Lachenwitzer 1

Julian Lachenwitzer

Professor Lak

ENG1100

December 5 2023

“How should one live?”: Albert Camus and the Absurd

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.” This quote by absurdist

and existentialist philosopher and literary Albert Camus illustrates key concern in many of his literary

works. Many of Camus novels and essays concern themselves with the meaning of life and how we can

truly live. The question of how to truly live remains a key element in all of his literature. Camus pri-

marily concerns himself with the absurd, the idea that the world is meaningless, but that at the same

time humans strive for meaning in their lives. This contradiction between the world and human desire

results in the absurd conflict. Camus offers three solutions to this absurd problem, suicide, Philosophi-

cal suicide, and becoming the “absurd hero”. Through his literature Camus argues that taking the ap-

proach of the absurd hero is in fact the most effective solution to living fully and coming to terms with

the absurd world.

Camus first solution to the absurd is a surprising one. He suggests that suicide is a solution to

the absurd but is in fact the wrong solution to dealing with an absurd world. In the article “Camus’s

Challenge: The Question of Suicide.” Craig DeLancey writes on the perception of the meaning of sui-

cide through Camus works such as the myth of Sisyphus, the stranger and the plague; all novels dealing

with the topic of absurdism. DeLancey primarily refers to the “absurd suicide” in his text which is a
Lachenwitzer 2

suicide motivated by the absurd, this suicide as Camus describes is due to a lack of sufficient purpose

and that “To be motivated to be an absurd suicide, one must act in the conviction that suicide is “a kind

of response to the absurd. The act is a rejection.” (DeLancey 2021). In rejecting the absurd world, a

world which has no purpose the individual is presented with a conflict. The individual desires an es-

cape from the world because he or she is unable to find a purpose. However DeLancey argues that in

searching for our purpose, we make the search for purpose our purpose, contradicting the idea that we

live in a purposeless world. Camus’s argument against suicide then states that in ignoring the fact that

we can create purpose out of a search for purpose or meaning in our lives we are giving up on our-

selves. This is also reflected in DeLaneys interpretation “To give up on the search for purpose is to give

up on ourselves” (DeLancey 2021). These ideals present themselves in many of Camus text such as in

the myth of sisyphus when Camus writes: “It [Suicide] is merely confessing that that [life] is not worth

the trouble." (Camus 1942). Camus comments on suicide perfectly reflect the reason why suicide is an

inadequate solution to the absurd. Suicide equates to giving up, and it is the act of making the decision

that life is not worth living and that there is nothing left of value in the world, it is in fact the worst of

the 3 solutions as it eliminates any possibility of ever finding meaning or purpose in life.

The second solution to the absurd which Camus offers is what he calls philosophical suicide. At

its core this means taking a leap of faith and aligning oneself with a greater idea/ ideology in order to

escape the conflict brought about by the absurd. Camus uses several examples of this but the one he

returns to the most is the example of god and the afterlife. In his text titled “The Absurd” Author

Thomas Nagel presents a hypothesis for why individuals would be willing to surrender themselves to

something external and take that leap of faith. He writes that the main motivation often consists of the
Lachenwitzer 3

fact that “people can come to feel that when they are part of something bigger it is part of them too”

(Nagel p.6 1971). In the absurd world the main concern of the individual is finding a purpose/ meaning

in this meaningless world. People therefore align themselves with this external concept of god or what-

ever it may be and base their purpose around it in order to avoid coming face to face with the fact that

the world is inherently meaningless, by entrusting oneself to a religious ideal or an afterlife an individ-

ual is able to escape the absurd fact that we live just to die for example. They can then find solace in

the fact that if they live a certain way they will be rewarded once it is all over. However Camus and

others would argue that this is in fact disingenuous and dishonest towards the individual and their actu-

al purpose. When serving a cause greater then themselves “they [the individual] worry less about what

is peculiar to themselves but identify enough with the larger enterprise to find their role in it fulfilling”

(Nagel, p.6 1971), this however is not the way Camus desires us to find meaning in the absurd world.

