For Albert Camus, it is necessary to use absurd heroes in order to get his philosophies across in his plays about having a pointless existence. Camus felt that it was necessary to wonder what the meaning of life was, and that the human being longed for some sense of clarity in the world. "Caligula" and "The Misunderstanding" became a prototype for this movement of existentialism in the theatre. Caligula was the figure from ancient Rome whom the citizens realized had no value for human life as he brutally killed innocent citizens and rationalized it by the fact that death falls upon each of them eventually. In "The Misunderstanding," Martha and her mother indifferently plotted the death of a rich guest staying at their hotel who they later realized was the son. In both plays, it is evident that Camus uses elements of existentialist philosophy including rebellion and the absurdity of existence to show that life is meaningless and death is of little significance.
             In virtually everything Camus published between 1946 and 1951, murder was central (Raskin 6). Throughout this period, Camus distinguished between two types of thought: a destructive one, rooted only in history, absolute, messianic, reducing everything in its path to ideological abstractions; and a life-affirming one, in which history and nature balance one another, an outlook which is modest and respectful of limits. Camus identified existentialism with philosophical suicide in the series of the absurd, and with a reduction of human life to its historical dimension in the subsequent series of revolt (Raskin 7). Early in "Caligula," Camus shows through Caligula's lost efforts at trying to find the moon to take in as his own that when comforting illusions are stripped away, life can be seen to be completely devoid of meaning: "Really, this world of ours, the scheme of things as they call it, is quite intolerable. That&apos...