Research Paper

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Philosophy 11

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Reheca Repollo
Frances Casey P. Alcantara
Kylie Ira R. Olpos
Jahm Rose P. Alicante
EXISTENTIALISM: JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

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.

ABSTRACT

Existentialism is a philosophy that states the existence of the individual person

determines their own developments through the act if free will. Basically, this means
that a person is free to decide and manipulate the course their life will take. They can
control their reactions to situations, and cause other actions to occur. Jean Paul Sartre
existentialism was essentially made by nature vs. nurture. The point Sartre argues is
that existence precedes essence. It is a philosophical theory against many reproaches
put forward by many different critics. We have, in Sartre’s words, no human nature,
since there is nothing outside of us in which would conceive of it for us. As Sartre’s
states, ”Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself”.

INTRODUCTION

Existentialism is the philosophy that makes an authentically human life possible

in a meaningless and absurd world (Panza and Gale, 2008: 28). It is essentially the
search of the condition of man, the state of being free, and man's always using his
freedom. Existentialism is to say that something exists, is to say that it is. To state
something’s essence, is to state what it is (Priest, 2001: 21). In other words,
existentialism is a philosophical thought that deals with the conditions of existence of
the individual person and their emotions, actions, responsibilities, and thoughts. Jean-
Philippe Deranty stresses in his article “Existentialist Aesthetics” that existentialism
owes its name to its emphasis on “existence”. Existence indicates the special way in
which human beings are in the world, in contrast with other beings. For the
existentialists, the human being is “more” than what it is: not only does the human being
know that it is, but, on the basis of this fundamental knowledge, this being can choose
how it will “use” its own being, and thus how it will relate to the world. “Existence” is thus
closely related to freedom in the sense of an active engagement in the world (Deranty,
2009). Stephen Priest in his ‘Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings’, argues that most
existentialist thinkers are interested in: what is it to exist? Does existence have a
purpose? Is there an objective difference between right or wrong? Are we free? Are we
responsible for our actions? What is the right sort of religious, political, or sexual
commitment? How should we face death? (Priest, 2001: 29). We can briefly define
existentialism as: ‘existentialism maintains that, in man, and in man alone, existence
precedes essence’. This simply means that man first is, and only subsequently is, this
or that. In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the
world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself. And the
definition always remains open ended: we cannot say what this man is before he dies,
or what mankind is before it has disappeared (Garman, 1944).

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE AND EXISTENTIALISM

Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Gabriel Marcel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and

Jean-Paul Sartre have made the most significant contributions to existentialism. Jean-
Paul Sartre (1905 to 1980) is one of the greatest French thinkers. A polemical and witty
essayist, a metaphysician of subjectivity, a political activist, a revolutionary political
theorist, a humanistic novelist, a didactic playwright, his genius lies in his powers of
philosophical synthesis and the genre-breaching breadth of his imagination (Priest,
2001: 10). Sartre, in his writings, stresses some themes in analysis of existentialism.
Jonathan Webber in his ‘The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre’, points out
themes of existentialism: existence precedes essence, abandonment, absolute
individuality and absolute freedom, subjectivity of values, responsibility for choice,
anxiety, despair, the self and bad faith (Webber, 2009).
In ‘Existentialism and Humanism’, Sartre argues that aesthetic existentialism
which is represented by him is more consistent. It is, if God does not exist, there is at
least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being whose existence comes
before its essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept of it.
So, what is “existence precedes essence”?
Sartre argues that man first exists: he materializes in the world, encounters
himself, and only afterward defines himself (Sartre, 2007: 21). Sartre points out the first
principle of existentialism in his ‘Existentialism and Humanism’: “there is no human
nature since there is no God to conceive of it. Man is not only that which he conceives
himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be and since he conceives of himself
only after he exists, just as he wills himself to be after being thrown into existence, man
is nothing other than what he makes of himself” (Sartre, 2007: 22). However, since most
of the existentialists followed Nietzsche in the convection that “God is dead,” art’s power
of revelation is to a large extent devoted to expressing the absurdity of the human
condition (Deranty, 2009).

