Multani 30

Chapter 2

Albert Camus and the Typology of Resistances

Albert Camus, Michel de Certeau and Jacques Rancière have attempted to

theorize resistance with reference to the concepts of equality and justice. Camus

regards resistance as a constructive force that breaks humiliating bonds of existence to

create an order based on mutual recognition of human dignity. Certeau discerns an

inherent power in the everyday practices of the ordinary to create a sphere of

autonomous action. Rancière advocates comprehensive resistance for a democratic

order.

According to Camus, resistance voices a demand for equality. He

differentiates the "literature of consent" from the "literature of rebellion" and believes

that creation is an aesthetic resistance (Camus, Rebel 258). He considers resistance to

be a pre-condition for civilization as well as art. He asserts that resistance allows man

to live with dignity (13). He also holds that aesthetic resistance fabricates universes

and intervenes in the perceived order to bring unity in the disorderly world. Therefore,

he is of the conviction that a good literary work maintains a balance between the real

and the imaginary and rejects injustice and indignity in order to reconfigure the world

(274).

Certeau glorifies the resistance of the ordinary person. The oppressive order,

he believes, can be subverted by the everyday practices of the weak and marginalized.

He discerns the tactics of speaking, writing, reading (spatial or everyday practices) of

the weak as capable of challenging the strategies of the dominant order which could

eventually carve out a space for the weak (Certeau xviii). For him, reading and

speaking allow indefinite plurality which enable the writer to modify a given text to

create something unknown. He asserts, for instance, that a printed text creates an

Multani 31

ensemble of possibilities to initiate a process of social transformation and the writer

brings changes in the socio-cultural conditions through his writings.

Rancière holds that the "uncounted" bring changes in the social fabric by

inscribing resistances. He sees disagreement, protests and strikes of the excluded as

non-violent ways of resisting the hierarchies of power as well as knowledge. He also

refutes the rule-bound conceptions of art in order to give an equal space to the

invisible, something the rules may not permit. He interweaves politics and aesthetics

to modify perception that could frame a common democratic order and demonstrates

that the energies of resistance at the political and aesthetic level bring a clash of the

heterogeneous to provoke a break in perception. This perception produces knowledge,

challenges absolute power and reinforces the claims for equality, freedom and justice.

Rancière affirms that literature provides new configurations of visibility. The

aesthetics and politics of literature shape the ways of seeing, saying and doing to

establish a democratic sense and order.

The aforementioned theorists enlarge upon the significance of resistance for

creation in art as well as for reconfiguration of the unjust order. They emphasize the

strength of the invisible minorities and their non-violent tactics of resisting the

oppressive order. They do so as they believe that these tactics are capable of

transforming an order for the better. These theorists endorse the crucial role that an

artist plays to reconfigure the prevailing order through her or his creative

interventions. The project makes use of their insights to analyze the role that fiction

plays in attempting transformations of the given world.

Albert Camus, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1957, analyzes the

existential condition of human beings to elaborate a typology of resistances in The

Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. He rejects those ideologies that sacrifice human

nature and the individual at the altar of higher good. He also shuns the nihilistic

Multani 32

ideologies which lead to bloody revolutions. Camus follows an ethical approach and

sees man as the "only possible source of new values" (Thody 144-45).

Born in Algeria in 1913, Camus spent the early years of his life in North

Africa doing various jobs. Later he turned to journalism as a career. He was the editor

of an underground newspaper Combat and was one of the leading writers of French

Resistance during World War II. His books The Stranger (L'Etranger) (1946), The

Plague (La Peste) (1948), The Rebel (L' Homme Révolté) (1954), The Myth of

Sisyphus and Other Essays (Le Mythe de Sisyphe) (1955), Exile and the Kingdom (L'

Exil et le Royaume) (1958), and Resistance, Rebellion and Death (Actuelles – a

selection) (1961) occupy a preeminent position in modern French letters.

This chapter surveys Camus's relevant writings to bring out his conception of a

moderate and non-violent resistance to restructure an unjust order. It mainly relies

upon The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (1955), Resistance, Rebellion and Death

(1950), The Rebel (1951), The Plague (1948), and The Fall (1956). Camus affirms

freedom against oppression and tyranny by discarding nihilism. The philosophical

issue of defining the positive and humane substance of resistance as a protest against

injustice without yielding to the nihilist logic finds a central place in his writings.

Terry Hoy delineates three phases of Camus's treatment of the human predicament

while trying to give meaning and value to existence in an age of revolutionary

violence and terrorism. Camus begins with the characterization of the human

condition as an encounter with absurdity. He discusses revolutionary political

nihilism as a false or perverted deduction from the awareness of the absurd.

Eventually, he attempts to reconcile absurdist reasoning with the principle of human

dignity and limited freedom (573-74).

Camus considers "revolt" to be one of the "essential dimensions" of mankind –

a principle of existence that aspires for clarity and for unity of thought and order. He

Multani 33

advocates a moderate resistance (Camus, Rebel ix). He uses the word 'rebellion' for

'resistance' in his works. He recommends political moderation and relative freedom in

the universe of relative values that invariably respects human dignity. He also makes a

distinction between rebellion and revolution. He believes that the revolutionary

movements deify the State or historical destiny and justify political terrorism and

violence which lead to disorder and nihilism. On the contrary, an authentic rebellion

preserves values and advances towards unity. Unlike the revolutionary movements

that demand totality and that justify murder and death, the authentic rebellion which

Camus advocates transcends nihilism. This rebellion engenders action for creative

transformation even in "the very midst of the desert" (Camus, Myth 7).

