Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) In the aftermath of World War II, a little-known writer and teacher, Jean-Paul Sartre, emerged as an intellectual and literary leader, gaining worldwide celebrity as the prophet of Jean Paul Sartre Paris 1948 existentialism. As Europeans tried to make sense of three decades of instability and destruction, existentialism became the most fashionable philosophical stance—its idea of absurdity within a meaningless universe rang true to those who faced bombed-out buildings, occupation and concentration camps. Though Sartre was not the first existentialist, he was certainly the most famous, and an international cult grew around him, his companion, the feminist Simone de Beauvoir, and their Paris meeting place, the Café de Flore. In his writings and political activity, Sartre warned against succumbing to repressive conformity, championing instead an authentic, engaged life. Born in Paris, Jean-Paul never knew his naval officer father, who died when Jean-Paul was still an infant. His mother, a cousin of the famous Albert Schweitzer, and his grandparents raised him. He graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in 1929 and between 1931 and 1939 taught philosophy at Le Havre, Laon, and Paris. In 1932 he traveled to Berlin to study the philosophies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Jean Paul Sartre 1906 Sartre wrote several psychological works before his first novel, the autobiographical Nausea, brought him recognition in 1938. In Nausea, the protagonist Roquentin experiences disgust at the fact that people exist despite the fact that there is no reason to exist. The novel, as well as a collection of short stories, The Wall, expressed Sartre’s idea that to face an absence of abslolute values, one must engage in acts of creation. In 1939 Hitler’s forces attacked Poland and France declared war. Sartre was drafted and stationed in Alsace on meteorological duties. He was captured in June 1940 and spent almost a year in a German Soldier Sarte 1939 prison camp. There he found a deep comradeship with his fellow prisoners: “In the Stalag I found a form of collective life that I hadn’t come across since the École Normale.” For his fellow prisoners, he produced an anti-Nazi propaganda play cloaked as a “very moving Christmas mystery.” My first experience in the theatre was especially fortunate. When I was a prisoner in Germany in 1940, I wrote, staged, and acted in a Christmas play which, while pulling the wool over the eyes of the German censor by means of simple symbols, was addressed to my fellow prisoners. No doubt it was neither a good play not well acted: the work of an amateur, the critics would say, a product of special circumstances. Nevertheless, on this occasion, as I addresses my comrades across the footlights, speaking to them o their state as prisoners, when I suddenly say them so remarkable silent and attentive, I realized what theatre ought to be—a great collective, religious phenomenon. (“The Forgers of Myths,” 1946) In 1941 he escaped and joined the underground Resistance movement in occupied Paris, writing for the magazines Les Lettres Française and Combat. During the Occupation, Sartre wrote some of his most influential works, expressing his insistence on moral responsibility and active engagement in shaping one’s life. The play The Flies, a reworking of Euripides Orestes, premiered in 1943, its anti-authoritarian themes of revenge and justice eluding the Nazi censors due to its ancient setting. That same year, Sartre published Being and Nothingness, his theoretical analysis of the human condition, in which he argues that the “nothingness” of human essence allows each person infinite possibilities to shape his or her life. No meaning is attached to a person’s life; rather, each must forge meaning through choices and commitment to a role in the world: we create ourselves. Sartre’s second play, No Exit, completed in the first months of 1944 was rehearsed in Beauvoir’s bedroom under the direction of Sartre’s colleague Albert Camus. Exigencies of the Occupation intervened (including the arrest of the lead actress), and the production was scuttled, though it finally premiered just before the liberation of France, in May 1944 at Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, under the direction of Raymond Rouleau. Originally titled The Others, Sartre changed it to Huis clos, meaning “behind closed doors,” or, as a legal term, “in camera.” The play is most popularly known in English as No Exit. The play’s most famous expression, “Hell is other people”, Sartre partially explained in his preface to the Deutsche Gramophone recording of No Exit in 1965: Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. Which means that if my relations are bad, I am situating myself in a total dependence on someone else. And then I am indeed in hell. And there are a vast number of people in the world who are in hell…. I wanted to show by means of the absurd the importance of freedom to us, that is to say the importance of changing