From The Absurd to Responsibility-A

FROM THE ABSURD TO RESPONSIBILITY
- A STUDY ON CAMUS’S WORKS

Albert Camus (1913-’60) the French existentialist writer, presents the idea of the Absurd in his quasi-philosophical work ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ published in 1942, with the notion of suicide in connection with the absurdity of existence which is a matter of deep and perpetual concern to existentialists. The absurd occupying the whole work arises from an intellectual analysis of the problem of existence.

In Greek Mythology, Sisyphus is a king of Corinth, cunning and crafty in nature. Once he outwits Hades, the god of the underworld and as a punishment he is condemned to the lower world where he has to roll uphill a marble stone. As soon as the stone reaches the top, it rolls down, and he has to roll it up again. Similarly, in the life of modem man, life has became a meaningless routine and man wonders whether life has any purpose at all. And either at the middle or the end of this routine existence, death comes and makes life meaningless. In The Outsider, Meursault, the protagonist, is conscious of monotony of every day life. He is passive, bored and his ready­made phrase is “It’s all the same to me”.

The Absurd is the lack of coherence between the mind’s desire for unity and utter confusion of the world. The world seems to man, irrational and inscrutable because instinctively he wishes to be happy and wants his life to continue indefinitely and seeks close relationship with other beings and with the world, but he finds his desire frustrated and an element of opposition stands against him. The absurd exists neither in man nor in the world but it lies in their coexistence and remains as a uniting link between the two - the desire of the human mind that the world should be explicable in human terms, and the fact that the world is not thus explainable. Camus inquires into subjects like: what the individual should do when he is baffled by experiencing the morbid condition, frustration and a sense of alienation. Camus observes that the absurd, experienced by the individual, creates tension which leads him either to commit suicide or indulge in a leap of faith, which Camus calls “Philosophical suicide”. Camus rejects suicide because it is not an adequate response to the experience of the absurd. Suicide implies destroying one of the two factors the human being and the world – they together create the absurd. Further, suicide is an acknowledgement of one’s inability and such an admission goes against human pride which is in Camus’s view “incomparable”.

His next reaction is towards philosophical suicide which, he regards as an anti-rational acceptance of the limits of reason in which these limitations are an excuse to transcend God. He finds fault with the disposition of thinkers like Kierko-Gaard, Chekhov, Jaspers, Husserel and Scholar, for they accepted the untenable leap in order to put an end to conflict between man and the world by destroying the tension of the absurd. Karl Jaspers and Keirkegaard deify the absurd and Chekhov identifies it with God. Camus observes that total belief in reason and downright rejection of reason are both betrayals of man’s situation in the universe. Camus says that life can be better lived in the awareness of the absurd and the individual must face the truth of existence by accepting the absurd and must continue to live the most at present. Camus declares that man should maintain revolt attitude against the absurd. Camus says:

It is essential to die unreconciled and
not of one’s own free will.

For Camus, the answer against the absurdity of existence lies in continuing to live and create values in Godless world. Camus indicates that the human life is meaningless, yet it is worthliving.

Meursault who is an absurd here in The Outsider (L’Etranger) experiences meaninglessness in life. He realizes that he is condemned to death. Although he encounters the absurdity of life, he does not seek spiritual comfort from religion or from transcendence. His experience with the world has made him determined not to believe in God. Harbouring no illusion in his life, Meursault adheres to the truth of his own experience.

Coming to Algiers after attending the funeral, he joins his colleague, Marie in the waters of the sea near the port. They go to a comic film and later to bed for the night. Meursault says:

I realised that I had managed to get through another Sunday, that mother was now buried, that I was going to work and that after an, nothing had changed.

But at the end of the first part of the novel, The Outsider, Meursault commits murder because he allows the power of the absurd to be infused “too much” in his mind so as the absurd is able to destroy him. He says, that he has killed the Arab because of the sun. But it is under the illusion created by the absurd, he kills the Arab.