In Camus's view, scientific knowledge about the universe and its phenomena

has produced a sense of uncertainty. Because of this the human being feels like a

stranger to himself and the world. Camus describes the resulting condition as

'absurdity' – the confrontation between the irrational and the longing for clarity. The

gap between intention and reality comes to an end only with death. It is to be noted

that though absurdity implies continual rejection and conscious dissatisfaction, it is

certainly not renunciation or immature unrest (Camus, Myth 17, 34-35).

Absurdity, explains Camus, is born out of "the confrontation between human

need and the unreasonable silence of the world" (Camus, Myth 32). Personal sorrow,

incurable illness and suffering create absurdity in all persons alike. It leaves one torn

between an urge towards unity and a clear vision of the world (12-14). This divorce

between human existence and hope for a better life makes one seek a solution to the

absurd. In order to end "the desperate encounter between human inquiry and the

silence of the universe" (Camus, Rebel 6), absurd reasoning and absolute nihilism

choose the act of suicide (Camus, Myth 31). But Camus rejects suicide as a panacea to

end the divorce between the mind that desires and the world that disappoints.

Multani 34

Camus believes that a mind intoxicated with the irrational can spring into the

"unjust, incoherent and incomprehensible" [God] (Camus, Myth 41). This springing

into "God" is known as a leap. Camus explains that when thought oscillates between

extreme rationalization of reality, which tends to break thought into reason, and its

extreme irrationalization, which tends to deify it, a leap brings reconciliation (48).

Since for Camus "living is keeping the absurd alive," life has to be lived even if it has

no meaning (53). Therefore, he believes, the constant confrontation between man19

and the absurd gives rise to revolt. It is this revolt that adds "value" and "majesty" to

life as it tries to find meaning in existence (54). The nothingness and meaninglessness

that arise out of the absurd make man realize that total freedom is an illusion. So he

aspires for relative freedom through revolt. Such a revolt, which aspires for relative

freedom, can bring transformation, holds Camus. He also makes it clear that this

revolt does not permit crime.

Camus explains that as man confronts nothingness and meaninglessness, he

confronts the absurd. The revolt that springs out of such confrontation is greatly

emphasized by Camus. He magnifies the human revolt against the irremediable

through the Dostoeveskian experiences of the condemned man, the exacerbated

adventures of the Nietzschean mind, and Hamlet's imprecations (Camus, Myth 29-30).

However, he does so only to bring out the importance of resistance that springs out of

such absurdity. Camus is of the opinion that absurdity paves the way for resistance

whereby man tries to give meaning to his existence.

Camus uses the word 'rebellion' for resistance in The Rebel, and he uses it in a

positive and constructive sense. He believes that it is a principle of "superabundant

activity and energy" (17). It is born out of the spectacle of irrationality confronting the 19. Camus often uses the term "man" as a generic term to denote the human being. It may sound

sexist today but it obviously did not to Camus's ears.

Multani 35

unjust and incomprehensible. It is neither an unscrupulous ambition nor an auto-

intoxication, but an energy that is preoccupied with transformation. It is not

resentment or passivity but an active force that "liberates stagnant waters and turns

them into a raging torrent" to create in "the midst of chaos" as well as to renew hope

for transformation (10-11). Hence, for Camus: "I rebel – therefore we exist" (22).

A rebel, asserts Camus, adopts an attitude of "All or Nothing" as he wants to

identify himself with the good he has become aware of (after taking orders all his life)

or to be completely destroyed by the forces that dominate him (Camus, Rebel 13). A

rebel is a slave who says both "yes" and "no" because he finds his voice. He refuses

humiliating orders, rejects the condition of slavery and "demands to be treated as an

equal" (14). A moment arrives when this slave rejects a borderline existence and is

willing to accept even death. In doing so he invokes the supreme values of equality,

justice and freedom. He becomes a rebel who thinks that it is "better to die on one's

feet than live on one's knees" (15). He demands respect and rights for himself as well

as for the whole community of victims – "natural community" – with which he

identifies (16). Camus notes that rebellion may spring from egoistic motives but it is

not an egoistic act. "The malady experienced by a single man becomes a mass plague"

as the rebel shares the feeling of strangeness, suffering and obscurity with all men

(22). Rebellion is related to a sense of solidarity because "individual" suffering

becomes "collective" experience. It becomes an act of solidarity that discovers

communication and mutual understanding in men to constitute a logic of creation

(282-83).

The human mind consists of two worlds – the sacred world and the world of

rebellion. The disappearance of one is equivalent to the appearance of the other,

according to Camus. He believes that the rebel rejects divinity to share the struggle

and destiny of all men. The struggle exposes the theoretical equality that conceals

Multani 36

factual inequalities (Camus, Rebel 20, 306). Hence, in the modern 'secular' world

rebellion becomes an essential dimension to establish the kingdom of justice over the

kingdom of grace. Injustice, servitude, falsehood and terror silence men and mutilate

mutual understanding and communication, which leads to death. But it is rebellion

that discovers mutual understanding and revives communication. When a rebel

struggles against injustice, demands freedom and respect for all, he revives

communication. Therefore, Camus advocates a moderate and non-violent rebellion

which preserves values in order to create. The rebellion is thus opposed to nihilism. It

is, according to Camus, the logic of creation, the force of life that affirms itself against

death.

