Albert Camus

November 7, 1913-January 4, 1960

Albert Camus was a French novelist, essayist and playwright. He was born on November 7, 1913 in a small Algerian city of Mondovi to Lucien and Catherine Camus. Albert Camus had a quite difficult childhood. He was raised in a poor family and suffered two big losses with his father dying in World War I and his mother suffering a stroke which left her disabled. Tough conditions which Camus had to go through in his youth taught him to value independence and personal responsibility. Camus did very well in grammar school and developed a profound interest in philosophy and literature in the prestigious school Grand Lycée of Algiers. Before his move to Nazi occupied France in 1942 where he joined the French Resistance, he worked as a journalist in Algiers and became involved with a theatrical troupe there, first as an actor and then as a playwright and director. In 1938 he temporarily joined Algerian Communist Party, but he soon lost his belief in communism which later greatly influenced his political opinions. (Campion, p.1) In 1957 Albert Camus was granted a Nobel prize for Literature at the age of 43. (Royal, p.26) He died in a car accident on January 4th, 1960. (Leroux, p.204) Before his death, Camus wrote numerous works that still fascinate readers around the world. Major works of his such as The Stranger, 1946; The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942; The Plague 1947; and The Rebel, 1951 were published in the 40s and 50s, during the outbreaks of Nazism, Stalinism and colonial exploitation which had a very important context in Camus’s works. The Stranger is a first-person narrative in which the main character, Meursault, an Algerian office worker, is alienated from society. Raymond, a close friend of Meursault is a pimp.  Meursault kills an Arab who has been following Raymond and although Meursault is obviously guilty, he never receives a fair trial due to corrupt lawyer and the judge. This novel ridicules flaws of French judicial system and legal injustices committed by the Nazis in occupied France. (Campion, p.1) The Myth of Sisyphus is based on Greek mythology where Sisyphus was punished for eternity to push a large rock to the top of a mountain and every time he reached the summit, his rock would roll back into the valley. Camus imagined that Sisyphus was being punished because he had rebelled against the power of the gods and despite his absurd task, he would never give up and repeat his task repeatedly. Many readers see Sisyphus as a metaphor of the French Resistance against Nazis which Camus was a part of. (Campion, p.1) His novel The Plague is considered the most profound reflection on the evils of Nazism. Novel takes place in the walled Algerian city of Oran where the plague suddenly breaks out and the city is closed to prevent the plague from spreading to other cities. It is clear that the plague in this novel symbolizes Nazism and the closed walls of the city symbolize the closed borders of the countries occupied by Nazis. (Campion, p.1) Another work by Camus that worth being mentioned is The Rebel. The Rebel ranges widely over culture, politics and society and exposing evils of communists and fascists. In The Rebel he also criticized totalitarian regime and “crimes of logic” which were encouraged to be committed by Western intellectuals. (Royal, p.28) Albert Camus’s value of personal integrity and independence along with historical circumstances during his time such as Nazi occupation of France and French colonial rule in Algeria made him provide a deep insight on totalitarianism, colonial exploitation and political abuse. Camus’s ethical and political beliefs that he expressed throughout his works still inspire his readers to this day.

Valerii Kolesnikov

Works Cited

Adams, Harry Baker. “Dialogue between Theology and Modern Humanists: The Contribution of Albert Camus.” Encounter, vol. 26, no. 4, 1965, pp. 434-444. EBSCOhost, libaccess.mcmaster.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0000704312&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Campion, Edmund J. “Albert Camus.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, January. EBSCOhost, libaccess.mcmaster.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=88801288&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Leroux, Georges. “Between Sunshine and Shadow: The Legacy of Albert Camus.” Queen’s Quarterly, no. 2, 2010, EBSCOhost, libaccess.mcmaster.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.233126326&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Royal, Robert. “Camus between God and Nothing: Robert Royal Reflects on the Enduring Significance of Albert Camus One Hundred Years After His Birth.” First Things, vol. 239, Jan. 2014, pp. 25-30. EBSCOhost, libaccess.mcmaster.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001972658&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Zaretsky, Robert. “The Tragic Nostalgia of Albert Camus.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, no. 3, 2013, p. 55. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3167/hrrh.2013.390305.

