While it comprises part of this essay's subject, it should be noted that in no piece of literature by Albert Camus will you find a direct quote of him declaring that 'only a life lived in the face of death can be significant, or meaningful.' This is a paraphrased version of a passage found in his work the Myth of Sisyphus, which reads: 'There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. If we judge the importance of a philosophical problem by the consequences it entails, the problem of the meaning of life is certainly the most important. Someone who judges that life is not worth living will commit suicide, and those who feel they have found some meaning to life may be inclined to die or kill to defend that meaning. Other philosophical problems do not entail such drastic consequences.' (Camus 1975)
To Camus, the existence of death is central to what he maintains as the only truly serious philosophical problem. For without death, there could be no suicide, and there would be no question regarding the meaning of life. This assertion, one must concede, is not only interesting, but convincing as well. By directly linking the act of suicide to the meaning of life, suicide becomes the mechanism through which any individual must act upon their own decision about life's meaning for themselves. And if suicide is the ultimate act by which a person can express their own view of the meaning of life, then it must be essential to the question itself.
If suicide did not exist, then it follows according to Camus' theory that life would have no meaning, since we would no longer have any means by which to a ...