Camus sees rebellion as "a force of life, not of death" (Camus, Rebel 285). He

makes a comprehensive analysis of the destructive forms of resistance and revolution

to clarify his ideas. He sketches out the typology of resistances in five sections of The

Rebel. He terms them as metaphysical, historical, political (rational and irrational state

terror) and artistic rebellions. His focus is on the constructive rebellion which

"remake[s] the soul" of the time (306). Camus examines aesthetics also as an act of

rebellion that rejects reality, chronic disorders, and worldly ills to further the process

of creation. George. F. Sefler rightly notes in this context, "Art mimes to man the

spirit of revolt, so that he may not die of or succumb to the truth: absurdity of life"

(416).

Camus sees metaphysical rebellion not only as a protest against the human

condition but also as a protest against the whole of creation. The metaphysical rebel

repudiates the coercive powers responsible for his abject condition in a way similar to

the way a slave protests against ill treatment. He tries to establish "a unitarian reign of

justice" while rebelling against the incompleteness of the human condition (Camus,

Rebel 24). In order to achieve justice such a rebel rejects superior existence. He

Multani 37

overturns the authority of God and takes the responsibility to create order, unity and

justice. He talks to God as an equal. His insurrection against his condition becomes an

unqualified campaign against the Heavens. And in a bid to establish his dominion, the

metaphysical rebel may resort to murder and crime also (25).

Camus explains that metaphysical rebellion targets "a cruel and capricious

divinity" and hence becomes destructive (Camus, Rebel 33). He locates the oldest

expression of such rebellion in the Old Testament and considers Cain to be the first

rebel. As Christ in agony reveals to man, "For God to be man, he must despair" (32),

Camus finds the New Testament to be answering every Cain (as well as the question

of evil and death). Camus also moves to the realm of imagination to bring out the

absolute and destructive nature of such rebellion as exemplified in the works of Sade,

Dostoevsky and Nietzsche.

Sade believes in the freedom of instincts. So Camus considers him to be the

first theoretician to advocate absolute rebellion. He notes that Sade's heroes are

governed by inordinate energy and his works demonstrate that nature must destroy in

order to create (Camus, Rebel 38). According to Camus, Sade, the "philosopher in

chains," believes in libertinism and not liberty (36). He remarks that Sade ignores the

divinity of passions, suppresses pity, justifies "calumny, theft and murder," and thus

ignores justice (39). Camus disapproves of Sade's dream of a universal republic as it

is founded on unbridled freedom that makes it totalitarian in nature. He finds Sade's

rebellious writings to be a dreary accumulation of erotic and criminal scenes that extol

totalitarian societies in the name of unbridled freedom (44-47).

After an analysis of Sade's works, Camus moves to Dostoevsky. He examines

the history of contemporary nihilism launched by the rebellion of Ivan Karamazov

whose refusal of unjust truth replaces "the reign of grace by the reign of justice" as

"[e]verything is permitted" (Camus, Rebel 56-57). According to Camus, this refusal

Multani 38

amounts to despair and negation. Karamazov rejects immortality and permits the new

man to become God in order to reconstruct creation (58-60). Dostoevsky, observes

Camus, carries nihilism from ethics to politics. The Romantics also, perceives Camus,

defy the moral and divine law as they eulogize evil and the individual.

Camus then makes an assessment of Nietzsche's nihilism – "God is dead." He

observes that socialism and humanitarianism become degenerate forms of Christianity

for Nietzche. Since Nietzche believes that "[a] nihilist is not one who believes in

nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists," his free mind denounces the

illusions of religion and socialism (Camus, Rebel 69). For him, religion and socialism

substitute ideal ends for real ends which deprive the world of God as well as of moral

idols. Though Nietzsche converts man into superman to replace "the Beyond (of

Marx, classless society) by the later on" (79), he realizes that excessive liberty makes

the world lawless. Camus notes that Nietzsche accepts the necessity of a phenomenon

(destiny) and so deifies fate. Such rebellion in Nietzschean philosophy is considered

to be nihilistic by Camus as it justifies only tyranny and smothers the force of creation

by escaping God's prison to construct that of history and reason (80, 103). Camus

disapproves of the metaphysical rebellion that imprisons the rebel in history and

reason. He believes that this imprisonment validates only tyranny and destruction.

Camus then explains what he means by historical rebellion. He finds it to be

marked by revolutionary movements. When a metaphysical rebellion takes up arms

or, in other words, becomes violent to extend the scope of liberation, it turns into a

revolution. According to Camus, nihilism adopts murder and violence and so destroys

both men and principles. When this kind of revolutionary spirit shapes actions into

ideas, it goes contrary to the authentic rebellion. Camus explains that a rebellion

moves from individual experience to the realm of ideas and aspires for unity of the

world, but revolution (though motivated by the principle of freedom) works against

the divine authority as well as justice while aspiring for the unity of the human race.

Multani 39

Such rebellion is an obscure struggle with facts. It is a vague protest that tries to bring

transformation. Revolution attempts to shape actions to ideas by violent means as it

injects ideas into historical experience (Camus, Rebel 105-06). His conviction and the

differentiation he makes between rebellion and revolution make Camus view the year

1789 as introducing the forces of negation and rebellion on the historical scene which

led to regicides, deicides and homicides (112).

The forces of negation and rebellion on the historical scene overthrow the

principle of divine right, which results in a struggle between justice and divine grace.

The struggle leads to revolutionary movements. Such movements make Camus

discuss the revolutionary impulse that opens the way to tyranny and violence. He

analyzes this impulse in Saint-Just, Rousseau and Hegel. According to Camus, these

thinkers question the existence of God and attack the King (God's representative on

earth). They also justify death penalty and absolute submission of the subject.