In ‘Existentialism and Humanism’, Sartre clarifies and partly revises his view of
existence and essence. He divides the things that exist into three kinds: human beings,
artifacts, and naturally occurring objects. In the case of human beings, existence
precedes essence. In the case of artifacts, essence precedes existence and in the case
of naturally occurring objects, existence and essence coincide. The idea of the object is
also necessary for the object to exist. Essence precedes essence in this case because
there is an answer to the question ‘what is it?’ before, and independently of, a correct
affirmative answer to the question ‘is it?’ The essence of the paper knife predates and is
required by its existence. In the case of naturally occurring objects, such as stones and
trees, their being does not predate their being what they are. In the case of human
beings, Sartre means there is no predetermined human essence and there is no human
nature fixed in advance of human existence (Priest, 2001: 25). Sartre, like other
philosophers of existence, had the idea “existence precedes essence” which meant for
him that all existing things in the universe are meaningless. Only through our
consciousness they have meaning, which means that it is we who create meaning.

The terms “anguish”, “abandonment”, and “despair” are commonly used by

existentialist thinkers. These terms express the experience of human freedom and
responsibility. Existentialists like to say that man is in anguish. This is what they mean:
a man who commits himself, a man who realizes that he is not only the individual that
he chooses to be, but also a legislator choosing at the same time what humanity as a
whole should be, cannot help but be aware of his own full and profound responsibility
(Sartre, 2007: 25).

Sartre explains “abandonment” as: “it is we ourselves, who decide who we are to
be” (Sartre, 2007: 34). As for "despair”, Sartre argues that despair means: we must limit
ourselves to reckoning only with those things that depend on our will, or on the set of
probabilities that enable action (Sartre, 2007: 35). By “abandonment”, existentialist
mean to say that God does not exist and that it is necessary to draw the consequences
of his absence right to the end. The existentialist strongly opposed to a certain type of
secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense. For
existentialism, everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in
consequence forlorn (Priest, 2001: 32).
Sartre’s existentialism is based on human freedom. Sartre’s view of freedom is: “I
am condemned to exist forever beyond my essence, beyond the causes and motives of
my act. I am condemned to be free. This means that no limits to my freedom can be
found except freedom itself (Sartre, 1992: 439)”.

Human-reality is free because it is not enough. It is free because it is perpetually

wrenched away from itself and because it has been separated by a nothingness from
what it is and from what it will be. It is free, finally because its present being is itself a
nothingness in the form of the “reflection reflecting.” Man is free because he is not
himself but presence himself… Man cannot be sometimes free and sometimes slave;
he is wholly and forever free or he is not free at all (Sartre, 1992: 440).

One of the most famous claims of ‘Being and Nothingness’ by Sartre is that, we
are aware to some extent of our freedom, and the responsibility that comes with it, but
we try to hide this from ourselves. We are aware, claims Sartre, that the pressures and
demands that the world presents to us are the result of the ways in which we see and
engage with things, and that this in turn is the result of our changeable characters rather
than any fixed natures.

But explicitly thinking about this induces in us a feeling of anguish. In order to

avoid this, we try to deny this responsibility for the way we are and the ways in which we
behave.

This is what Sartre calls “bad faith”. To be more precise, he uses this term in
more than one way. In its most general sense, it labels the attempt to deny the basic
structure of human being, that the way an individual sees the world is determined by
that individual’s character, which in turn can be changed by that individual. We deny this
by pretending that our characters are fixed and unchangeable (Webber, 2009: 89).

Sartre thinks there are fundamentally two manners of being: being-for-itself and
being-in-itself. Roughly, being-for-itself is subjective being and being-in-itself is objective
being. Being-for-itself is the kind of being that pertains to one’s own existence. Being-in-
itself is the manner in which the world external to one’s own reality exists. Being-for-
itself entails the existence of consciousness, and consciousness of itself. Because it
entails consciousness, it entails that directedness towards the world called
“intentionality” which consciousness entails. Being-for-itself is free and entails a kind of
lack or nothingness (Priest, 2001: 115). Sartre suggests that “I am a kind of nothingness
because there is nothing that I am independently of my self constitution through those
choices” (Priest, 2001:116). Being-in-itself is opaque, objective, inert and entails a
massive fullness or plentitude of being. Being-in-itself is uncreated, meaning that
although it is, it never began to be and there is no cause and no reason for it to be
(Priest, 2001:117).

