Modern Issues in “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Camus

The article by Camus titled “The Myth of Sisyphus” is dedicated to the account of mythology and its reflection on the modern situation of the middle of the 20th century – the author ties the myth telling about eternal tortures of Sisyphus and the human sufferings that he sees at his modern times. Looking for the reasons for such cruel penalty for Sisyphus and concluding that they were really noble (scorn of gods, hatred of death, and passion for life) Camus looks for the sources of absurdity in the hard situation he sees in reality (Camus 1). He speculates on the absurdity of hard labor, suffering, and tortures, concluding that people who are free from influence and dominance even in their tortures can be happy just because they try to long to something and not live blindly in obedience to superior powers. This topic of Camus becomes understandable when one considers the dominant ideological trends of the middle of the 20th century – people were lost and depressed after World War I and II, they could not find their place in life and could not understand what the progress was for. Thus, they tried to justify the events and philosophies of decadence, pessimism, and depression evident until the post-Cold War period.