According to Saint-Just, the philosophers would kill the King. Camus notes

Rousseau's assertion that the King must die in the name of the social contract. Since

Rousseau replaces the king with the "general will," Camus comments:

Until Rousseau's time, God created kings, who, in their turn,

created peoples. After The Social Contract, peoples create

themselves before creating kings. (Rebel 115)

His proclamation of the general consent (a political entity) as a divine entity makes

Rousseau a harbinger of contemporary forms of society that accommodate neither

opposition nor neutrality (116). So the year 1789, observes Camus, begins "the reign

of holy humanity" and "Our Lord the human race" which sanctions the murder of the

King-priest to establish the divinity of the people (117).

According to Camus, the enthronement of Rousseau's principle – general will

as an expression of truth, reason and justice – legitimizes state terrorism. He contends

Multani 40

that Saint-Just also justifies state terrorism when he spells out hostility between the

King and the people by calling the King a rebel and usurper (of absolute sovereignty).

Camus interprets Hegel's repudiation of terror also as an extension of terror. It is

because Hegel substitutes the universal and abstract reason of Saint-Just and

Rousseau with universal reason he makes history synonymous with rebellion (Camus,

Rebel 139-41). Hegel's distinction between "recognized consciousness" and other

consciousness also introduces a perpetual strife of will which is bent on seizing power

(138). This makes Camus observe that every historical rebellion irrevocably commits

itself to the labyrinth of tactics and terror. Such terror victimizes the people. So

Camus disapproves of the revolutionary and destructive forces that cut rebellion off

its real roots. He believes that these forces are unfaithful to man and destroy ethical

values (157). He also discusses such revolutionary forms as Russian nihilism, fascism

and Marxism to outline his conception of an authentic and moderate non-violent

resistance.

Camus discerns in the revolutionary movements an affinity with

totalitarianism. These movements smother the forces of creation. He is of the

conviction that the struggle between revolution and counter-revolution leaves no

possibility of resurrection. And consequently, the State becomes an incarnation of

crime (Camus, Rebel 157). Camus perceives the Russian nihilism of the 1860s as

advocating total freedom and dictatorship in the name of socialism. He sees Bakunin's

passion for freedom and a world without laws as a revolution that must lead to

destruction. Camus views this passion as an individualism in revolt which negates

ethical values (158). He also notes that Lenin's concept of power seizure is a transition

from nihilism to military socialism that actually strengthens individual terrorism and

dictatorship (174). In the cases of both Bakunin and Lenin the revolutionary

Multani 41

movements proved unfaithful to man and history. These movements, according to

Camus, were a betrayal of authentic rebellion.

As Camus reposes his trust in non-violent rebellion that strives to preserve

values and life, he disapproves of historical rebellion (such as Russian nihilism).

Terry Hoy comments that historical revolution betrays authentic rebellion because it

supposes absolute malleability of human nature and its total reduction to the condition

of a historical force (578). Camus's study of the modern revolutions in The Rebel

reveals that these all reinforce the power of the state. They try to build the city of

humanity and authentic freedom by liquidating the vestiges of divine right, and while

doing so they lack the ambition of universality (Camus, Rebel 177). Camus perceives

fascism as deification of the irrational guided by the principle of domination. The

fascist revolutions of the twentieth-century proclaim "the holy religion of anarchy"

and lack the ambition of universality (178). Every conquest and progress of Mussolini

and Hitler, notes Camus, is a transformation of legal obligations into military

obligations. Mussolini, remarks Camus, extols the elemental forces of the individual,

the dark powers of blood and the instinct of domination to establish an empire of

blood and action. Camus sees Hitler as an epitome of suicide and murder because of

the latter's obsession with success achieved through destruction (185). Therefore,

Camus considers fascism to be "death of freedom, the triumph of violence and the

enslavement of mind" (180). He condemns such "revolutions" as they reduce man to

mere object in historical terms. These are also responsible for the enslavement and

destruction of people in the name of freedom.

Camus then moves on to the revolutionary ideology of Marxism, and he

thoroughly condemns it. He does so because, in his opinion, Marxism also reduces

man to the level of a commodity or object. Karl Marx aims "to bring forth supreme

dignity from supreme humiliation" through his ideology. Camus interprets this as a

Multani 42

bloody struggle (Camus, Rebel 205). The antagonisms and class struggles that arise

out of social inequalities and unequal opportunities, prophesies Marx, would be

removed in the future. But Camus construes these antagonisms as the "motive force of

history" (201). Marx claims an end of classes after a revolution – a huge army of

oppressed slaves face to face with a handful of despicable masters. But Camus

believes that the victory of the proletariat would give birth to even more antagonisms

that could be no less violent (203).

Camus evaluates the antagonism between capital and the proletariat and the

struggle between the particular and the universal as the animating impulses of the

"historical tragedy of master-slave" (Camus, Rebel 205). He claims that an end that

requires unjust means to achieve it can never be a just end (209). The dignity of man

that Marx reclaims and the demand for justice would, according to Camus, destroy all

transcendence and would end in injustice. Camus explains that the bloody struggle

advocated by Marxism reintegrates good and evil in time to confuse events.

Camus considers Communism to be an embodiment of moral nihilism. The

use of repressive force (professional soldiers and revolutionaries) by the communists

establishes a provisional dictatorship of the proletariat. According to Camus, the

revolutionary ideology of Communism permits violence and murder and it ignores

objective values. So he does not endorse this destructive form of rebellion. For him,

rebellion preserves dignity and freedom, and demands unity. It does not demand

totality as is demanded by metaphysical or historical rebellion. He believes that the

revolutionary attitudes of Marx and Lenin abolish morality to establish a provisional

dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin advocates the use of authority and power to crush

the resistance movements of the masses, peasantry, the lower-middle class and the

semi-proletariat. Camus sees the use of professional soldiers and revolutionaries to

achieve dominion as a military activity (Rebel 227-30).