acts by other acts. No matter what circle of hell we are living in, I think we a re free to break out of it. Sartre learned much about theatrical production through his friendship with the great director Charles Dullin, and he was fascinated by the art of acting, that an actor creates a character the audience agrees to believe, while at the same time knowing the actor is not, in fact, the character. After the war, Sartre devoted himself to writing and political activity. He founded the political and literary review Modern Times, the primary forum for existential ideas. The Café de Flore, where Sartre, Beauvoir and the circle of intellectuals surrounding them met and argued, became a Mecca for intellectuals, disciples and curiosity seekers. His writing inluded Existentailism and Humanism in 1946, and What Is Literature?in 1948, in which Sartre posited that literature should concern itself with human freeedom and that writing is a moral activity. His trilogy, The Roads to Freedom (1945-1949) drew on his experiences during the war. Sartre also wrote several biographies, Sartre & Beauvoir 1947 including Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr (1952), about writer and convicted felon Jean Genet. It is through his dramatic works, however, that Sartre and his philosophy were most known. His plays dealt with racism, collective responsibility, the conflicts of politically engaged intellectuals, the creation of character, and, of course, human freedom. They include The Victors (1946), The Respectful Prostitute (1946), Dirty Hands (1948), The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), an adaptation of Dumas’ Kean (1953), Nekrassov (1955), The Condemned of Altona (1959), an adaptation of Euripides’ The Trojan Women (1965) and several screenplays, including an adaptation of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In 1964 Sartre published The Words, an account of his childhood. His final work was a three-volume of biography of Gustave Flaubert, called The Idiot of the Family (1971-72) Sartre embraced communism without ever joining the party, and spent much time reconciling existentialism’s focus on individual self-determination with Marxism’s concern with socioeconomic forces. His early support of Stalinist policies led to his split with Camus—Sartre suggesting that in some cases the ends may justify the means. The Soviet invasion of Hungary led Sartre to distance himself with Soviet communism. He became an outspoken critic of French rule in Algeria, and supported the violent Algerian struggle for independence, leading an anti-Algerian group to bomb Sartre’s apartment. His Algerian mistress, Arlette Elkaïm, became his adopted daughter in 1965. At the invitation of philosopher Bertrand Russell, Sartre was a part of an effort to expose U.S. war crimes in Vietnam known as the Russell Tribunal. Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964, for work which, “rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far- reaching influence on our age.” Sartre refused the prize saying that “a writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.” Despite his fame, Sartre led a relatively simple life with few possessions. Constant work, amphetamine use and a love of tobacco took their toll on Sartre’s health. (“Smoking is the symbolic equivalent of destructively appropriating the entire world,” said Sartre.) He died Jean Paul Sartre 1979 on April 15, 1980 from an edema of the lung. His funeral wound its way through the streets of Paris, attracting more than 25,000 people, from movie stars to dignitaries to average Parisians for whom the name of a philosopher-playwright had become a household word. Selected Works L'IMAGINATION, 1936 - Imagination: A Psychological Critique LA TRANSCENDANCE DE L'ÉGO, 1937 - The Transcendence of the Ego LA NAUSÉE, 1938 - Nausea LE MUR, 1938 - Muuri - film 1966, dir. by Serge Roullet ESQUISSE D'UNE THÉORIE DES ÉMOTIONS, 1939 - Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions L'IMAGINAIRE: PSYCHOLOGIE PHÉNOMÉNOLOGIQUE DE L'IMAGINATION,1940 - Psychology of Imagination L'ÉTRE ET LE NÉANT, 1943 - Being and Nothingness LES MOUCHES, 1943 - The Flies HUIS CLOS, 1944 - No Exit L'ÁGE DE RAISON, 1945 - Age of Reason LE SURSIS, 1945 - The Reprieve RÉFLEXIONS SUR LA QUESTION JUIVE, 1946 - Anti-Semite and Jew MORTS SANS SÉPULTURE, 1946 - The Victors L'EXISTENTIALISME EST UN HUMANISME, 1946 - Existentialism and Humanism LA PUTAIN RESPECTUEUSE, 1946 - The Respectful BAUDELAIRE, 1947 LES JEUX SONT FAITS, 1947 - The Chips Are Down SITUATIONS I, 1947 THÉÂTRE, 1947 QU'EST-CE QUE LA LITTÉRATURE?, 1947 - What is Literature LES MAINS SALES, 1948 - Dirty Hands L'ENGRENAGE, 1948 - In the Mesh SITUATIONS II, 1948 ENTRETIENS SUR LA POLITIQUÉ, 1949 SITUATIONS III, 1949 LA MORT DANS L'ÂME, 1949 - Iron in the Soul KEAN, 1951 LE DIABLE ET LE BON DIEU, 1951-The Devil and the Good Lord SAINT GENET, COMÉDIEN ET MARTYR, 1952 - Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr L'AFFAIRE HENRI MARTIN, 1953 Literary and Philosophical Essays, 1955 NEKRASSOV, 1955.