EXISTENTIALISM IN TWO PLAYS OF JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

In existentialism drama, the dramatist examines the metaphysical life of man and
protests against it; existence becomes the source of his rebellion. It is made of utmost
restriction, a cry of anguish over the insufferable state of human being human.
Existential drama is impotent and despairing. The existential dramatist makes his
characters subhuman. Existential drama exaggerates human bondage (Exiri, 2009).

‘The Flies’ was written by Sartre in 1943. ‘The Flies’ is a call to people to
recognize their freedom. The play, ‘The Flies’, is about finding freedom which is an
important theme of existentialism. “Once freedom lights its beacon in a man’s heart, the
gods are powerless against him” (Sartre, 2.102). In the play, Sartre wants to
showfreedom through the protagonist of the play Orestos. Human freedom is very
important according to existentialism. Sartre has got the idea that people have the
ability to create their own world through freedom. Sartre’s opinion is that people are free
to make a choice and to act according to that choice. Orestos is free in the play so he
can make decisions about future, however his sister Electra who always thinks of past
to get her revenge, is not free, so she cannot look ahead and have freedom; “for fifteen
years I dreamt of murder and revenge” (Sartre, 3.2.114). “I had a dream. I saw our
mother lying on her back. Blood was pouring from her, gushing under the doors. A
dream” (Sartre, 3.2.109). In the play, it is pointed out that if one wants freedom, he
needs to get rid of past issues and look ahead. In the play, human freedom is the most
important issue, it is more important than deeds of the gods. We see another
existentialism theme in here, the lower situation of the gods in the play decreases our
reverence for the gods. In the play ‘No Exit’, Garcin cannot leave the room where they
are together because he needs the others to judge him; we have the same idea in ‘The
Flies’. Sartre in his 'Being and Nothingness’ argues that so as to have freedom, one
needs to ignore what others think about him or how others judge him; Sartre calls this
“being-for-others”. “Ah, if I only knew which path to take! ... yet this you know: that I
have always tried to act aright. But now I am weary and my mind is dark; I can no longer
distinguish right from wrong. I need a guide to point my way.... And yet -- and yet you
have forbidden the shedding of blood.... What have I said? Who spoke of bloodshed”
(Sartre, 2.2.89)? Orestos who was not free at first is in need of what other people think
of him or how they will guide him. “It’s now you are bringing guilt upon you. For who
except yourself can know what you really wanted? Will you let another decide that for
you” (Sartre,3.2.115)? One cannot act freely, if he takes the judgment of others into
consideration. “Only yesterday I walked the earth haphazard; thousands of roads I
tramped that brought me nowhere, for they were other men's roads. Yes, I tried them
all.... But none of these was mine. Today I have one path only, and heaven knows
where it leads. But it is my path” (Sartre, 3.2.105).

Orestos is aware of his freedom. Another issue that prevents people from
recognizing his freedom is not to get rid of the effects of the past. Electra cannot have
freedom because she is always busy with the past memories and this situation affects
her moving to the future; “But I don’t feel free. Can you undo what has been done? And
we are no longer free to blot it out. Can you prevent our being the murderers of our
mother for all time” (Sartre, 2.2.105)? In ‘No Exit’, three characters were in a room in
hell, who admit their sins to each other and want others to judge them which prevent
their acting freely; in ‘The Flies’, people in Argos do the same thing. But when they are
judged by others, they cannot move freely. Religion in the play is ignored because
nothing in existentialism is important than human freedom. Orestos says: “Orders?
What do you mean? Ah yes the light round that big stone. But it’s not for me that light;
from now on I’ll take no one’s orders, neither man’s nor god’s” (Sartre, 2.1.90). “We are
free Electra. I feel as if I’d brought you into life and I, too had just been born, I am free
Electra. Freedom has crashed down on me like a thunderbolt” (Sartre, 2.2.103).
Religious values do not have a chance to control human behaviors. Moral values and
sins people commit can rule people’s lives and behaviors but they prevent people from
absolute freedom. We have the issues of “being-in-itself” and “being-for-itself” in the
play as Sartre pointed out in his ‘Being and Nothingness’. Another existentialist issue in
the play is nothingness. The protagonist Orestes who has absolute freedom in the play
notices vacancy around him, “why distort a past that can no longer stand up for itself”
(Sartre, 3.2.115)? Things are meaningless for him and this vacancy, as Sartre stresses
in his ‘Being and Nothingness’, is nothingness. Orestos says “what do I care for Zeus?
Justice is a matter between men, and I need no god to teach me it” (Sartre, 2.2.103). He
means that gods cannot affect his decisions and judgments; “You are God and I am
free; each of us is alone” (Sartre, 3.119). As Sartre points out, absolute freedom and
being-for-itself are very related to each other. Without being-for-itself, one does not
have absolute freedom. Being-in-itself is like a simple object, and does not have
capability to make a decision or judge itself. Therefore, being-in-itself cannot be related
to absolute freedom.

