The Myth Of Sisyphus In Albert Camus The Plague

Doctor Rieux seemingly fails to fit the definition of Myth of Sisyphus’ absurd hero by committing so much of himself to the role of physician. After all, does the Myth not explicitly say that man uses his own freedom to enslave himself by ensaring himself in the trappings of his own occupation? In his lengthy and exhausting Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre described the internalized ceremony he believed to be placed upon all workers, writing that “Their condition is wholly one of ceremony. The public demands of them that they realize it as a ceremony; there is the dance of the grocer, of the tailor, of the auctioneer, by which they endeavour to persuade their clientele that they are nothing but a grocer, an auctioneer, a tailor.” (Sartre 59) Yet Dr. Rieux leaves the pageantry of medicine behind once the plague is at hand, seeking not to go into business for himself but rather to save as many lives as he possibly can. When questioned by the fading Rambert as to why he remains to steadfastly committed to healing others if he is not doing so for any …show more content…
Perhaps what has made Camus such an enduring pop cultural figure compared to contemporaries like Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is his ability to take esoteric philosophical concepts and make them digestible by framing them within an accessible and compelling narrative. The concept of authentically rebelling against injustice and meaningless death is hardly a obvious conceit to grasp, but the darkest hour of the sleepy town of Oran might just be. In an intellectual world reeling from the devastation and agony of the Second World War, Camus did not have the answer to how the horrid conflict that had engulfed the world had ended He merely understood how men allowed it to happen and the havoc it wreaked on their body and