Camus published two absurd plays in 1944 namely, Caligula and Cross purpose (Le Malontendu). Caligula proves himself to be generous and noble ruler in the initial months of his rule but he turns violent and becomes a monster when his sister, Drusilla, with whom he develops incestuous love, dies suddenly. He, like Ivan Kararhazov, thinks that there is suffering and death in the world without justification. Caligula’s sudden behaviour after his sister’s death reveals his experience with the absurd. Caligula realizes that his response to the absurd is unjust. This mistaken reaction to the absurd also appears in ‘Le Malentendu’ (The Cross Purpose) in which, a mother and her daughter Martha, run an inn in a Moravian village. They usually drag the rich guest and rob him and throw him in the river. Once, Jan, the son who left home twenty years ago, wants to surprise his mother and sister and visits the inn as a guest showing his money. They do not recognise him and he too joins the others in the river. Later, the identity of the son is revealed. Both the mother and the daughter, commit suicide. The play reveals that it is impossible both for the innocent and the guilty to escape the same fate. The brother, Jan, wants to be recognized by the mother and the sister, because he feels that he has been in exile and estrangement. Martha wants to acquire money by killing the rich guests so that she can move to the sea-side and sun light and lead a happy life. Here, characters are caught in the web of the absurd world.

The novel The Plague (La Peste), reveals that Camus’s attitude towards the absurdity of life transforms hopelessness into expression of solidarity with the men. Even if the world is absurd and repugnant to Camus and to the major characters in The Plague, there is possibility that man can still attain salvation and that of other people by the use of the simplest sincerity and the most precise language. Here, Camus turning himself from the absurd writer to the existentialist writer, avoids the extremities of either fragile optimism and nihilism but adopts a tendency of modest and practical hope.

The Plague, a deadly disease, which attacks the city of Oran in The Plague creates the absurdity of situation in which both the good and the bad die. Dr. Rieux who is the author’s spokesman and Tarrou, who is an ex­-revolutionary more like Camus, offer service to the suffering people without reservations and without seeking supernatural interventions, marking a symbol of metaphysical war against the absurd.

Plague takes heavy death toll causing pain, suffering and separation of the individuals and threatens the existence of such ideas as freedom, hope and love. Recognizing the, absurd situation created by the plague, Dr. Rieux decides to fight with it. Speaking to Rambert, a journalist, Dr. Rieux says that he will not hold any truth while giving details of the situation caused by the Plague.

Tarrou, Rieux’ friend, considers the plague from the intellectual and metaphysical point of view. To him, it is an internal pervasive evil which, if unopposed, dominates the man and kills the sense of proportion and the power of understanding. Realizing the plight of the people attacked by the plague, Tarrou develops sympathy and love towards them and it is for the sake of love he rejects God and wants to be saint without God.

Tarrou sees the death of both Othan’s child and Paneloux’s which almost shatters him but he withstands the situation in silence. Once Dr. Rieux asks him what kind of influence exerts on him to take up this voluntary work. He replies:

“What on earth prompted you take a hand in this?”
“I don’t know. My Code of morals, perhaps”.
“Your Code of morals, what code?”
“Comprehension”.

In The Plague (La Peste), both Dr. Rieux and Tarrou view the devastative disease as ever invading evil and their response is the same. Dr. Rieux, being a narrator, says:

The essential thing was to save the greatest possible number of persons from dying and being doomed to unending separation. And to do this there was only one resource; to fight the plague. There was nothing admirable about this attitude: it was merely logical.

The absurd which influenced Meursault to live with egoism, without passion and social indifference and Caligula and Martha and her mother to resort to murderous kind of life is better comprehended in The Plague (La Peste) in which Dr. Rieux and others learn to think that in the face of indifferent and unjust world, if there is any thing to desire and attain, it is human love which creates meaning. And it is for the love of suffering mankind, they reject God resulting in pure humanism.