As Camus made Sisyphus’s condition from his punishment contradict and compare to the condition of a human, I agree over the implied conclusions Camus made over the human condition within his argument.  Humans go throughout their lives working vigorously while struggling pointlessly to achieve something as they visualize a version of success that a specific individual aspires to obtain.  Many humans set goals that all in all have value in order to seek benefits in life, bringing individual success.  Sisyphus being forced to attempt to push a stone to the top of a mountain has no value if he were or weren’t to complete the task as the stone would stay on the mountain for eternity.  This compares a human condition we tend to call failure, as there are times humans work vigorously towards success but aren’t completely accomplished.  Sometimes the struggle in order to get to success doesn’t pertain towards anything significant within life making the struggle humans go through pointless.  This human condition is what makes a human or Sisyphus’s life absurd as the confrontation we have between ourselves as individuals who strive for success is absurd compared to the struggle and hardship we withstand to grow closer to success even when the success is completely meaningless.  All in all, I agree with the reading of the myth and the conclusions implied about the human condition as Sisyphus is struggling to a point where it’s pointless just as humans do when they set goals, making Sisyphus an exemplar to the human condition.

In “The Myth of Sisyphus” Camus writes of the tragic story of a man stuck in the underworld pushing a boulder up a hill for it only to roll down again. However, despite the clear suffering that Sisyphus experiences, Camus somehow turns the reader into thinking that Sisyphus is content with his situation. Camus writes, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy” (3).

Camus argues that even though his situation isn’t ideal for him, Sisyphus can still value his life by having the mindset of enjoying his presence. This can relate to existentialism because it creates a meaning of life. People have to create a meaning of life in order to live their lives with purpose and happiness. Although the true meaning of life has yet to be found, and most likely will never be found, people can create a fake meaning of life in order to cope with the inevitability of death and curiosity. I also think that happiness is a mindset, and it can be found in any situation despite suffering. This was the argument that Camus writes, and I think that existence as well as the meaning of life is all about perspective.

I watched this Key and Peele skit the other day where they were being tortured and instead of feeling sorry for themselves, they chose to laugh about it and find the good sides of it. As their legs were being chopped off, they talked about how they needed a good break away from their phones. I thought this related to the topic because it is all about how someone perceives something. The skit is called “Key and Peele – Psycho Clown” if you want to watch it. I would very much recommend you watch it and it’s only 3 minutes.

Meursault lacks the ability to interpret the meaning of his own existence in this world. He is unable to put his life in sequential order and because of this he cannot identify the past, present, or future. He’s is finally being held accountable for his own existence. He can’t just float through this event in his life because he actually has to be conscious for it. Meursault was only truly made conscious though the inevitability of his death. He realizes that hope only delivers torture because it creates the false illusion that he can change the fact that he is going to die when he can’t. Meursault finally begins to accepts and even embrace that his views make him a threat and stranger to society. This is why he is being sentenced to death, not because of anything that went on in the trial. Meursault discovers that him and the world are alike because neither of them pass judgments. The world does not rationally order and control the events of human existence and this is somewhat comforting. When we die, the world doesn’t care that our bodies will leave themselves in it’s dirt, but it doesn’t matter because it happens anyways. “I open myself to the gentle indifference of the world” (Camus 122) Meursault finally finds peace in the end through his death because he finds freedom in his unimportance.

Throughout Albert Camus’ story “The Stranger”, Mersault often describes in great detail the weather and Camus goes into great descriptive imagery about the weather throughout the story. As soon as the story starts off, Mersault states, “I caught the two o’clock bus. It was very hot” (1). Often times throughout this story Mersault is effected by this “heat” which leads him to do bad things as the story progresses. Moments before Mersault killed the Arab, he goes into detail about the scorching heat and how it effected him and even compares the heat to be the same as the day when his mother passed. He states, “All I could feeel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead..The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes…My whole being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver” (59). He then shot and killed the Arab.

In regards to “The Stranger” and Extensionalism, I believe that although Mersault is constantly questioning his humanity and morals, he still has that humanity in him, he still can tell (maybe even through the weather changes and noticing the weather) what is right from wrong. Although his morals are skewed, we may be able to see his humanity in his extensive imagery.

The main character Meursault is called an emotionally detached figure by many in Albert Camus’s The Stranger. But while reading we learn that he craves the emotion of others although he rarely feels it himself. Although he seems unmotivated through the book giving up at times, it is his unconscious brain guiding him towards making the big decisions. Which creates a relationship or sets him up with those that can award him with compassion. This common motif throughout the story silently drove and/or influenced; him to marry, become Raymonds friend, and to kill the man. In all these moments he confessed to the reader, “As always whenever I want to get rid of someone I’m not really listening to, I made it appear as if I agree. (69).” Instead of thinking of Meursault as an uncaring person, we realize he is simply unable to show compassion. But it is unspoken that he craves the very thing that he cannot possess.

When reading the last few sections of part one of The Stranger, I was alarmed as to how some of the last few sentences were phrased.

After pulling the trigger of the gun on the Arab man approaching him, Mersault states “I knew I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I had been happy” (59). This immediately caught my attention. Mersault’s decision to use the word “harmony” to describe the day is not something that I had expected. Sure he had had some good experiences on the beach that day with Marie and their friends, yet, the whole last few pages of part one of the novel were dedicated to Mersault complaining and fussing about the heat and how miserable it was making him feel.

He describes pulling the trigger and shooting the man as “Knocking on the door of unhappiness”(59), and this is the last sentence of this section. This also was interesting to me because it seems that Mersault was never happy as it is. When he does express that he is experiencing happiness, it seems forced, or fake, none of his emotions ever seem true to him. He doesn’t really seem to ever be genuinely happy. This is why it struck me when he acknowledged the killing of the Arab man as the insinuator for the unhappiness starting, when in reality it seemed to just catalyze the misery he’s already experiencing.

Throughout the whole last few pages of part one, Mersault never fails to let the reader know that the sun and the heat emanating from it were literally killing him. He then ties the experiences he is having in the beating sun on the beach to the sun on the days that he buried his mom. “The sun was the same as it had been the day I’d buried Maman, and like then, my forehead especially was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing under the skin”(58-59). This immediately had me questioning how Mersault could attach and associate the word harmonious, claim that he was happy, with something so painstaking and sad. Granted, he did mention that he never shed a tear at Maman’s funeral but the scorching heat of the day he buried her definitely could have been a motivator for his misery under the sun that he makes sure we, as readers, feel like we are experiencing with him.

Because of all of this, it just leaves me in a bit of a confused state at the end of part one on the mention of the beach where he “Had been happy” (59), when it seems to me like the whole day was really just soaking in complaints.

In the stranger we find a man named Meursault, who has very little emotions and feels very little in the way of love. In the story he is dating a women and she asked him if he loves her and if he would marry her and he just shrugs off this question and doesn’t really care. This makes us question why the character is like this. Is love a social construct created to cover up the fact that everyone hates each other and all life is is death and pain? I personally think that if people did not love as much as they would not feel as much pain. I think that a lot of the reason that people create so much pain for others is because they love so much for what/who they believe in. I do not think that love was created to mask the fact that everyone hates everyone. I think life is meant to be lived with love and happiness and passion and that jealousy, hate, and pain happen as a result of all of the love that there is.