Multani 43

Therefore, Camus sums up the struggle from Lenin to Stalin as the struggle

between workers, democracy and military-bureaucratic dictatorship, and between

justice and expediency (Rebel 227-30). He disapproves of the use of repressive force

to establish and consolidate totalitarian political systems as these are rooted in

terrorism and tyranny. Camus concludes that such systems negate transcendental

values and hence become embodiments of moral nihilism. He condemns them

because they ignore objective values when they use murder and other forms of

violence. So he advocates only that rebellion which demands unity as well as

preserves a sense of limits, and which respects human dignity and values (251).

Further, Camus deliberates on artistic rebellion. He believes that art is a

manifestation of rebellion. Artistic creation is a rebellious activity. He explains that

art rejects the world on account of what it lacks and demands a unity. He perceives

aesthetic rebellion as pure and constructive because it rejects the worldly ills and

preserves values to reconstruct the world (Camus, Rebel 253). An artist, he believes,

resists reality and brings out the lacunae of the world in his work to reconstruct the

world. Hence, an artist through his creation triggers off a rebellion that preserves

values for a meaningful existence and hence helps to restructure the order.

The absurd art, for Camus, is "not an escape from life or a refuge from its

chronic disorders. Rather, it is a symptom of wordly ills, preserving them and

renewing them in an act of spiteful rebellion" (Sefler 416). Camus notes that the

works of art exhibit "monotonous and passionate repetition of themes already

orchestrated by the world" which do not give any solution or explanation to the

absurdities of life (Myth 87-88). He also explains that when art mimes the spirit of

revolt (of man against despair), it helps man to not succumb to the harsh realities of

life. Thus the spirit of revolt that art offers helps men to confront despair. If historical

rebellion tries to remake the world by recourse to tyranny, aesthetic revolt keeps

within limits.

Multani 44

Though a struggle for freedom marks a work of art, an artist recognizes the

virtues of beauty through limits. He revolts to create and liberate the universe of its

phantoms but never takes to fanaticism and violence. Every creative work of an artist,

according to Camus, registers a revolt against one's condition. But he makes it clear

that this revolt perseveres to shape one's fate by adhering to values. An artist's

struggle for a relative freedom is at the core of a work of art. But this struggle is also a

struggle for beauty that coexists with man and that preserves virtues. So an artist,

according to Camus, resists with empty hands, rejects violence and hopes to preserve

values. He believes that violence dries up human hearts and can never fight injustice,

but an artistic work discovers "an invincible summer" – freshness of beauty of nature

and the will to live – through a non-violent revolt (Camus, Myth 180-81).

A fictional creation begins with a disagreement that separates man from his

experience. The artist rebels against reality to create a universe that reveals life by

easing or decreasing various bondages that weigh upon men. Camus recommends

savoir-vivre (limited experience) and not savoir-fare (whole experience) of the artist

for a creative work (Myth 90). Such a work voices the rebellious instincts of the

oppressed by negating as well as exalting certain aspects of reality. Even a sculptor or

painter, observes Camus, chooses the expression to be stylized. An artistic creation

juxtaposes interrelated events and stylizes them. An artist imposes a loose cohesion

(not found in life) on them in order to renew life.

Just as Camus condemns metaphysical and historical rebellions for being

nihilistic, he disfavours an artistic rebellion which either demands absolute freedom or

exalts violence. He believes that both absolute freedom and violence bring

annihilation. Camus disapproves of absolute negation and banality in the works of

Lautrèamont (who is hailed as "the bard of pure rebellion) (Rebel 87). As

Lautrèamont wishes to take creation back to the shores of primeval seas and glorifies

Multani 45

crime and violence (as in his Songs), Camus rejects such works. The reason is that the

works developed around such a desire disregard morality and can only destroy

mankind. According to Camus, when Lautrèamont mingles mankind with the world

(sea creatures), he destroys both morality and human frontiers (84).

Camus perceives a nihilistic dejection in the works of Rimbaud, another poet

of rebellion. Rimbaud's rebellion manifests a desire "to be nothing" which leads to

the problem of suicide (Camus, Rebel 91). The struggle between the will to be and the

desire for annihilation, between the yes and the no, leads Rimbaud to a rebellious

asceticism. The total insubordination or absolute rebellion silences mankind and

prepares it for authority. Such absolute rebellion, observes Camus, is advocated by the

Surrealists. Surrealism exalts both human innocence and murder. It advocates

irrationality which approximates the nihilistic principles. Camus believes that this

makes rebellion ignoble (93). According to him, "The rebel does not ask for life, but

for reasons for living" (101); and rebellion protests against death (or death penalty) in

a non-violent manner. A true and constructive rebellion demands clarity in the face of

the human condition, not destruction of human beings.

Camus affirms that all rebellious thoughts are expressed by means of rhetoric.

Rhetoric constitutes a closed universe which has coherence and unity. He holds that

artistic creation fabricates universes. But when Camus analyzes the rhetorical

ramparts of Lucretius, the isolated castles of Sade, the primeval seas of Lautrèamont,

the parapets of Rimbaud, the terrifying castles of the surrealists, he finds them lacking

in coherence and unity. He notes that the empire of free slaves in the works of these

artists speaks of sealed worlds marked by incoherence (Camus, Rebel 255). The

incoherence makes Camus doubt the potential of such rhetoric in bringing about any

change.

