An Absurd Hero

[DanFC]

Wrote this when I was feeling particularly defeated. Maybe I wrote this so I can relate, but I think I wrote it so I could look up.


An Absurd Hero

He is unforgiven, forever trapped within.
His existence is eternal, tragedy without end.

Chains wrap his battered wrists and twisted ankles
And his skin is a wheezing crust of filth.
Sisyphus heaves his troubles to a livid sun,
Endlessly in agony for the last shove.

As the brute groans towards the summit
And his torn hair trembles with regret,
The cruelest of poisons
Infects his morbid thoughts.

It says Zeus cannot do this!
Not forever, not this long.
He will praise your artful craft,
For an eternal should fathom you!
And if the almighty is proud,
He will absolve, in knowing of immortal pain!
He must, he must, he must.
But better yet
Prove your might,
Let the boulder fall,
And tower above the gods!

But Sisyphus shakes his shaved head,
And with one earthly shout,
Heaves the boulder to the peak.

Pity the poor tortured creature,
For again, the boulder staggers
And again, the boulder falls back,
And all of Tartarus shudders.

The mortal’s eyes deaden, his mouth stands agape,
His meager muscles slack
As infernal despair clenches his bare skeleton.

But only for a second.

He treads back down at a steady pace
And begins again, resolve renewed,
A hero without end.

 

[Bullied Anonymous]

Its seems very deep. Like there was a lot of time collaborated into this. I would love to understand it a little better. I'm sorry.

He is unforgiven, forever trapped within.
His existence is eternal, tragedy without end.

Chains wrap his battered wrists and twisted ankles
And his skin is a wheezing crust of filth.
Sisyphus heaves his troubles to a livid sun,
Endlessly in agony for the last shove.

As the brute groans towards the summit
And his torn hair trembles with regret,
The cruelest of poisons
Infects his morbid thoughts.

What I got out of it is that there's a hero of little praise and respect just because a mistake in the past. Zeus (the supreme ruler) won't forgive him and keep's him under this punishment for his sins.

It says Zeus cannot do this!
Not forever, not this long.
He will praise your artful craft,
For an eternal should fathom you!
And if the almighty is proud,
He will absolve, in knowing of immortal pain!
He must, he must, he must.
But better yet
Prove your might,
Let the boulder fall,
And tower above the gods!

But Sisyphus shakes his shaved head,
And with one earthly shout,
Heaves the boulder to the peak.

Even though the hero know's Zeus probably won't lighten up on his punishment he stays hopeful of blue skies.

Pity the poor tortured creature,
For again, the boulder staggers
And again, the boulder falls back,
And all of Tartarus shudders.

The mortal’s eyes deaden, his mouth stands agape,
His meager muscles slack
As infernal despair clenches his bare skeleton.

But only for a second.

He treads back down at a steady pace
And begins again, resolve renewed,
A hero without end.

Sounds like the hero is struggling with trying to get a second chance.

Did I hit anywhere close to an understanding.

 

[DanFC]

Yeah, it's something like that. On one level the poem speaks to eternal hope despite the circumstances, but when considering the title and the diction, another conclusion can be inferred as well.

The poem is basically about Sisyphus, a human in Greek mythology that pretty much raised hell with the gods (who are collectively referred to as the "sun" here) and as punishment was to forever push a boulder up a hill, watch it roll back down, and begin over again and again and again for eternity. One can find this sort of eternal hope here, as Sisyphus forever looks to when his punishment ends. However, a deeper meaning is found in in the tale which is best recollected by Albert Camus, one of my favorite writers.

Camus basically shows how Sisyphus is the emblem of the existentialist "absurd hero", someone who grasps his fate completely and becomes a hero because of it, in a sense, and it is this Sisyphus that I tried to model. Sisyphus knows his punishment is neverending, and he will always push the rock up. He becomes a hero as he treads back down to the rock to begin over again, despite being in "endless agony", as he fully embraces his destiny and as such becomes a man-god, while if he would have tried to reject it and pridefully tried to become greater than the gods, he would have been just a man, as indicated by the ramblings of his mind, the "poison". There's more to what his mind said in the poem, based mostly on my observations of hubris.

I tried to make the diction support the claim that Sisyphus is indeed one to be looked up to, and that's why I made this poem. I also tried to tie Sisyphus to Samson of the Old Testament. Samson, too, embraces his situation and his pain, and as such completes his destiny despite having destroyed himself.

Overall I tried to make Sisyphus a tragic hero, but a true hero nevertheless. By facing an eternal absurdity and in fact embodying absurdity, he is not only man, but he becomes fully a man who becomes his destiny, a complete mortal, and through this embrace of absurdity becomes more than a man: a man-god.

 

[Bullied Anonymous]

Wow. I noticed the relevance of the old testament. Thanks for the incite. I think I've completely grasped the theme of your thread. The thing that makes him a hero is his acceptance of his own punishment for his wrong. In any typical bad guy their pride gets in the way of punishment ,and so they attempt to fight it. However, Sisyphus acknowledged his own sins in the view of the just. Since, he has accomplished this level of understanding that makes him more than the man he was. Nice.

I can definently relate.

 

[DanFC]

Thank you, and that's what I find so enticing about poems, people can draw different valid meanings from them. So, as you had said before, one can view it as hope, and, as you just mentioned, the plight of Sisyphus can also be viewed as the acknowledgment and acceptance of sin and punishment (much like one of my favorite novels of all time Crime and Punishment). There's also another aspect that I referred to before, that of absurdity. This really is best explained by Albert Camus and one of the main goals of the poem was to show that Sisyphus is specifically the absurd hero, someone who recognizes the absurd nature of reality and of life (represented by lifting the boulder despite knowing it will come down, representing that we find our existence important but we all die, a paradox of sorts), and by his own struggle of meaning and by not only accepting but more so absorbing this meaning, becomes complete and becoming more than a man, the aforementioned man-god.

 

[userremoved]

Good stuff, I could really feel the emotion in this.