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Existentialism in Two Plays of Jean-Paul Sartre

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Existentialism in Two Plays of Jean-Paul Sartre Journal of English and Literature Vol. 3(3), 50-54, March 2012 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/IJEL DOI:10.5897/IJEL11.042 ISSN 2141-2626 ©2012 Academic Journals Review Existentialism in two plays of Jean-Paul Sartre Cagri Tugrul Mart Department of Languages, Ishik University, Erbil, Iraq. E-mail: [email protected]. Tel: (964) 7503086122. Accepted 26 January, 2012 Existentialism is the movement in the nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy that addresses fundamental problems of human existence: death, anxiety, political, religious and sexual commitment, freedom and responsibility, the meaning of existence itself (Priest, 2001: 10). This study tries to define what existentialism is and stresses themes of existentialism. This research finally points out these themes of existentialism by studying on two existentialist drama plays written by Jean-Paul Sartre who was a prominent existentialist writer. The plays by Sartre studied in this research are ‘The Flies’ and ‘Dirty Hands’. Key words: Existentialism, freedom, absurdity, anguish, despair, nothingness. INTRODUCTION Existentialism is the philosophy that makes an religious, political, or sexual commitment? How should authentically human life possible in a meaningless and we face death? (Priest, 2001: 29). We can briefly define absurd world (Panza and Gale, 2008: 28). It is essentially existentialism as: ‘existentialism maintains that, in man, the search of the condition of man, the state of being and in man alone, existence precedes essence’. This free, and man's always using his freedom. Existentialism simply means that man first is, and only subsequently is, is to say that something exists, is to say that it is. To state this or that. In a word, man must create his own essence: something’s essence, is to state what it is (Priest, 2001: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, 21). In other words, existentialism is a philosophical struggling there, that he gradually defines himself. And thought that deals with the conditions of existence of the the definition always remains open ended: we cannot say individual person and their emotions, actions, what this man is before he dies, or what mankind is responsibilities, and thoughts. Jean-Philippe Deranty before it has disappeared (Garman, 1944). stresses in his article “Existentialist Aesthetics” that existentialism owes its name to its emphasis on “existence”. Existence indicates the special way in which JEAN-PAUL SARTRE AND EXISTENTIALISM human beings are in the world, in contrast with other beings. For the existentialists, the human being is “more” Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Gabriel Marcel, than what it is: not only does the human being know that Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre have made it is, but, on the basis of this fundamental knowledge, this the most significant contributions to existentialism. Jean- being can choose how it will “use” its own being, and thus Paul Sartre (1905 to 1980) is one of the greatest French how it will relate to the world. “Existence” is thus closely thinkers. A polemical and witty essayist, a metaphysician related to freedom in the sense of an active engagement of subjectivity, a political activist, a revolutionary political in the world (Deranty, 2009). Stephen Priest in his ‘Jean- theorist, a humanistic novelist, a didactic playwright, his Paul Sartre: Basic Writings’, argues that most genius lies in his powers of philosophical synthesis and existentialist thinkers are interested in: what is it to exist? the genre-breaching breadth of his imagination (Priest, Does existence have a purpose? Is there an objective 2001: 10). Sartre, in his writings, stresses some themes difference between right or wrong? Are we free? Are we in analysis of existentialism. responsible for our actions? What is the right sort of Jonathan Webber in his ‘The Existentialism of Mart 51 Jean-Paul Sartre’, points out themes of existentialism: himself, a man who realizes that he is not only the existence precedes essence, abandonment, absolute individual that he chooses to be, but also a legislator individuality and absolute freedom, subjectivity of values, choosing at the same time what humanity as a whole responsibility for choice, anxiety, despair, the self and should be, cannot help but be aware of his own full and bad faith (Webber, 2009). profound responsibility (Sartre, 2007: 25). In ‘Existentialism and Humanism’, Sartre argues that Sartre explains “abandonment” as: “it is we ourselves, aesthetic existentialism which is represented by him is who decide who we are to be” (Sartre, 2007: 34). As for more consistent. It is, if God does not exist, there is at “despair”, Sartre argues that despair means: we must least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a