In 1923, Camus was enrolled at the Lycée Bugeaud, where boys from different backgrounds came to study.
College/University
Gallery of Albert Camus
2 Rue Didouche Mourad, Alger Ctre 16000, Algeria
In 1933 Camus entered the University of Algiers specializing in philosophy. By now, his old mentor Jean Grenier had joined the philosophy department of the university and therefore, he continued receiving his guidance. Camus also gained certificates in sociology and psychology. He completed his licence de philosophie (Bachelor of Arts) in 1936; in May 1936, he successfully presented his thesis on Plotinus, "Rapports de l'hellénisme et du christianisme à travers les oeuvres de Plotin et de saint Augustin" ("Relationship of Greek and Christian thought in Plotinus and St. Augustine"), for his diplôme d'études supérieures (roughly equivalent to Master of Arts thesis).
In 1933 Camus entered the University of Algiers specializing in philosophy. By now, his old mentor Jean Grenier had joined the philosophy department of the university and therefore, he continued receiving his guidance. Camus also gained certificates in sociology and psychology. He completed his licence de philosophie (Bachelor of Arts) in 1936; in May 1936, he successfully presented his thesis on Plotinus, "Rapports de l'hellénisme et du christianisme à travers les oeuvres de Plotin et de saint Augustin" ("Relationship of Greek and Christian thought in Plotinus and St. Augustine"), for his diplôme d'études supérieures (roughly equivalent to Master of Arts thesis).
Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. Though he was neither by advanced training nor profession a philosopher, he nevertheless made important, forceful contributions to a wide range of issues in moral philosophy in his novels, reviews, articles, essays, and speeches - from terrorism and political violence to suicide and the death penalty.
Background
Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, in Mondovi, a small village near the seaport city of Bonê (present-day Annaba) in the northeast region of French Algeria. He was the second child of Lucien Auguste Camus, a military veteran, and wine-shipping clerk, and of Catherine Helene (Sintes) Camus, a house-keeper and part-time factory worker.
Shortly after the outbreak of WWI, when Camus was less than a year old, his father was recalled to military service and, on October 11, 1914, died of shrapnel wounds suffered at the first battle of the Marne. As a child, about the only thing Camus ever learned about his father was that he had once become violently ill after witnessing a public execution. This anecdote, which surfaces in fictional form in the author’s novel The Stranger and is also recounted in his philosophical essay "Reflections on the Guillotine," strongly affected Camus and influenced his lifelong opposition to the death penalty.
After his father’s death, Camus, his mother, and his older brother moved to Algiers where they lived with his maternal uncle and grandmother in her cramped second-floor apartment in the working-class district of Belcourt. Camus’s mother Catherine, who was illiterate, partially deaf, and afflicted with a speech pathology, worked in an ammunition factory and cleaned homes to help support the family.
Education
In 1923, Camus was enrolled at the Lycée Bugeaud, where boys from different backgrounds came to study. While filling the form, he was initially embarrassed to write his mother’s occupation as ‘domestic,’ but soon became angry with himself. After that, he was never ashamed of his poverty. His childhood was one of poverty, and his education at school and later at the University of Algiers was completed only with help from scholarships. He was a brilliant student of philosophy, and his major outside interests were sports and drama. While still a student, he founded a theater and both directed and acted in plays. At school, Camus excelled in both studies and sport. He was especially fond of playing football and swimming. More than that, he started enjoying the intellectual challenge the school provided and especially loved reading the works of Gide and Malraux.
In 1932 he received his Baccalauréat degree. The following year, he entered the University of Algiers specializing in philosophy. By now, his old mentor Jean Grenier had joined the philosophy department of the university and therefore, he continued receiving his guidance. Camus also gained certificates in sociology and psychology. He completed his licence de philosophie (Bachelor of Arts) in 1936.
Having contracted tuberculosis, which periodically forced him to spend time in a sanatorium, Camus was medically unable to become a teacher and worked at various jobs before becoming a journalist in 1938. His first published works were L'Envers et l'endroit (1937; The Wrong Side and the Right Side) and Noces (1938; Festivities), books of essays dealing with the meaning of life and its joys, as well as its underlying meaninglessness.