He sees this approach as wrong as this would ignore the concept of absurdity stating that “The absurd,

which is the metaphysical state of the conscious man, does not Lead to God.” (Camus 1942). Camus

denounces turning to god arguing that ignoring the absurd to find god would be to deny ones con-

sciousness. Furthermore the discovery that there is no afterlife or that there is no god would be crushing

and would ruin an individual who has devoted themselves to this concept. They would be forever

plunged in a state of misery which would contradict the original reason they turned to this ideology in

the first place, leading to overall more suffering as opposed to simply embracing the absurd making the

second solution also inadequate in resolving the issue.

The final and arguably the most effective solution against the absurd is the act of rebellion. Or

the act of embracing the idea of the “absurd hero”. The act of becoming the absurd hero refers to ac-
Lachenwitzer 4

cepting the conditions of the absurd. Rather than concerning oneself with the question of why we are

alive, why not simply live? Camus reflects the absurd hero through the character sisyphus; a man

cursed by the gods to roll a boulder up a mountain for eternity. Sisyphus is considered the absurd hero

because “Each time he returns to the bottom of the mountain, he is conscious of the fact that his exer-

tions accomplish nothing...” (O’Dwyer p.8 2012). He is conscious of the absurd however “This is the

moment when Sisyphus is most conscious of his torment, but it is also, according to Camus, the mo-

ment of his victory and joy. Consciousness raises Sisyphus to heroic proportions” (O’Dwyer p.8 2012).

Sisyphus lives in an absurd reality, having to move a boulder for eternity, he recognizes the absurd and

the conditions it brings about and chooses to embrace these conditions. He therefore only focuses on

the task at hand, his ability to reason with the absurd world allow him to live fully, he recognizes that

the task he is performing makes so sense as he is stuck in a constant loop, at the same time however he

takes this meaningless task and devotes himself to it. He is able to use that meaningless task and find

meaning in it facing the absurd head on and rebelling against it instead of trying to escape it. Camus

expresses the importance of rebelling against the absurd and embracing the role of the absurd hero in

his essay the rebel stating that: “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely

free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” (Camus 1951). By becoming the absurd hero a per-

son is able to come to terms with the fact that life is meaningless and is able to move on and move past

that fact. By creating meaning in everything and living freely, devoting yourself to whatever you please

you will be able to find peace in this absurd world.

Camus presents three solutions to the absurd. Suicide, philosophical suicide, and becoming the

absurd hero. Camus absurdist and existentialist philosophy can serve as a guideline in understanding
Lachenwitzer 5

how we wish to truly live. Philosophy is an extensive field and holds many perspectives and ways of

thinking. There are many counterarguments to absurdist philosophy and many paradoxes surrounding it

which were not discussed as they do not cover the scope of this paper. However when strictly speaking

about absurdism and it’s 3 solutions it becomes apparent that Camus believes heavily in the idea of the

absurd hero. That those who follow their instincts and are able to embrace the absurd and adapt and

find meaning in any situation are those who will be the most happy and most fulfilled when faced with

the absurd world. As such Camus writes in his concluding statements in the myth of sisyphus that “One

must imagine sisyphus happy” (Camus 1942) as he is faced with an absurd world but is completely de-

voted to his task and is able to embrace the absurd not turning to any forms of escape.
Lachenwitzer 6

List of works cited

Camus, Albert “The Myth of Sisyphus” from Internet Archive. Acessed 3 Nov. 2023. https://
[Link]/details/le_mythe_de_sisyphe/mode/2up

Camus, Albert. The Rebel. 1951.

DeLancey, Craig. “Camus’s Absurd and the Argument Against Suicide.” Philosophia (Ramat Gan),
vol. 49, no. 5, 2021, pp. 1953–71, [Link]

Nagel, Thomas. “The Absurd.” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 68, no. 20, 1971, pp. 716–27. JSTOR,
[Link] Accessed 4 Nov. 2023.

O’Dwyer, Kathleen. “Camus’s Challenge: The Question of Suicide.” The Journal of Humanistic
Psychology, vol. 52, no. 2, 2012, pp. 165–77, [Link]

SAGI, A. “Is the Absurd the Problem or the Solution? The Myth of Sisyphus Reconsidered.” Philoso-
phy Today (Celina), vol. 38, no. 3, 1994, pp. 278–84, [Link]