Multani 46

Moving to the modern times, Camus discusses novel as a form of resistance.

He differentiates the "literature of consent" (such as fairy tales coinciding with ancient

history and the classical period) from the "literature of rebellion" (novels of the

modern times). A novel, for Camus, creates a closed universe as it borders between

reality and "reverie" (Rebel 264). He asserts that the novel creates an imaginary world

by relieving the actual world of suffering. He also believes that the novel presents the

rebellious sensibilities of an artist in quest of unity. The novel provisionally conquers

death as it accepts eternal suffering through a coherence and a unity that do not exist

in reality. Such rebellion that constitutes both a voluntary transformation of reality

and an affirmation of interior reality creates a form of salvation (261-64).

Camus asserts that an equilibrium between the imaginary and the real (based on a

careful selection) demonstrates a superior form of unity in art which rejects only to

recreate.

What Camus implies by unity of art is the limits that an artist imposes on

reality through language and the redistribution of elements. It is style with which the

artist recreates a universe (Camus, Rebel 265-68). For Camus, a literary creation loses

artistic significance if it is either purely imaginary or purely realistic. As a novel is not

"an escapist exercise" (259), there has to be a balance between exaggeration and

insignificance. A slight distortion of style – be it the enlargement of the microscope as

in Proust or the absurd insignificance in the American novels – holds the "creative

force, the fecundity of rebellion," observes Camus (271). For him, a creation degrades

into nihilistic art if it succumbs to abstraction or to realism in totality. An equilibrium

is, therefore, essential to express rebellion in art that could provide salvation. Thus the

novel obtains a coherence and unity not existing in reality. The acceptance of eternal

suffering as destiny and the desire to endure and to possess one's wishes constitutes a

rebellion. When a novel presents such wishes, it also creates a form of salvation (261-

63).

Multani 47

For Camus, a novel offers to the reader a universe on the "borderland between

reality and reverie" (Rebel 264). The essence of the novel lies in the perpetual

alteration that it makes to compete with creation and to provisionally conquer death.

When Camus alludes to the American novels that present an abstract universe or to

the French novels that eulogize interiority, he brings out the significance of unity

required for artistic creation (265-68). It is a unity achieved through "distortion" of

style, with which an artist re-creates a universe. Style, according to Camus, not only

recreates but also imposes laws on the world. Such an imposition makes the artists

"the unacknowledged legislators of the world" as remarked by Percy Bysshe Shelley

(269). Indeed, style is the core of the creative effort and the mark of both art and

protest (271).

Camus believes that art (like any revolution) leads to the renaissance of

civilization. He is of the opinion that both art and revolution spring out of rebellion

but differ in the type of renewal achieved. Every creation denies the world of master

and slave as it applies a particular style to the disorder of a particular time to give

form and formulas to contemporary passions in order to transfigure them (Camus,

Rebel 274). According to Camus, rebellion is preliminary to all civilization because it

allows hope for a better future. Similarly, artistic creation prepares the way for

regeneration of civilization. Since art upholds beauty and the dignity of man, it

creates. It is opposed to those historical revolutions that resort to violence and murder

and ignore human dignity. Camus's conviction is that art must always create and never

kill.

Camus's opinion is that violent revolutions only forge new chains. These

revolutions lead to nihilism that suppresses hope and transformation. So he considers

only a moderate rebellion to be in tune with the logic of creation. He notes that a

revolution realizes itself from top to bottom in order to achieve absolute freedom. By

Multani 48

doing so it only suppresses "justice" (Camus, Rebel 288-89). On the contrary, a

rebellion sides with realism as it relies on concrete realities. It aspires for relative

justice and relative freedom (298).

Camus recommends a moderate rebellion to fight falsehood, crime and the

ravages of one's own self as well as of the world. His analysis of various types of

rebellion makes it clear that man often casts off the fetters of religion only to forge

new chains. These chains condemn man to a period which is not simply bloodthirsty

but blind and savage as well. In such a period the violent rebels gain their ends

through violence and murder. As this nihilism suppresses hope, and brings falsehood

and injustice, it gives rise to the opposition between the movement of rebellion and

the attainments of revolution. Camus contends that in a bid to achieve absolute

freedom and absolute justice, the logic of creation is replaced by that of destruction.

As the violent revolutions try to replace God by history, these go against the true spirit

of rebellion. For Camus, an authentic rebellion is that which keeps the world and

history in view. He believes that by going against God and history a rebel achieves

nothing. The true spirit of rebellion aspires for relative justice as it supposes that the

universe has only relative values (Rebel 290).

Camus affirms that the revolutionary spirit that has marked the conflict

between history and nature for twenty centuries has resulted in a provisional victory

for historical dynamism. Violence, irrational and rational crime rupture

communication, mutilate unity and obstruct the path of justice and freedom. This also

results in a long wait for justice. As the struggle between darkness and light continues

only to debase humanity, Camus counsels moderation (Rebel 300). According to him,

the world revolves around a limit and is not in a condition of pure stability. A

revolution contaminates the generous origins of rebellion when it adopts tyranny and

murder. A new rebellion checks this immoderate mechanism to prepare for a

Multani 49

renaissance beyond the limits of nihilism. This authentic rebellion, according to

Camus, assures men of the inevitable light (of justice) "[a]t the end of this tunnel of

darkness" among the ruins (305). And this is an unending persistent process. It is this

path of the moderate rebellion that keeps man intact and whole in the savage and

formless movement of history (301). Only such a rebellion would diminish the

suffering of the world and end injustice, observes Camus. A true rebellion refuses the

unending delay in justice as it has a "strange love for humiliated humanity" (304).

