Responding to the political climate of the time in Europe, Camus made a critique of communism and denounced the idea of revolution because of its tendency to transform into totalitarianism and collapse into terror, such as Nazism and Stalinism. His political philosophy finds its expression in The Rebel, which examines the notion of rebellion in opposition to the concept of revolution. Camus examines human responses to random evil and human solidarity in the face of an indifferent universe. Set in the town of Oran which is overcome by the deadly epidemic, the novel is an allegory of German occupation of France the plague is a metaphor for fascism and a totalitarian regime, Nazism. This notion of the absurd can also be found in his other masterpiece, The Plague, in which human aspirations and happiness are undermined by the plague. When he does not weep at his motherвЂ™s funeral or show any emotions, this compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and the juror who convicts him. Or perhaps it was yesterday, I donвЂ™t know,вЂќ the anti-hero protagonist had to accept the absurdity of life, вЂњopening up his heart to the benign indifference of the universe.вЂќ The novel conveys this conception of the absurdity of human existence and explores the alienation of a young man, known as Mersault, who has killed an Arab and is condemned to death for his refusal to conform to the bourgeois societyвЂ™s expectation of him, and not for the murder itself. In The Stranger, with its famous line вЂњMother died today. The Greek hero is admirable for he accepts the pointlessness of his task, and instead of giving up or committing suicide, he has risen above his fate by deliberate choice and toils on. Camus argued that Sisyphus is happy and that we must emulate his resilience.

Efforts and resilience вЂ“ not suicide and despair вЂ“ are the appropriate responses. The philosopher asserts that we should embrace the absurdity of human existence and take on the purpose of creating value and meaning. Like Sisyphus, we continue to ask about the meaning of life, only to find our answers tumbling back down. In the essay, Camus posed the fundamental philosophical question: is life worth living? Is suicide a legitimate response if life has no meaning? He compared humankindвЂ™s longing for order and meaning to the Greek mythological hero Sisyphus, who was condemned for eternity by the gods to roll a boulder up a mountain, only to have it fall to the bottom. Absurdism arises out of the tension between our desire for order, meaning and happiness and, on the other hand, the indifferent natural universeвЂ™s refusal to provide that. Camus defined the absurd as the futility of a search for meaning in an incomprehensible universe, devoid of God, or meaning. His philosophy of absurdism can be exemplified in his essay Le Mythe de SisypheВ (The Myth of Sisyphus: 1942). After the liberation of France, he was a major figure in post-war French intellectual life.

His debut novel, The Stranger, and the essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, catapulted him to fame and brought him to the attention of Jean-Paul Sartre. His memories of wars and experiences under the Nazi occupation permeated his philosophy and novels. After moving to Paris, he became involved in the Resistance movement, editing its clandestine paper, Combat, and was sought by the Gestapo. He began his writing career as a journalist for Alger RГ©publicainВ newspaper. Despite the deprivation of his childhood, he won a scholarship to a prestigious lycГ©e in Algiers and went on to study philosophy at the University of Algiers. His father, a farmer, was killed in the First World War, leaving his deaf and illiterate wife to raise Camus and his elder brother. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.Д¬amus was born to a poor family in war torn French Algeria. He explored these ideas in his famous novels, The StrangerВ (1942), The PlagueВ (1947), and The FallВ (1956), as well as his philosophical essays, The Myth of SisyphusВ (1942) and The Rebel (1951). Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French philosopher and novelist whose works examine the alienation inherent in modern life and who is best known for his philosophical concept of the absurd.

Define sisyphus