William Empson in his article ‘Sartre Resartus’ writes:

Kings are a bad thing, and the people of Argos ought to develop their own
democracy… But an existentialist is much prone to walk away from a situation, free in
spite of having been betrayed... One might think that the trouble with the existentialist
view of life is that it is too mean, too convinced that betrayal is to be expected. The
objection here is against its rosty trustfulness toward its own type of a hero. He has only
to commit his private crime and this will in some magical way release his neighbors,
who are also of course potential criminals, so he can very easily claim he did it for their
sakes. Electra here after goading Orestos into the murders, turns round and says that
she never wanted them; she only had fancies; she hates him for doing it; she will
escape the Furies by repenting. All this emphasizes the more manly attitude of Orestos,
who refuses to repent because an existentialist hero is free and in some way, above
right and wrong… The central phrase of Orestos in this play, “human life begins on the
far side of despair” (Empson, 1946).

Dr. Michael Delahoyde in his article ‘Sartre, The Flies’writes what Jean-Paul-
Sartre thinks about his own play ‘The Flies’:

Orestes makes a choice, and thereby exercises his freedom, when at the end of
the play he takes on the fear and guilt of his people and thereby experiences alienation.
At the beginning of the play, Orestes wants to acquire the memories of the people and
thereby fill the void of homelessness in himself. But at the end of the play, by killing
Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, he takes on the remorse of the people and frees them
from their guilt. By making his choice, Orestes exists and creates his self (Delahoyde,
2011).

Another existentialist drama by Sartre, ‘Dirty hands’, written in 1948, is about the
assassination of a leading politician. The play tells us how the killer carried out his
mission. In the play ‘Dirty Hands’, we see that the protagonist Hugo feels emptiness in
his life. “We’re in a play. Nothing seems to me to be entirely real” (Sartre, 3.175). We
see a theme of existentialism in the play, nothingness. “All that is here lies” (Sartre,
3.177). Hugo experiences this nothingness issue in his life. Life seems to be
meaningless for Hugo and he says “what are we” (Sartre, 5.204)? Hugo even
experiences the nothingness in the idea of death. “A murder. I say, it’s so abstract. You
pull the trigger and after that you no longer know what goes on” (Sartre, 5.208). His own
life is meaningless for him. “I have no wish to live” (Sartre, 2.143). Hugo does not have
freedom at first, because he is a member of a party, he has to obey their orders. “If an
assignment is given, you gotto carry it out” (Sartre, 2.172). Karsky, another character of
the play, says “I don’t have the authority to accept, I am not the only one who has to
decide” (Sartre, 4.194). Another existentialism issue despair is seen in the play. “May be
you think that I’m desperate? Not at all: I’m acting out the comedy of despair” (Sartre,
4.199). But one thing made him realize his freedom. When he saw his wife with
Hoederer (another character in the play); Hugo killed him. He says “and besides, you
have freed me” (Sartre, 6.233). “I have not yet killed Hoederer. Not yet. But I am going
to kill him now, along with myself” (Sartre, 7.241). Realizing freedom, Hugo has
changed.