Oppression, thus, gives rise to rebellion that indefatigably confronts evil and aims to

rectify in creation everything that could be rectified. This makes Camus assert that

"art and rebellion will die only with the last man" (303).

If The Rebel elaborates Camus's conceptualization of rebellion or resistance,

The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays has a more limited focus and examines the

role of the artist in reconfiguring the society. Camus believes that an artistic creation

becomes an appropriate "gift" for the future when the artist voices the sorrows and

joys of all by upholding virtue in the face of oppression (Myth 192). As an artist

intervenes in favour of the humiliated, he initiates the required "renascence" to

improve their condition. Camus eulogizes artists like Tolstoy, Moliere and Melville

for maintaining a balance between the values of creation and humanity in their works.

He considers an artist's refuge in the ivory tower to be an act of resignation (191).

Camus believes that the era of ideologies is over and the forces of resistance

that value relative freedom give new reasons for living. So he assigns to the artist the

role of maintaining solidarity because an artist cannot isolate himself from the

suffering and the debased. He proposes that the artist should fight the evils of his

times with a moderate rebellion. Many artists in the past remained silent against

tyranny and accepted the time, remarks Camus. But the artist of the modern times, for

him, should intervene in the affairs of the world. For Camus, a true artist defends

Multani 50

universal inter-communication, and opposes slavery, falsehood and injustice. By

doing so the artist adds to the inner freedom of the silenced and the oppressed.

Camus sees an act of resignation in the struggle of the left intellectuals against

injustice and oppression. He believes that they sometimes justify a certain oppression

and even privilege the executioners. He also finds in Marxism a rejection of "the man

of today in the name of future" (Camus, Myth 189). This makes Camus place faith

only in the true rebellious spirit of an artist who voices the misery of the oppressed.

Such an artist registers a resistance that aspires for justice and equality in order to give

a chance for survival to later generations (Camus, "Victims"). A true work of art, he

observes, eases off the bondage weighing upon men. It also unites and liberates

mankind as it revives understanding and communication. Therefore, a true artist is the

one who defends sociability and universal inter-communication. He opposes slavery,

falsehood and injustice that destroy sociability.

The fictional works of Camus substantiate his conceptualization of artistic

creation. His writings exemplify his theorizations on resistance, art and the artist. The

Plague is one such novel that foregrounds the absurd and brings out the resistance of

the afflicted. It also exhibits the endurance of the suffering to give meaning to their

absurd existence. The narrative brings out the plight of the people in the modern town

of Oran (a large French port on the Algerian coast) where the pneumonic plague

produces absurdity in all men alike – low or high.

Oran is inhabited by men "sick and tired of the world," but the afflicted share a

fellow-feeling. They resolve "to have no truck within justice and comprises with the

truth" (Camus, Plague 13). They accept the absurd and endure the misery for "six

black months" without yielding to nihilism (suicide or murder) (63). The sick are at

"the mercy of the sky's caprices" but their hatred of death and disease unites them to

fight these (64, 178). As the calamity imprisons them in their houses and exiles them

Multani 51

from the rest of the world, it restrains freedom (149). But even in their suffering they

practise the greatest of all virtues: "that of the All or Nothing" (184) as they persevere

in the struggle for improving their condition.

The people voice slogans of "Bread – or fresh air!" as they desire to move

freely to "happier places" (Camus, Plague194). They help each other, serve the

invalids and resist despair. They make optimistic notes and eulogize the courage of

the populace. The writings (newspapers) too resist the pestilence. The state isolates

the afflicted in camps so that others continue their work without being pestered by the

plight of the plague-striken.

Every effort made to alleviate suffering, whether by people, journalists,

doctors, social organizations or government, brings out the supreme value of

solidarity and truth. As people realize the importance of acceptance of the dilemma,

they resolve discords and aspire beyond themselves to fight the malady. This attitude

makes "truth flash forth from the dark cloud of seeming injustice" (Camus, Plague

186). It also brings out the faith Camus reposes in man who, he believes, can fight

suffering and transcend it. People fight death without raising their eyes towards

Heaven where God sits in silence (107-08). They do not try to escape the "cheerless

streets" or "all pervading odour of death" (213, 156). Doctor Rieux and the journalist

Tarrou take their exhaustion after the treatment of patients as a blessing in disguise as

it makes them forget the gloom. The attitude and efforts of the people give rise to a

"grey hope" (213). It is their dogged perseverance, hope that the plague would retreat,

and the efforts to reorganize themselves into a new order of life that mark a

movement of liberation (218-21).

The Plague also demonstrates Camus's views concerning violence, murder and

death penalty. He considers these acts to be nihilistic as they destroy the very sources

of life. Rieux rejects his father's efforts to persuade him to adopt the vocation of

Multani 52

public prosecution. He disapproves of his father's clamour for death of prisoners as

the Director for Public Prosecutions and prefers to become a doctor. As Rieux

chooses a doctor's profession, he refuses to work with the forces that justify death and

murder. The Plague thus affirms Camus's conceptualization of the constructive role of

resistance in fighting the absurd as well as in regenerating the order.

The Fall by Camus exemplifies aesthetic rebellion. In this novel Camus

transmutes absurdity into a literary creation. Unlike The Plague, The Fall does not

affirm at the level of concepts; rather, it constitutes an affirmation in the form of art.

The Fall points out the dangers implicit in certain ways of thinking. It also reveals

how human suffering increases with immoderate, violent actions and wrong attitudes.