At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 Camus was unfit for military service; in the following year he moved to Paris and completed his first novel, L'Étranger (The Stranger), published in 1942. The theme of the novel is embodied in the "stranger" of its title, a young clerk called Meursault, who is the narrator as well as the hero. Meursault is a stranger to all conventional human reactions. The book begins with his lack of grief on his mother's death. He has no ambition, and he is prepared to marry a girl simply because he can see no reason why he should not. The crisis of the novel takes place on a beach when Meursault, involved in a quarrel not of his causing, shoots an Arab; the second part of the novel deals with his trial for murder and his condemnation to death, which he understands as little as why he killed the Arab. Meursault is absolutely honest in describing his feelings, and it is this honesty which makes him a "stranger" in the world and ensures the verdict of guilty. The total situation symbolizes the "absurd" nature of life, and this effect is increased by the deliberately flat and colorless style of the book.
Unable to find work in France during the German occupation, Camus returned to Algeria in 1941 and finished his next book, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), also published in 1942. This is a philosophical essay on the nature of the absurd, which is embodied in the mythical figure of Sisyphus, condemned eternally to roll a heavy rock up a mountain, only to have it roll down again. Sisyphus becomes a symbol of mankind and in his constant efforts achieves a certain tragic greatness.
In 1942 Camus, back in France, joined a Resistance group and engaged in underground journalism until the Liberation in 1944, when he became editor of the former Resistance newspaper Combat for 3 years. Also during this period, his first two plays were staged: Le Malentendu (Cross-Purpose) in 1944 and Caligula in 1945. Here again the principal theme is the meaninglessness of life and the finality of death. Two more plays, L'État de siège (The State of Siege) and Les Justes (The Just Assassins) followed in 1948 and 1950, and Camus was to adapt seven other plays for the stage, the sphere of activity where he felt happiest.
In 1947 Camus brought out his second novel, La Peste (The Plague). Here, in describing a fictional attack of bubonic plague in the Algerian city of Oran, he again treats the theme of the absurd, represented by the meaningless and totally unmerited suffering and death caused by the plague. But now the theme of revolt is strongly developed. Man cannot accept this suffering passively; and the narrator, Dr. Rieux, explains his ideal of "honesty" - preserving his integrity by struggling as best he can, even if unsuccessfully, against the epidemic. On one level the novel can be taken as a fictional representation of the German occupation of France, but it has a wider appeal as being symbolical of the total fight against evil and suffering, the major moral problem of human experience.
Camus's next important book was L'Homme révolté (1951; The Rebel). Another long essay, this work treats the theme of revolt in political, as well as philosophical, terms. Camus, who had briefly been a member of the Communist party in the 1930s, afterward maintained a position of political independence, from both the left and right-wing parties in France. In this book, he develops the point that man should not tolerate the absurdity of the world but at the same time makes a careful distinction between revolt and revolution. Revolution, despite its initial ideals, he sees as inevitably ending in a tyranny as great or greater than the one it set out to destroy. Instead, Camus asks for revolt: a more individual protest, in tune with the humane values of tolerance and moderation. Above all he denounces the Marxist belief that "history" will inevitably produce a world revolution and that any action committed in its name will therefore be justified. For Camus, the end can never justify the means. L'Homme révolté was widely discussed in France and led to a bitter quarrel between Camus and Sartre, who at this time was maintaining the necessity of an alliance with the Communists.
In the early 1950s, Camus turned back to his earlier passion for the theater and published no major book until 1956, when La Chute (The Fall) appeared. This novel consists of a monologue by a former lawyer named Clamence, who mainly sits in a sordid waterfront bar in Amsterdam and comments ironically on his life. Successful and worldly, he has undergone a moral crisis - the "fall" of the title - after failing to help a young woman who commits suicide by jumping off a bridge in Paris; afterward he gives up his career and moves to Amsterdam, where he lives as what he calls a "judge-penitent." The guilt he feels because of this "fall" makes him see and describe the whole of human life in terms of satirical pessimism.
In 1957 Camus received the great distinction of the Nobel Prize for literature for his works, which "with clear-sighted earnestness illuminate the problems of the human conscience of our time." In the same year he published a collection of short stories, L'Exil et le royaume (Exile and the Kingdom). Later he began to work on a fourth important novel and was also about to become director of a major Paris theater when, on Jan. 4, 1960, he was killed in a car crash near Paris, at the age of 46, a tragic loss to literature since he had yet to write the works of his full maturity as artist and thinker.
Two of his works were published posthumously. Among them, A Happy Death, published in 1971, was actually written in the late 1930s. The other was The First Man (1995), which Camus was writing at the time of his death.
Achievements
Religion
Camus was born and raised a Catholic, despite his father’s Protestant upbringing, and received communion at the age of 11. Much of Camus’ work is saturated in religious imagery. His Myth of Sisyphus is based on a popular Greek myth and The Fall contains references to and symbolism from Catholic theology and cosmology. The title itself is an allusion to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve.
