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Albert CamusA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
In Part 4, Camus shifts gears somewhat, choosing to focus on the relationship between art and acts of rebellion. According to Camus, all art is a form of rebellion in the sense that the artist cannot really accept reality as it is; he instead attempts to recreate reality, or reshape it, within his works of art. But because the artist is constantly engaged in a dynamic, questioning relationship with reality instead of a rejection of reality, and because the artist creates in a questioning spirit instead of a rigid, top-down, ideological one, the true artist is often the target of totalitarian revolutionaries. This is because all totalitarian revolutionaries are mistrustful of artists’ freedom and wish to have art that serves only the revolution.
Camus then discusses the nature of the novel, arguing that within the novel the artist can achieve the kind of unity and perfection that all humans secretly long for, but which eludes mankind in reality. This is a unity that revolutionary ideologues tend to promise in their utopian thinking but cannot actually deliver in the real world. For Camus, art is the closest mankind can get to experiencing the elusive unity it craves.
By Albert Camus
A Happy Death
A Happy Death
Albert Camus
Caligula
Caligula
Albert Camus
The Fall
The Fall
Albert Camus
The Guest
The Guest
Albert Camus
The Myth of Sisyphus
The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus
The Plague
The Plague
Albert Camus
The Stranger
The Stranger
Albert Camus
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