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Instructions
Essay 4: “Hey, Sisyphus, How’s It Rolling?”
Background: Albert Camus, in “The Myth of Sisyphus,” describes Sisyphus, a mythical king cursed to roll a rock up a hill for eternity. Camus argues that Sisyphus should be happy in spite of the absurdity of his situation.
You may write Essay 4 in one of two ways:
1. Dialogue Option
You may write this as a dialogue in which you interview Sisyphus and ask him some questions. (Ex: “Hey Sisyphus, do you feel like this is absurd?” –”Nah, I read Camus and now things are great….”)
If you choose the dialogue option, just be sure to include answers to all parts of the questions below. If you do the dialogue option, you do not need to number sections. That would look weird in a dialogue.
2. Essay Option
You may also write it as a normal essay. Both options should cover the questions below. If you choose the essay version, your essay should have no less than 5 paragraphs and a bibliography citing Camus and Nagel.
Questions to Address in Your Piece
Describe Sisyphus’s situation as Camus understands it. Explain how Camus wants Sisyphus to cope with his situation and why. Why is it relevant to us? Quote and cite the text to support your claims. You can also refer to the cartoon in this part: it goes into slightly more detail on the story of Sisyphus, though not as much about Camus’s response.
Why does Nagel disagree with Camus about Sisyphus? How does Nagel think we ought to deal with absurd situations? Why? Quote and cite the text to support your claims.
Between Nagel and Camus, who do you think has the better answer to how Sisyphus should feel about his situation, and why? Give reasons to support your conclusion. How do you think ordinary people should deal with everyday absurd situations? Is there a difference between this and how Sisyphus should deal with his situation? If so why? If not, why not?
Can life be meaningful and absurd at the same time? If so, give an example. If not, explain why not. Are meaningfulness and absurdity really opposites? Why or why not? Consider and reply to at least one objection to your view.
IMPORTANT
You may not use any sources except your own brains and the course readings and lectures to write essays and assignments for this course. This includes: books and articles not assigned in the course, as well as paraphrase bots or other AI writing tools. This is because one of the goals of the assignments is for you to learn to read and think about the readings. If you include outside sources on an assignment during the semester, I will ask you to re-do the assignment.
Before writing, please review the academic dishonesty policy in the syllabus.
FORMATTING and STYLE
Answer the questions in order.
Please double-space.
Citations to the course materials (readings and/or lectures) are required in order to receive a passing grade. You may cite my lectures and slides but citations to the readings are better. Citing sources outside of the course readings is not ok and will result in a non-passing grade, as will the use of citations that aren’t real.
Use ‘I’! It makes it clearer which thoughts are yours, and makes you sound less like a robot.
Do not include a title/cover page–that’s unnecessary.
Use parenthetical citations to the text support your claims about the author’s work. Here is an example of how to format parenthetical citations:
“Meno calls Socrates a torpedo fish (Plato, Meno, p. 70).”
“Ryle says that a parrot does not have know-how” (‘Know-How and Know-That,” 40).