However, Camus ultimately became an atheist and, as a thinker, he considered religious faith to be “philosophical suicide.” This idea was based on Camus’ philosophy of the absurd. According to Camus, mankind was perpetually attempting to rationalize an irrational universe. This process of rationalization resulted in the absurd and religious belief fell into said category. He said: "We turn toward God only to obtain the impossible."
Nevertheless, some maintain that the religious imagery and symbolism in Camus’ work indicated a sort of conflict within him, and that he actually craved something spiritual. 6 But perhaps it was only Camus’ struggle with the absurd. He was, after all, one of the men he described. Nevertheless, atheist seems the most appropriate designation.
Politics
Camus’ political awakening came under the influence of his uncle Acault, who introduced him to anarchist ideas at an early age. However, his philosophy teacher and a famous writer in his own right, Jean Grenier, convinced Camus to join the Algerian Communist Party.
Camus never committed to communist ideals and was ultimately ejected from the party. And his book, The Rebel, is said to have been instrumental in many young Frenchmen’s rejection of Marxism at the time. In fact, he wrote quite scathingly of revolutions–particularly their natural evolutions into tyranny: "All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State."
Camus’ contempt for the state is evident in this quote and it is no surprise that he would become an anarchist at heart, viewing all power structures as inherently corrupt and self-serving. He said: "Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without."
Camus’ anarchism is a natural corollary to his philosophy of existentialism, a philosophy of the individual. To Camus, individuality, free will and rebellion were among the highest features of mankind and governments and societies only hindered the endeavors that these features produced. He said: "The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the individual in the midst of the State. The only one I know is freedom of thought and action."
Throughout his life, Camus spoke out against and actively opposed totalitarianism in its many forms. Early on, Camus was active within the French Resistance to the German occupation of France during World War II, even directing the famous Resistance journal, Combat. On the French collaboration with Nazi occupiers he wrote: "Now the only moral value is courage, which is useful here for judging the puppets and chatterboxes who pretend to speak in the name of the people. "After liberation, Camus remarked, "This country does not need a Talleyrand, but a Saint-Just." The reality of the bloody postwar tribunals soon changed his mind: Camus publicly reversed himself and became a lifelong opponent of capital punishment.
Views
Despite his opposition to the label, Camus addressed one of the fundamental questions of existentialism: the problem of suicide. He wrote, "There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that." Camus viewed the question of suicide as arising naturally as a solution to the absurdity of life. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus seeks to identify the kinds of life that could be worth living despite their inherent meaninglessness.
Quotations:
“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend.”
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
“Live to the point of tears.”
Personality
This is an excerpt from an interview with Catherine Camus (Camus’ daughter) in which she described Camus as a father: "He was very handsome and had the attitude that unimportant things didn't bother him, what we would call 'cool' today … He never punished us if we did something wrong, he would always ask why we had done it and what we were thinking. This was complicated for a child, a smack would have been easier, but it wasn't his way. What remains with me is his love of life and love for other human beings."
Interests
Camus was once asked by his friend Charles Poncet which he preferred, football or the theatre. Camus is said to have replied, "Football, without hesitation."
Camus played as goalkeeper for Racing Universitaire d'Alger (RUA won both the North African Champions Cup and the North African Cup twice each in the 1930s) junior team from 1928 to 1930. The sense of team spirit, fraternity, and common purpose appealed to Camus enormously. In match reports Camus would often attract positive comment for playing with passion and courage. Any football ambitions disappeared when he contracted tuberculosis at the age of 17. The affliction, which was then incurable, caused Camus to be bedridden for long and painful periods.
Connections
In 1934, Camus married Simone Hié, but the marriage ended as a consequence of infidelities on both sides.
In 1940, Camus married Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematician. Although he loved her, he had argued passionately against the institution of marriage, dismissing it as unnatural. Even after Francine gave birth to twins, Catherine and Jean, on 5 September 1945, he continued to joke to friends that he was not cut out for marriage. Camus had numerous affairs, particularly an irregular and eventually public affair with the Spanish-born actress María Casares.
In awarding Camus its prize for literature in 1957, the Nobel Prize committee cited his persistent efforts to "illuminate the problem of the human conscience in our time."
In awarding Camus its prize for literature in 1957, the Nobel Prize committee cited his persistent efforts to "illuminate the problem of the human conscience in our time."