Caligula

Yearning for the impossible drives Caligula throughout the play. The emperor declares: “What happened to me is quite simple; I suddenly felt a desire for the impossible” (8). He speaks about this in terms of his quest to capture the moon, but it is clear that it represents a philosophical ambition as much as a fanciful quest.

As the play continues, the reader begins to understand where this desire, so apparently unrooted in reality, comes from. Caligula’s philosophy is based on the premise that nothing lasts—everyone dies, no one is happy, and so nothing matters in the end. Caligula is driven to pursue the impossible, at least in part, as a reaction against life’s meaninglessness. It is how he responds to Drusilla’s death. The impossible is an escape from the meaninglessness of everything around him: “Yet, really, it’s quite simple. If I’d had the moon, if love were enough, all might have been different” (73). This sentiment parallels some of Camus’s own journey: he was always looking for a solution to the inherent nihilism of life.

Caligula’s desire for the impossible is not only manifested in his quest to capture the moon. He also speaks of it in terms of aspiring to godhood, or even beyond: “And yet—what is a god that I should wish to be his equal? No, it’s something higher, far above the gods, that I’m aiming at […] I am taking over a kingdom where the impossible is king” (16).