limit ourselves to reckoning only with those things that being whose existence comes before its essence, a depend on our will, or on the set of probabilities that being who exists before he can be defined by any enable action (Sartre, 2007: 35). By “abandonment”, concept of it. So, what is “existence precedes essence”? existentialist mean to say that God does not exist and Sartre argues that man first exists: he materializes in the that it is necessary to draw the consequences of his world, encounters himself, and only afterward defines absence right to the end. The existentialist strongly himself (Sartre, 2007: 21). Sartre points out the first opposed to a certain type of secular moralism which principle of existentialism in his ‘Existentialism and seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense. For Humanism’: “there is no human nature since there is no existentialism, everything is indeed permitted if God does God to conceive of it. Man is not only that which he not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn (Priest, conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to 2001: 32). be and since he conceives of himself only after he exists, Sartre’s existentialism is based on human freedom. just as he wills himself to be after being thrown into Sartre’s view of freedom is: “I am condemned to exist existence, man is nothing other than what he makes of forever beyond my essence, beyond the causes and himself” (Sartre, 2007: 22). However, since most of the motives of my act. I am condemned to be free. This existentialists followed Nietzsche in the convection that means that no limits to my freedom can be found except “God is dead,” art’s power of revelation is to a large freedom itself (Sartre, 1992: 439)”. extent devoted to expressing the absurdity of the human Human-reality is free because it is not enough. It is free condition (Deranty, 2009). because it is perpetually wrenched away from itself and In ‘Existentialism and Humanism’, Sartre clarifies and because it has been separated by a nothingness from partly revises his view of existence and essence. He what it is and from what it will be. It is free, finally divides the things that exist into three kinds: human because its present being is itself a nothingness in the beings, artifacts, and naturally occurring objects. In the form of the “reflection reflecting.” Man is free because he case of human beings, existence precedes essence. In is not himself but presence himself… Man cannot be the case of artifacts, essence precedes existence and in sometimes free and sometimes slave; he is wholly and the case of naturally occurring objects, existence and forever free or he is not free at all (Sartre, 1992: 440). essence coincide. The idea of the object is also One of the most famous claims of ‘Being and necessary for the object to exist. Essence precedes Nothingness’ by Sartre is that, we are aware to some essence in this case because there is an answer to the extent of our freedom, and the responsibility that comes question ‘what is it?’ before, and independently of, a with it, but we try to hide this from ourselves. We are correct affirmative answer to the question ‘is it?’ The aware, claims Sartre, that the pressures and demands essence of the paper knife predates and is required by its that the world presents to us are the result of the ways in existence. In the case of naturally occurring objects, such which we see and engage with things, and that this in as stones and trees, their being does not predate their turn is the result of our changeable characters rather than being what they are. In the case of human beings, Sartre any fixed natures. means there is no predetermined human essence and But explicitly thinking about this induces in us a feeling there is no human nature fixed in advance of human of anguish. In order to avoid this, we try to deny this existence (Priest, 2001: 25). Sartre, like other responsibility for the way we are and the ways in which philosophers of existence, had the idea “existence we behave. precedes essence” which meant for him that all existing This is what Sartre calls “bad faith”. To be more things in the universe are meaningless. Only through our precise, he uses this term in more than one way. In its consciousness they have meaning, which means that it is most general sense, it labels the attempt to deny the we who create meaning. basic structure of human being, that the way an individual The terms “anguish”, “abandonment”, and “despair” are sees the world is determined by that individual’s commonly used by existentialist thinkers. These terms character, which in turn can be changed by that express the experience of human freedom and individual. We deny this by pretending that our characters responsibility. Existentialists like to say that man is in are fixed and unchangeable (Webber, 2009: 89). anguish. This is what they mean: a man who commits Sartre thinks there are fundamentally two manners 52 Int.
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