Editing Absurdism (section)

== Examples ==
According to absurdism, life in general is absurd: the absurd is not just limited to a few specific cases. Nonetheless, some cases are more paradigmatic examples than others. ''[[The Myth of Sisyphus]]'' is often treated as a key example of the absurd.<ref name="Blomme2013"/><ref name="Pölzler2014"/> In it, [[Zeus]] punishes [[Sisyphus|King Sisyphus]] by compelling him to roll a massive boulder up a hill. Whenever the boulder reaches the top, it rolls down again, thereby forcing Sisyphus to repeat the same task all over again throughout eternity. This story may be seen as an absurdist [[parable]] for the hopelessness and futility of human life in general: just like Sisyphus, humans in general are condemned to toil day in and day out in the attempt to fulfill pointless tasks, which will be replaced by new pointless tasks once they are completed. It has been argued that a central aspect of Sisyphus' situation is not just the futility of his labor but also his awareness of the futility.<ref name="Blomme2013"/><ref name="BritannicaSisyphus">{{cite web |title=The Myth of Sisyphus |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Myth-of-Sisyphus |website=www.britannica.com |access-date=13 April 2022 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Pölzler2014"/>

Another example of the absurdist aspect of the human condition is given in [[Franz Kafka]]'s ''[[The Trial]]''.<ref name="Sutherland2013">{{cite book |last1=Sutherland |first1=John |title=A Little History of Literature |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.12987/9780300188363-033/pdf |chapter=33. Absurd Existences Kafka, Camus, Beckett and Pinter |date=2013|pages=214–220 |publisher=Yale University Press |doi=10.12987/9780300188363-033 |isbn=978-0-300-18836-3 |s2cid=246109213 }}</ref><ref name="Guardian2019">{{cite web |date=14 August 2019 |title=From Kafka to Gogol via Pynchon: top 10 absurd quests in fiction |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/14/from-kafka-to-gogol-via-pynchon-top-10-absurd-quests-in-fiction |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref> In it, the protagonist Josef K. is arrested and prosecuted by an inaccessible authority even though he is convinced that he has done nothing wrong. Throughout the story, he desperately tries to discover what crimes he is accused of and how to defend himself. But in the end, he lets go of his futile attempts and submits to his execution without ever finding out what he was accused of. The absurd nature of the world is exemplified by the mysterious and impenetrable functioning of the judicial system, which seems indifferent to Josef K. and resists all of his attempts of making sense of it.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kavanagh |first1=Thomas M. |title=Kafka's "The Trial": The Semiotics of the Absurd |journal=Novel: A Forum on Fiction |date=1972 |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=242–253 |doi=10.2307/1345282 |jstor=1345282 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1345282 |issn=0029-5132|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Sutherland2013"/><ref name="Guardian2019"/>