The absurd hero is one of the most interesting types of hero found in the literature. While the traditional hero is confident and moral, bent on righting wrongs, the absurd hero is the complete antithesis of this traditional character. An absurd hero is one who is a hero yet with none of the normal characteristics of a hero. This hero is emotionally detached from the world, amoral, and usually lacks belief in a religious God, or believes that God has forsaken him. Knowledge of these characteristics assists in gaining a better understanding of the main character in Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus” and The Stranger as well as the David Fincher film Fight Club based on the book written by Chuck Palahniuk.
In Fincher’s film, the protagonist is the Narrator, played by Edward Norton. In both the film and the novel, the Narrator has reached such a place of antipathy and despair that he attends support group meetings for different terminal diseases in order to help him feel something so that he will sleep at night. While he does cry at these meetings, he maintains a detachment from the other members of the group and does not seem to truly care about the people that he interacts with outside of the group setting. Rather than involve himself, he creates characters with different names who suffer from the same disease as the group, causing the Narrator to change names and pretend to suffer from a different disease every night. The Narrator is not personally involved in these exchanges so he feels no moral qualms about lying to the people in these groups night after night until his lie is reflected in the lie of another group member, Marla Singer, who is also apathetic to her life and attends various group meetings under the pretense that she is also terminally ill while she is not. The appearance of Marla causes the Narrator to switch from his amoral view of his actions to an immoral view as he suddenly feels that he will be shunned for lying to the group members. Marla appears to be the final catalyst that sends the Narrator mentally over the edge where he creates an alternate personality for himself in Tyler Durden where he can once again become completely amoral with no perceived consequences attributed directly to the Narrator.
Though the Narrator never involves himself enough with the audience to give his name, there is a very distinct effort on behalf of the Narrator to ensure that the audience is well aware of both Tyler’s first and last names. It is through the invention of Tyler that the Narrator truly becomes the absurd hero, spouting philosophies on life, death, and the true nature of God while acting as a God himself to an army of similarly disenfranchised men that he builds under the idea of creating a version of a utopian society where everyone is equal and women are virtually unnecessary. Though Tyler, and by extension the Narrator, has sexual relations with Marla, Tyler denounces their relationship outside of the bedroom while the Narrator, not realizing that he is Tyler, denies a relationship altogether and is verbally cruel to Marla, feeling that she is attempting to insinuate herself in his life by taking Tyler away. It is through his adventures living as Tyler that the Narrator truly explores the dark side of his personality, living not by the laws of society but in direct contrast to them, until the Narrator realizes the chaos that he has created as Tyler and seeks to rectify Tyler’s actions in the eleventh hour. It is through the Narrator’s detached exploration of the world through Tyler that he discovers his own morality and forms emotional attachments to various characters in the work. Tyler gives the Narrator a way to freely express himself, his ideals, and to act on his views of the world without becoming emotionally attached himself or compromising his own moral structure. Tyler acts purely on logical impulse, without regard to anyone other than himself and the world that he is seeking to build which would reflect his own belief system.
The same psychological detachment displayed by the protagonist in Fight Club is also displayed by Meursault in The Stranger. Meursault demonstrates a complete emotional and moral detachment from society throughout the novel, a characteristic for which he is ultimately punished by society and put to death. Though Meursault is faced with his demise pending his renouncing of his belief system or lack thereof, Meursault refuses to admit a belief in God, or acceptance of the moral codes of society. The most damning characteristic that he displays is his complete detachment from the death of his mother. While Meursault is not simply moral or immoral but amoral, his actions within the context of the accepted societal norms make him appear to be a monster to the remainder of society.
Meursault is deemed an outsider because of his inability to make any distinction between good and bad in his own mind, a characteristic that leads to his indifference and refusal to accept the faith of religion. His refusal to conform is not based on a desire to live outside of the expectations of society but rather his own belief that the universe, or God, is simply indifferent to the existence and suffering of mankind, much the same as the beliefs of Tyler Durden. Like Tyler, Meursault also has no emotional attachment to his lover, Marie, treating both her and their relationship with the same indifference that he shows the rest of the world, another factor that later leads to his being condemned to death. Though Meursault never develops as a character to the point where the morality of a society is a valid concern for him, he does come to the conclusion that human existence has no real lasting effect on the world, a notion which gives him peace as he can relate to the indifference of the world through his own indifference to existence.
Camus’ belief in the absurdity of existence, that the difference between what we seek in the universe and the chaos that makes up the universe will eventually lead humanity to either seek meaning through God and religion or accept the lack of meaning of human existence, is also reflected in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus”. Here the protagonist, Sisyphus, resigns himself to his fate which is mandated by the Gods and in that resignation becomes detached from the world, with his entire existence forming around his rock. Sisyphus is content to live in the life mandated for him without seeking further meaning or purpose, an act which causes his indifference to human existence. He, like the previous two protagonists, is also amoral without a point to define what is good and bad, but simply what is.
All three of these characters, Tyler/the Narrator, Meursault, and Sisyphus clearly display the principle characteristics of the absurd hero. They do not long to find meaning in their existence, but seek instead to cultivate their indifference to the human condition and belief in a higher being. There is no acknowledgement on behalf of any of these men that a higher being does not exist but simply a vocalization of the belief that if a higher being does exist, such as God, that it does not care for humanity. The absurd hero exists in a space where morality is unnecessary and humanity is much simpler than perceived by society.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays. New York: Vintage, 1991.
Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Edward Norton. 1999.
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: Norton, 1996.
Stranger, The. Albert Camus. New York: Vintage, 1989.