All 15 Uses
Sisyphus
in
Matched, by Ally Condie
(Edited)
- I was beginning to feel like Sisyphus.
p. 187.7Sisyphus = Greek mythology: a king in ancient Greece who offended Zeus and whose punishment was to roll a huge boulder to the top of a steep hill; each time the boulder neared the top it rolled back down and Sisyphus was forced to start again
- I don't know who Sisyphus is.
p. 187.7
- Who's Sisyphus?
p. 234.3
- I think he wanted to be like Sisyphus, because Sisyphus was crafty and sneaky and always causing trouble for the Society and the Officials.
p. 234.6
- I think he wanted to be like Sisyphus, because Sisyphus was crafty and sneaky and always causing trouble for the Society and the Officials.
p. 234.6
- There's a story about how Sisyphus once asked an Official to show him how a weapon worked and then he turned it on the Official.
p. 234.8 *
- The Society decided that they needed to give Sisyphus a punishment, a special one, because he dared to think he could be as clever as one of them, when he wasn't an Official, or even a citizen.
p. 235.5
- If the story ends well for Sisyphus, maybe it can end well for Ky.
p. 235.8
- "I see," I say, realizing why our hikes on the little hill reminded Ky of Sisyphus.
p. 236.1
- "Sisyphus and the rock," I say, remembering.
p. 313.1
- Did Sisyphus have to do this, too?
p. 329.6
- Something stands out to me, one piece of information lodges in my sorting brain: Sisyphus River.
p. 338.5
- I point to the Sisyphus River on the map, one tiny black thread of hope running along the paper.
p. 338.9
- I have equipment now: blue tablets, the artifact called a compass, knowledge of the Sisyphus River, memories of a grandfather who did not go gentle.
p. 360.8
- My father mentioned a particular work detail he had in mind: hard farming, planting an experimental winter crop in a Western Province through which the river of Sisyphus runs.
p. 364.1
Definitions:
-
(1)
(Sisyphus) king in Greek mythology condemned by the gods to roll a huge boulder up a hill again and again, only for it to roll back down each timeSisyphus was a clever but dishonest king who angered Zeus and other gods, so his punishment in the afterlife was an endless, hopeless task: pushing a massive stone up a steep hill, only to see it slip and tumble back every time it neared the top. Because of this story, people now use the phrase “Sisyphean task” for work that feels endless and futile, with no real chance of success.
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Less commonly, the phrase Sisyphus Triangle refers to a geographic region