Existentialism: A Brief Introduction Existentialism is a philosophical thought that became popular and reached its peak after World War II “commonly associated with the Parisian cafés of the Left Bank and the ' family' of philosophers Jean -Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who met there in the years immediately following the liberation of Paris at the end of the Second World War.” (Existentialism: a very brief introduction ix). The Oxford Dictionary explains existentialism as “the theory that human beings are free and responsible for their own actions in a meaningless world.” Here we need to emphasize more the "meaningless world", since in it lies the essence of existentialism. Existentialists explain the interactions of the human world as meaningless or absurd. Sartre said, “Existence precedes essence,” in his famous lecture Existentialism is Humanism. Where the essence is the meaningless human condition of what he is and what he really is not. Simone de Beauvoir also states that a woman is not born a woman. It is the world acting on an ultimately meaningless existence, leading to further existential crises, which Camus says "there is only one philosophical problem, which is suicide" (p.11). Camus uses the allegory from Greek mythology of Sisyphus, who was condemned to perform the task of pushing a stone up the mountain only to find it rolling down and then repeating the same thing, eternally. Camus suggests that humans are also condemned in the same way, human life is chained to habit and meaninglessness. This quote from the Myth of Sisyphus gives us the clue: “To be honest, it's a futile question. On the other hand, I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically get killed... middle of paper... funny, Albert. The myth of Sisyphus. Trans. Justin O'Brien. London: Hamish Hamilton Publishers, 1961. Print.Camus, Albert. The stranger. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Vintage Books, 1956. Print.Camus, Albert. The rebel: an essay on the man in revolt. Trans. Anthony Bower, New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Print.Das, Arnab. Sisyphus' men: the absurd heroes of Albert Camus. Pondicherry University Thesis, 2014. Print.Dave, Jagdish Chandra. The human plight in Hardy's novels. London: Vintage Books, 1985. Print.Flynn, Thomas. Existentialism: a very brief introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.Hardy, Thomas. The return of the native. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 1995. Print. Thompson, The Return of the Native by Frank H. Hardy. Lincoln: Cliff Notes, 1964. Print.Williams, Merryn. A preface to Hardy. New York: Longman Group, 1976. Print.