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Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on the heroes of absurd

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Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on the heroes of absurd. In Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus, Sisyphus, condemned to roll a rock ceaselessly to the top of a mountain only to watch its descent back down, “concludes all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile” (Camus 121). With a recognition of the absurd as a necessary condition of becoming the “absurd hero” for Camus, within the context of his short story “The Guest”, it seems rather clear his protagonists Daru and the Arab meet the condition for his absurd hero. Both characters are driven into fearful isolation by the authorities neither of them wishes to accept, and therefore recognize the absurdity of whatever action they may take. Despite given ultimate freedom over their actions, the absurd heroes cannot use this freedom for any other action besides exile.

“The Guest” seems to exemplify this species of absurdism, focusing on a question of free will. The story is one of a teacher named Daru living alone within the confines of a school high on a Saharan plateau. One day, a police officer who charges him with bringing an Arab prisoner to a European trial breaks his solitude. However, Daru declines to treat the man as a prisoner. Giving him money and food the next morning, Daru gives the Arab the choice between one path leading to prison and another path leading him to an Arab village. Given to “Choose”, the prisoner begins his journey to the police. Although Daru settles with his conscience the choice to give the Arab freedom, it is an absurd error insofar as it gives the Arab a reason to act with honor, and by that token embrace self-sacrifice. The motives of both Daru and the Arab are ambiguous, which is a convention within absurdist literature. but central to this lack of decisive and overarching motivations is the supreme freedom with which both characters act in this setting of&nbsp.extreme solitude.&nbsp.