In the following essay, Mills explores the influence of modern existential literature on The Time of Your Life and its absurd sense. 

In the conclusion of his 1976 article entitled, "Joe as Christ Type in Saroyan's The Time of Your Life," Kenneth W. Rhoads suggested that "other interpretations of Joe may be validly advanced (although so far they seem not to have been)." Seven years of critical silence having followed the issuance of Rhoads's invitation, the time would seem to be ripe for an alternate reading of the character and the play, the more so since Saroyan's recent death is likely to have stirred up fresh interest in his work.

I should like to propose that Joe be viewed as an "homme absurde," as defined by Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus, and that the play over which he presides be seen as an embodiment of the...