MYTH OF SISYPHUS
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natural with the extraordinary, the individual with the universal,
the tragic with the banal, absurdity with logic, are found through
all his work and give it at once its resonance and its meaning. These
are the paradoxes that must be enumerated, the contradictions that
must be intensified, in order to understand the absurd work.
A symbol, in fact, presupposes two levels, two worlds of ideas
and sensations, and a dictionary of the correspondence between the
one and the other. It is this lexicon that is the most difficult to establish.
But to be aware of the two worlds in contact is already to be on the
road to discovering their secret relations. In Kafka these two roads
are those of daily life, on the one hand, and supernatural anxiety, on
the other.
1
We seem to be present here at an inexhaustible elaboration
of Nietzsche's saying: "The great problems are in the street."
There is
in
man's condition-it is the commonplace of all litera–
tures-a fundamental absurdity as well as an implacable grandeur.
The two coincide, as is natural. Both are represented, we repeat, in the
ridiculous divorce which separates our spiritual intemperances from
the perishable joys of the body. The absurdity is that the soul trans–
cends its body so immeasurably. Whoever wishes to delineate this
absurdity will have to give it life in this play of parallel contrasts.
It
is thus that Kafka expresses tragedy by the banal, and the absurd by
logic.
An
actor lends more force to a tragic character in proportion as
he keeps himself from exaggerating.
If
he is restrained, the horror that
he will excite will be enormous. In this respect Greek tragedy has
much to teach us. In a tragic work, fate is always perceived better
under the visage of logic and the natural. The fate of Oedipus is
announced in advance.
It
is supernaturally decided that he will com–
mit murder and incest. The whole effort of the drama is
to
show
the logical system which, from deduction to deduction, proceeds to
bring about the misfortune of the hero. The simple announcement
of this unusual fate is scarcely horrible, because it lacks verisimilitude.
But if the necessity is demonstrated to us in the framework of daily
life, society, state, familiar emotion, then the horror is consecrated.
In this revolt which shakes the man and makes him say: "That is
1.
The works of Kafka can just as legitimately be interpreted in the sense of
social criticism (for example, in
The Trial).
Probably, moreover, there is no
forced choice: both interpretations are valid. In terms of the absurd, we have
seen, the revolt against men is directed
also
to God: the great revolutions are
always metaphysical.