In this work, Camus warns against the crossing of limits in political life and even in

our judgements on ourselves and others. He does so because he thinks this encourages

tyranny and suffering (Thody 184). If The Plague dwells upon resistance to despair,

The Fall elaborates upon resistance against wrong attitudes that perpetuate suffering.

Camus's fictional work thus exemplifies the theoretical framework expounded

by him. He uses an innovative method to creatively define the positive and

constructive side of resistance in The Rebel. He defies conventional definitions that

see resistance as a negative force. Camus's analysis of various types of rebellion

affirms a positive sense of resistance as a force of creation and life. He distinguishes

the constructive rebellion from the violent and destructive revolution. And he

emphasizes the constructive and non-violent aspects of resistance to transform the

unjust order.

In The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays Camus avoids the nihilism of the

times and gives a call to confront the absurd. He argues for a positive resistance

(perseverance) against the absurd. Unlike many rational and irrational thinkers,

Camus defends intelligence for the purpose of creation (as against negation). Through

Multani 53

Resistance, Rebellion and Death also Camus argues for saving intelligence from

irrationality. The poison of hatred and violence injected by nihilism and the sense of

hostility between executioners and victims are condemned by him. Camus believes

that when intelligence is backed by courage, morality and mutual understanding, it

transmutes the appetite for hatred into a desire for freedom, equality, truth and justice

(61-63).

Camus holds that bloodshed alone does not carry history forward but cruelty

and suffering also do, due to which justice loses meaning. He stands by the common

man in his fight against destructive forces. Roger Quilliot eulogizes Camus's moderate

rebellion as it is devoted to justice and the preservation of lives (Brée 44). The Rebel

keeps liberalism alive (Thody 139). Philip Toynbee calls the book "a brilliant essay in

political philosophy" and a balanced work of art (166). Art, for Camus, expresses the

fate of every human being who honours the oppressed and echoes their silence (201-

02).

Camus uses art to combat injustice and indignity. As he accepts limits, his

ideas of revolt and humanism preserve human integrity. Some critics view his idea of

revolt and protest against absurdity as excessive ambitiousness. They believe that

Camus's study of the betrayal of the authentic spirit of revolt, from the Greek times to

the modern times, can confuse the average reader. Some of them even consider the

three hundred and sixty eight pages of The Rebel to be shallow as these allude to one

hundred sixty writers, ninety six historical characters and twenty fictional characters

and mythical personalities. They also dismiss it as a political philosophy (Thody 139-

40). But Camus, defending the aim of his book, states:

The aim of this essay is not to repeat . . . the description of the

phenomenon of revolution . . . It is to discover by analysis of

revolutionary events, what are the manifestations, the constant themes,

and the logical consequences of metaphysical revolt. (Thody 142)

Multani 54

Camus uses allusions to question traditional values and the future of mankind in order

to explore the moral conditions necessary for survival. Bernard C. Murchland sees in

this kind of exploration the positive genius of Camus. He admires the courageous

metaphor of Sisyphus chosen by Camus to reject suicide in order to conquer the

absurd. There is also a sense of universality (Brèe 61). The Plague and The Rebel go

beyond the struggle of the individual Sisyphian character to bring out the values of

justice and courage. The Fall satirizes the notion of guilt and protests against its being

used as a weapon to enslave people as it deadens their creative powers for self-

transcendence.

As Camus translates his own experience into a universal statement, his

writings revolt against the formlessness of life to save it from disorder and

incompleteness. He believes that there is something beyond nihilism and absolute

materialism. His works try to find meaning in the universe (Camus, Albert 124-25).

His writings depict the collective passions of his day but are also symbolic of his

philosophy of optimism. The works of Camus signify that "the artist must live

immersed in the absurd, must carry the burden of it, and must seek to prove it for

others" (Brèe 14). It is because of Camus's belief in a renaissance to restructure the

society through resistance that his works hold a universal appeal. The themes of

separation, rebellion, compassion and fleetingness of the world make Camus one of

the finest writers whose triumph as an artist ultimately overshadows every criticism

(Thody 197).

Sartre saw Camus a scrupulous defender of the social cause who bore within

him all the conflicts of his time, lived in them with ardor and went beyond them

(Brèe 7). The perennial issues of rebellion, equality, liberty and justice taken up by

Camus have a universal value. If oppression becomes a universal phenomenon when

freedom and justice regress in the world, resistance too must acquire universal

Multani 55

tones. According to Camus, freedom is humiliated and is in chains today. So it

becomes the concern of the oppressed; and the protectors of freedom must always

come from the oppressed (Camus, Resistance 89). Camus's assertion that "freedom is

not a gift received from a state or a leader but a possession to be won every day by the

efforts of each and the union of all" (96-97) remains valid for all times and all places.

His concepts of absurdity, rebellion and resurrection of society also have a universal

significance.

Camus emphasizes the human struggle to preserve values through a non-

violent revolt. He begins with the theme of Sisyphus (absurdity), moves on to the

theme of Prometheus (revolt), and then to the theme of Nemesis20 (measure) in order

to explain his concepts (Brèe 7, 48). Camus's conviction that man can always hold off

gods and tyrants offers a new humanism in defence of the suffering humanity.

Camus's call to revolt is "a call to create; to transform the inhumanity of the world

into the image of man, to humanize what is inhuman – in short, to civilize" (58). His

rejection of violent nationalism and orthodox Communism and his preference for a

policy of resistance such as Mahatma Gandhi's exemplify his respect for human lives.

20. The goddess of moderation (Camus, Rebel 296)