I may forget Camus, but I may always remember a line from his essay on the Myth of Sisyphus – ‘if the myth is tragic, it’s because the hero is conscious’. Conscience under lays every tragedy, for its absurdity or its realism; we relate to it because of our conscience. Who wouldn’t agree that even guilt is a byproduct of our conscience.
To the myth of Sisyphus and its absurd hero both, a reference was made in our Literature class and I might say it drew me to Camus. It’s nothing more than watching a man toil all his day, pushing the stone uphill only to watch it roll down back to the plains. But that is not his tragedy! His tragedy is that he has to go back and start it all over again. However, I wonder like Camus if even the pain ceased for Sisyphus after a while, there might be momentarily lapses indeed when he must have pulled out his hair, screamed at the Gods and planned revenge on the underworld – but not for long. He must have got used to routine – like every human being. Didn’t he become stronger than a rock!
Camus said Happiness and Absurd are the two sons of the same earth (if my memory is not playing games with me), I would say Happiness, Tragedy and Absurd are the three sons of the same earth and conscience is the other parent to all three.
It’s strange that the more I think of Sisyphus, the more I am drawn to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner’. The Albatross was a sign of shame, not only for the Mariner but for each of the sailor on the ship. I’d rather say, if I may, that the Mariner’s tragedy wasn’t the Albatross around his neck; it was the never-ending urge to tell his story at the oddest hours to the oddest strangers. To seek redemption, he had to go through the pain again and again.
