chastise her. Once granted this second lease on life, Sisyphus refused to
return to the underworld, and lived to a ripe old age before returning to the
underworld a second time to endure his eternal punishment.

Camus identifies Sisyphus as the archetypal absurd hero, both for his
behavior on earth and for his punishment in the underworld. He displays
scorn for the gods, a hatred of death, and a passion for life. His punishment
is to endure an eternity of hopeless struggle.

We are not told how Sisyphus endures his punishment in the underworld:
that much is left to our imagination. What fascinates Camus is Sisyphus's
state of mind in that moment after the rock rolls away from him at the top of
the mountain. As he heads down the mountain, briefly free from his labor,
he is conscious, aware of the absurdity of his fate. His fate can only be
considered tragic because he understands it and has no hope for reprieve.
At the same time, the lucidity he achieves with this understanding also
places him above his fate.

Camus suggests that Sisyphus might even approach his task with joy. The
moments of sorrow or melancholy come when he looks back at the world
he's left behind, or when he hopes or wishes for happiness. When
Sisyphus accepts his fate, however, the sorrow and melancholy of it
vanish. Camus suggests that acknowledging "crushing truths" like the
eternity and futility of his fate is enough to render them less crushing. He
refers to Oedipus, who, having suffered so much, is able to "conclude that
all is well."
Happiness and the absurd are closely linked, suggests Camus. They are
both connected to the discovery that our world and our fate is our own, that
there is no hope and that our life is purely what we make of it. As he
descends the mountain, Sisyphus is totally aware of his fate. Camus
concludes: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Analysis

Camus has argued that the absurd hero sees life as a constant struggle,
without hope. Any attempt to deny or avoid the struggle and the
hopelessness that define our lives is an attempt to escape from this absurd
contradiction. Camus's single requirement for the absurd man is that he live
with full awareness of the absurdity of his position. While Sisyphus is
pushing his rock up the mountain, there is nothing for him but toil and
struggle. But in those moments where Sisyphus descends the mountain
free from his burden, he is aware. He knows that he will struggle forever
and he knows that this struggle will get him nowhere. This awareness is
precisely the same awareness that an absurd man has in this life. So long
as Sisyphus is aware, his fate is no different and no worse than our lot in
life.

We react to Sisyphus's fate with horror because we see its futility and
hopelessness. Of course, the central argument of this essay is that life itself
is a futile struggle devoid of hope. However, Camus also suggests that this
fate is only horrible if we continue to hope, if we think that there is
something more that is worth aiming for. Our fate only seems horrible when
we place it in contrast with something that would seem preferable. If we
accept that there is no preferable alternative, then we can accept our fate
without horror. Only then, Camus suggests, can we fully appreciate life,
because we are accepting it without reservations. Therefore, Sisyphus is
above his fate precisely because he has accepted it. His punishment is
only horrible if he can hope or dream for something better. If he does not
hope, the gods have nothing to punish him with.

The theory of tragedy is a vast and complicated subject beyond the scope
of this commentary, but a brief discussion of Camus's angle on tragedy
may be valuable. Camus tells us that the moment Sisyphus becomes
aware of his fate, his fate becomes tragic. He also alludes to Oedipus, who
becomes a tragic figure only when he becomes aware that he has killed his
father and married his mother. He also remarks that both Sisyphus and
Oedipus are ultimately happy, that they "conclude that all is well." Tragedy,
Camus seems to be suggesting, is not pessimistic. On the contrary, it
represents the greatest triumph we are capable of as human beings. So
long as Sisyphus and Oedipus continue to hope and to deceive
themselves, they are not heroic. With tragic recognition comes a full
acknowledgment of our fate and our limitations, and with that
acknowledgment comes an acceptance of who we are and what we are
capable of. Tragic fate only seems horrible in contrast to the hope for
something more. In accepting their fate, Sisyphus and Oedipus have
abandoned hope, and so their fate does not seem horrible to them. On the
contrary, they have finally found the only genuine happiness.

Camus concludes his essay by arguing that happiness and absurd

awareness are intimately connected. We can only be truly happy, he
suggests, when we accept our life and our fate as entirely our own—as the
only thing we have and as the only thing we will ever be. The final sentence
reads: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." But why must we imagine
Sisyphus happy? Camus's wording suggests that we have no choice in the
matter. But is there an alternative? Sisyphus is the absurd hero, the man
who loved life so much that he has been condemned to an eternity of futile
and hopeless labor. And yet he is above that fate precisely because he is
aware of it. If Sisyphus is not happy in this awareness, then absurd
awareness does not bring happiness. It would then follow that happiness is
only possible if we evade absurd awareness, if we leap into hope or faith.

If the leap into hope or faith represents an attempt to escape from the
reality of our fate, and if happiness is only possible through such a leap,
then happiness would essentially be an escape. Life itself would be
inherently unhappy and happiness would be a sham born out of denial. We
must imagine Sisyphus happy if we want to believe in genuine happiness.
Though this is the last sentence of the essay, we might see it as the initial
premise that starts Camus's reasoning. Because Camus essentially
believes in the idea that individual human experience is the only thing that
is real, if he wants to show that happiness is real he must show that
individual humans can truly be happy based on their experiences, not on
their denial of experience. If happiness is real, we must be able to find
happiness without relying on hope, faith, or anything else that goes beyond
immediate experience. The Myth of Sisyphus is essentially an elaborate
attempt to show that this is possible, and it concludes with its starting
premise: if genuine happiness is possible, then Sisyphus must be happy.