Haim Gordon and Rivca Gordon in their essay, 'Sartre on Our Responsibility for
Dead Lives: Implications for Teaching History” argue that in his play ‘Dirty Hands’,
Sartre has challenged the maxim that each generation creates its own interpretation of
history. He held that historical research discloses truths so as to obtain knowledge; it is
a realm of relative judgments. Indeed, ‘Dirty Hands’ and many of Sartre's other writings
resolutely indicate that an authentic responsibility toward the dead must include a
responsibility for the truth about these dead lives - even if that truth is cruel, harsh,
embarrassing, or painful. If you act as if each generation creates its own interpretation
of history, or as if history is a story written by the victors, your regard for the truth about
the lives of the dead vanishes, as does your concern for truth as guiding your daily life.
Furthermore, ‘Dirty Hands’ shows that by such disregard you give way to banal and evil
approaches. Respect for facts disappears. Cynicism very often thrives. Genuine
knowledge is banished to the sidelines. Frequently, bewitching myths and loathsome
fantasies based on partial truths prevail unchallenged. Note that responsibility toward
dead lives is part of Sartre's overall understanding of our responsibility in the world.
Central to this responsibility is respect for the freedom of others and the willingness to
struggle that this freedom will not be abused or destroyed. ‘Dirty Hands’ clearly
indicates that a person's death in no way relieves me of my responsibility to respect that
person's freedom which existed on earth until his or her death, and to struggle that the
memory of this freedom will not be distorted or destroyed. In ‘Dirty Hands’, Hugo is
willing to die so that the truth about the dead Hoederer's freedom, and deeds, will not be
erased from history. By assuming responsibility for Hoederer's death - even if he himself
has to die for such a decision - Hugo is also assuming responsibility for the world as a
place where truth deserves to be heard and known by all and sundry. This point
deserves to be emphasized. Through his courageous decision to respect the dead
Hoederer, Hugo is helping to create a world where truth is not erased from history so as
to serve the current interests of banal politicians and narrow adherents to the
communist (or any other) party line (Gordon and Rivca, 2001).

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Existentialism emphasizes actions, freedom, and decision as fundamental to
human existence, and is fundamentally opposed to the rationalist tradition and to
positivisms. That is, it argues against definitions of human beings as primarily rational.
Most generally it rejects all of the Western rationalists definition of “being” in terms of a
rational principle or essence, or as the most general feature that all existing things share
in common.
It then follows that , Existentialism tends to view human beings as subjects in an
indifferent, objective, often ambiguous, and absurd universe , in which meaning is not
provided by the natural order, but rather can be created, however provisionally and
unstably, by human being actions and interpretations.

CONCLUSION

Sartre, as an existentialist, show up some themes in his work which are

absurdity: life is absurd, it makes no sense and has no meaning or ultimate purpose, but
human beings need it to make sense, to have meaning and purpose. Rejection of
meaning-giving narratives: It is not enough to say that life is absurd; the existentialists
repeatedly make the point that when philosophy, religion, or science tries to make
sense of it, the attempts always fail. Alienation: this is the feeling that you are a stranger
in your own life, a stranger in the world. Anxiety: this is the feeling of unease you get
when you start to recognize that life is absurd. Forlornness: this is the feeling of
loneliness you get when you realize that no one can help you make sense of your
existence. Responsibility: everybody bears responsibility for making their lives through
it. Authenticity: people want authenticity- people in a way that’s in tune with the truth of
who they are as human beings and the world they live in. Individuality: An important of
developing an authentic and satisfying life is individuality. Passion/engagement: being
passionate or engaged is another important aspect of living an authentic life. Death: this
is the ultimate context for all human actions and an important source of the absurdity of
life (Panza and Gale, 2008: 30). Sartre's existentialist understanding of what it is to be
human can be summarised in his view that the underlying motivation for action is to be found in
the nature of consciousness which is a desire for being. It is up to each agent to exercise his
freedom in such a way that he does not lose sight of his existence as a facticity, as well as a
free human being. In so doing, he will come to understand more about the original choice which
his whole life represents, and thus about the values that are thereby projected. Such an
understanding is only obtained through living this particular life and avoiding the pitfalls of
strategies of self-deceit such as bad faith. This authentic option for human life represents the
realisation of a universal in the singularity of a human life.
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