Absurdism in "The Climb"
Cali Anderson
H/G English
Mrs. Woolf
January 12, 2010
What Do Camus and Cyrus Have in Common? Miley Cyrus is the well known singer of the song, “The Climb”. This is a song loved by most teenage girls. It’s written by J. Alexander and J. Mabe. Albert Camus is the famous individual that created the philosophy of absurdism (the philosophy that humans live in a meaningless and irrational world).He is also the author of The Stranger and wrote an essay about how the Myth of Sisyphus relates greatly to his philosophy of absurdism. Here’s the question. What could a teenage icon that lives for fun, happiness, and normal teenage things and a 20th century absurdist possibly have in common? These two people have way more in common than you would ever think or know. The myth of Sisyphus is about a man who was very clever and tried to trick Zeus. In Sisyphus’ attempt in tricking Zeus, he became very angry and condemned him to move a big boulder to the top of a mountain. Zeus knew that the boulder would continuously fall back to the ground so that Sisyphus would have to return it to the top over and over for the rest of eternity. In Camus’ eyes, he would consider this as futile work. In the first paragraph of the essay he wrote about the myth, he said that Zeus couldn’t have thought of a more “dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.” By saying this, he means that his punishment is useless because he will be moving the boulder to the top to the mountain only for it to fall back down and never get a break. In the last paragraph, Camus says that Sisyphus can’t think of his punishment as futile because he still does it in obvious hopes that he will be relieved by the gods. Camus said that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy and that his job seems to be neither sterile nor futile.” Miley Cyrus’ song “The Climb” is about the struggles and trials that you go through in life and that if everyone will learn to endure every struggle that they face it will always make
H/G English
Mrs. Woolf
January 12, 2010
What Do Camus and Cyrus Have in Common? Miley Cyrus is the well known singer of the song, “The Climb”. This is a song loved by most teenage girls. It’s written by J. Alexander and J. Mabe. Albert Camus is the famous individual that created the philosophy of absurdism (the philosophy that humans live in a meaningless and irrational world).He is also the author of The Stranger and wrote an essay about how the Myth of Sisyphus relates greatly to his philosophy of absurdism. Here’s the question. What could a teenage icon that lives for fun, happiness, and normal teenage things and a 20th century absurdist possibly have in common? These two people have way more in common than you would ever think or know. The myth of Sisyphus is about a man who was very clever and tried to trick Zeus. In Sisyphus’ attempt in tricking Zeus, he became very angry and condemned him to move a big boulder to the top of a mountain. Zeus knew that the boulder would continuously fall back to the ground so that Sisyphus would have to return it to the top over and over for the rest of eternity. In Camus’ eyes, he would consider this as futile work. In the first paragraph of the essay he wrote about the myth, he said that Zeus couldn’t have thought of a more “dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.” By saying this, he means that his punishment is useless because he will be moving the boulder to the top to the mountain only for it to fall back down and never get a break. In the last paragraph, Camus says that Sisyphus can’t think of his punishment as futile because he still does it in obvious hopes that he will be relieved by the gods. Camus said that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy and that his job seems to be neither sterile nor futile.” Miley Cyrus’ song “The Climb” is about the struggles and trials that you go through in life and that if everyone will learn to endure every struggle that they face it will always make