Other Relevant Reading

Curzon-Hobson, Aidan. “Extending the Contribution of Albert Camus to Educational Thought: An Analysis of the Rebel.” Educational Philosophy & Theory, vol. 46, no. 10, Sept. 2014, pp. 1098-1110. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00131857.2013.795111.

Camus, Albert. The Rebel. 1951

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. 1942

Camus, Albert. The Plague. 1947

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus.1942

Absurdism

Identification 

Absurdism is the philosophical school of thought that states that the human search for inherent meaning in life is absurd because it is impossible. The concept originates in the work of the 19^th century Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, but is famously associated with 20^th century French writer and philosopher, Albert Camus. The word, absurd, stems both from Middle French and Latin, bearing a closer relation in this context to the 16^th century Latin origin, absurdus, meaning “out of tune” and “discordant.” This aligns with Camus’ definition of the feeling of absurdity that he wrote on page 17 of his essay, The Myth of Sisyphus: “the divorce between the mind that desires and world that disappoints.” The disconnect between the human desire for meaning and order and the irrational world brings about the feeling of the absurd.

Historical Significance

Absurdism developed from and alongside 20^th century existentialism and nihilism, providing a sort of middle ground between the certainty of existentialism and the despair of nihilism. During and following the Second World War, wherein families had sent their young men into battles that they did not fully understand, the irrational nature of the world was revealed.  In addition, the cruelty of the world was illuminated in such events as the Holocaust and the torture of prisoners. It brought about a climate in which God felt far and it confronted the human craving for reason, allowing people to feel the absurd. This climate of absurdity can be seen in the Theatre of the Absurd, mid-century plays such as Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, which expressed the feeling that the life was irrational and devoid of goodness. However, unlike nihilism, absurdism did not end in the despair that no meaning could be found nor called for overly brave calls to action to find meaning like existentialism. Absurdism befit the mood to simply live on, in spite of the terror of war and the devastation of its aftermath. In at least Camus’ version of absurdism, the individual, although they lack order or religion to comfort them, forges on courageously and even happily. It sheds light on the motivation that those emerging from the tragedy of the War faced. As well, it shows the way in which those, since the Enlightenment, who have departed from religion in an effort to modernize and thus secularize have lived. In knowing of a way of life wherein the world’s irrationality without God is embraced and lived through, today’s contemporary secularity and spreading atheism can thrive.

Key Historical Proponents

Kierkegaard and Camus are the key proponents of absurdism. Both rooted their work in Nietzsche’s pronouncement that “God is dead”–the absurd exists in the absence of God–but took different approaches in dealing with that. Kierkegaard lived in the “golden age” of intellectual and artistic activity, but he himself hardly left his hometown of Copenhagen and was concerned with revitalizing the Christian faith. He believed that we cannot have faith by virtue of reason but by virtue of the absurd; he writes in Fear and Trembling that Abraham does not have to sacrifice his son by virtue of the absurd (instead of on account of his faith). As such, his response to the absurd is taking a leap of faith. His figure of the knight of faith precedes Camus’ Sisyphus as one who indulges confidently and even happily in impossible and distressing tasks. However, Camus scorned Kierkegaard’s leap of faith. He moved to occupied Paris from Algeria in 1940 and there continued writing The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, both of which were published in 1942. In this time and space, there existed for Camus’ writings on the absurdity of life a perfect and fitting audience. This led to Camus receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 for “illuminat[ing] the problem of the human conscience in our time.” He believed that the absurd should be met with a courageous embrace and joy in knowing that one is the master of their own fate.

Rya Buckley

 

Bibliography

“Absurd,” Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 11, 2017. http://www.etymonline.com/word/absurd.

Aronson, Ronald. “Albert Camus,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified April 10, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/#SuiAbsHapMytSis.

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Translated by Justin O’Brien, 1-24. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

McDonald, William. “Søren Kierkegaard”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified July 8, 2016. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/.

Simpson, David. “Albert Camus (1913-1960).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed October 14, http://www.iep.utm.edu/camus/#SSH5ci.

Skrimshire, Stefan. “A Political Theology of the Absurd? Albert Camus and Simone Weil on Social Transformation.” Literature and Theology 20, no. 3 (September 2006) : 286-300, accessed October 14, 2017, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23927360.

Sringley, Ronald D. “Albert Camus’ Critique of Modernity.” Ph.D. thesis, McMaster University, 2008.