Henderson: From A Dissatisfied Idealist To An Existential Hero

As an age full of significant changes, the twentieth century witnesses an unprecedented burst of human creativity and an unparalleled advancement of human civilization. These bring people affluent material life and along with it a serious spiritual crisis. Corresponding to this, the literary world is overwhelmed by a prevailing sense of despair, nihilism and alienation. Fortunately, there are still some artists who remain optimistic and try their utmost to explore a way out. Among them American writer Saul Bellow is the one who has achieved a measure of recognition. What merits our attention is that Bellow's exploration in the novel Henderson the Rain King finds philosophical support in French philosopher Albert Camus' philosophy of absurdity.Henderson, a millionaire born into a noble family, holds too high expectations for both himself and the world that cannot be fulfilled in the actual world. While as an idealist, he is unable to accept the notion that the world is absurd and all his noble expectations are impossible. On the issue of absurdity, Camus reveals to people absurdity of the world by a young man named Meursault swallowed by the absurd world in The Stranger. Meursault is well aware that he is to die sooner or later, therefore he cares for nothing except sensual enjoyments. Meursault is successful in that he realizes and also accepts the absurdity of life. However, the means he adopted to adapt himself to the absurdity is notagreed by the society, because of which he is ultimately expelled from the society by means of death penalty.Henderson is eventually driven to Africa by his inner voice "I want, I want" where he finally accepts that death is unavoidable and life is absurd. Namely, he learns that all that people have are their lifetimes. Thus, people can only live to the maximum and derive meaning from mere existence. Camus conveys the same idea in The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus, condemned to do futile and hopeless labor all his lifetime, can be regarded as an example of human condition in which people are struggling hopelessly to achieve something in the doomed destiny that makes all the efforts deprived of meaning. However, Camus claims that "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" (Camus 1955, 91) because given the destiny, Sisyphus has been the master of his own days and hence is absolutely free. By accepting that there is no meaning and eternal freedom in his life, Sisyphus transforms the process of his labor and torment into a victory.On absurdity of the world and life, Camus' philosophical ideas and Henderson's practical experiments interpret and implement each other. The combination of the two constitutes a unity and is of great significance to all the people suffering from spiritual crisis in the modern world.