To Be or not to Be
Camus’ Existential Quandry
Suicide
•	It is not by suicide that a human being confronts the absurd. The point is 'to die unreconciled and not voluntarily. Suicide is a lack of understanding.' 'Living', in fact, is a matter of 'keeping the absurd alive. Keeping it alive is basically a question of observing it.' 

•	Living the Absurd, above all, 'means a total lack of hope (which is not the same as despair), a permanent rejection (which is not the same as renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (which is not the same as juvenile anxiety)'. 
•	Camus is effectively describing Meursault's state of mind while waiting for execution. 
•	Hence the seeming contradiction: 
•	'Life will be more fully lived in so far as it has no meaning.' 

The Absurd Hero
•	The ultimate Absurd Hero for Camus (and the centre of perhaps the most original part of his book) is the mythical figure Sisyphus who, because of his 'scorn for the gods, his hatred of death and his passion for life', is condemned by the gods to roll a stone endlessly up to the top of a hill, only to have it roll back down and to start his task all over again. 

•	Camus is interested in the moment of 'pause' when Sisyphus has to go back down the hill, when the consciousness of his fate and thus his acceptance begins. The author cannot imagine a greater torture for Sisyphus than 'the hope of succeeding'. Knowing that his effort is pointless is precisely his strength. Sisyphus is without the merest hope, and yet he becomes the Absurd Hero in the moment he accepts this and 'says yes to his task', choosing to continue the torture which as been imposed on him. 

•	He is master of his own fate. The absence of any controlling force in the universe thus becomes a positive factor. 
•	Sisyphus was also, metaphorically, France suffering under the terrible stone-weight of Nazi occupation. At the same time, he is the perfect symbolic hero for Camus is that he attempted to save mankind from Death. 'The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. We have to imagine Sisyphus happy.' 
•	“No need to commit suicide."