Existentialism is a complicated and diverse set of theories and beliefs. Jean Paul Sartre’s beliefs are very complex as well in how he conveys them to the reader. He firmly believes that the actions of the person should be what they are and that the outside world should not shape a person. Through his play No Exit, each character would come to represent a key point in existentialism, authenticity, angst and absurdity.
The definition of authenticity is to know oneself, accept it and be true to it. One major display of authenticity is the character of Inez and how she acts. The way she holds herself is very true to existentialism and that is due to her authenticity. She knows the kind of person that she used to be and even said it herself,” I was what some people down there called ‘a damned bitch.’ Damned already. So it’s no surprise, being here.”(p. 25). With this response, Sartre shows that Inez acknowledges her mistakes and flaws, she truly knows herself. This is a very free way of thought. It has much leeway into what a person could decide to do with their life or not and Inez decided to do whatever she set her mind to. She accepts what she has done; she even says “You know, I don’t regret a thing” (p. 25) and even embraces it, as her actions were practically a part of who she was as a whole. She does not care how she comes off to others, even if she is “rather cruel” (p. 26), she does what she wants and is how she wants to be. Another factor of authenticity shown is the rejection of stereotypes. For example, human feeling and going along with social norms pertaining to the consoling of those that are sad are what would be expected of a person in normal society but Inez goes on to say “Human feeling. That is beyond my range. I’...
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... Absurd was the meaning Garcin came to realize about the room and Estelle and Inez.
Overall, No Exit is a great work on part of Jean-Paul Sartre. In it he was able to include at least three of the very key facets of his beliefs in existentialism. They were Authenticity, Angst, and finally, The Absurd. The play had various examples in and of itself but most of them came from the characters and their behavior. Each character had a personality that fit very well into the certain mold that was a part of existentialism. Inez was sure of herself and who she was, Estelle was afraid to make any decision that could influence her as a person and finally Garcin took away or added meaning to the scheme of things. Sartre’s No Exit brought all of these facets together in a very cohesive fashion and overall showed how Existentialism can bring the best and the worst out of people.
In his essay “Existentialism”, Jean Paul Sartre discusses the main beliefs of existentialism. Perhaps the most important belief of existentialism is that there is no human nature, and there is no God. This means that each individual man has control of his own destiny. The definition of each individual man is the sum of his life and all he has accomplished in his life. He is also responsible for all the choices and actions he makes in his life. These types of choices and actions can be seen in the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel. This book is a story about a boy, Wiesel, who is taken to a concentration camp with his family. It follows him and his father through their trials and movement from Auschwitz to Burkenau, and to Buna and how they continue to narrowly escape death. By the end of the story, readers see how Wiesel has become indifferent to the horrors of the camps. From the beginning to this point in the book, Wiesel and other characters make decisions that Sartre would call existentialist.
In his lecture, Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre discusses common misconceptions people, specifically Communists and Christians, have about existentialism and extentanitalists (18). He wants to explain why these misconceptions are wrong and defend existentialism for what he believes it is. Sartre argues people are free to create themselves through their decisions and actions. This idea is illustrated in the movie 13 Going on Thirty, where one characters’ decision at her thirteenth birthday party and her actions afterwards make her become awful person by the time she turns thirty. She was free to make these decisions but she was also alone. Often the idea of having complete free will at first sounds refreshing, but when people
At the end of Being and Nothingness,Jean-Paul Sartre concedes that he has not overcome one of the key objections to existentialism viz., an outline of ethics, and states that he will do so later. Although Sartre attempted the project of an existential ethics, it was never quite completed. Enter Simone De Beauvoir. In this book, De Beauvoir picks up where Sartre has left us, refusing to answer the question of ethics. For De Beauvoir, human nature involves and ontological ambiguity whose finitude is bound in a duality. This duality of body and consciousness is the ambiguity which remakes nature the way we want it to be as a facticity of transcendence. It is within this understanding that the project of ethics must begin in ambiguity. However,
Addressing the critics of Existentialism was a necessity for both Sartre and de Beauvoir, as it was initially dismissed by many critics, such as the Communists and the Christians, as nihilistic or overly pessimistic. While understandable at a superficial level, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged these critics to rethink their idea of existentialism and foster a deeper meaning of the philosophy of existentialism.
Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy is one of the most popular systems of thought in the school called existentialism. Sartre valued human freedom and choice, and held it in the highest regard. To be able to live an authentic existence, one must take responsibility for all the actions that he freely chooses. This total freedom that man faces often throws him into a state of existential anguish, wherein he is burdened by the hardship of having to choose all the time. Thus, there ensues the temptation for man to live a life of inauthenticity, by leaning on preset rules or guidelines, and objective norms. This would consist the idea of bad faith.
the play may be pass to modern society, that one may not learn, or even
At the time of his death on the fifteenth of April, 1980, at the age of seventy-four, Jean-Paul Sartre’s greatest literary and philosophical works were twenty-five years in the past. Although the small man existed in the popular mind as the politically inconsistent champion of unpopular causes and had spent the last seven years of his life in relative stagnation, his influence was still great enough to draw a crowd of over fifty thousand people – admirers or otherwise – for his funeral procession. Sartre was eminently quotable, a favorite in the press, because his statements were always controversial. He was the leader of the shortly popular Existential movement in philosophy which turned quickly into a fad for the disillusioned post-World War I generation, so even when the ideas criticized were not the ideas of Sartre’s Existentialism, he still came to the public mind. Sartre was alternately celebrated and vilified, depending on which side of the issue the speaker or writer was on, and whether or not Sartre had early espoused – and possibly later turned against – the ideals in question. Despite Sartre’s many political and philosophical about-faces, fellow Marxist political philosopher Herbert Marcuse said of him, “He may not want to be the world’s conscience, but he is.” [Hayman, 458]
Three people, trapped in a lavish room, and stuck together for all of eternity. The only communication any of them can have is with the other members in this room. Not bad, right? Wrong. These three people exemplify one another’s imperfections and create a high level of torment with one another. Welcome to hell. Literally, this is the view of hell according to Jean-Paul Sartre in his play, “No Exit.” The characters are unknowingly alone, in terms of finding betterment within inner selves. The only thing the other people in the room create is anguish for one another. The epitome is although these characters are truly not alone, each is lonely and the hell in this is a timeless never ending torture in one another dragging each of themselves into furthered grief and despair. What is hell then? Simply, it is our current living. Sartre is clear in saying “hell is other people” (Sartre 45). The repulsiveness of human nature makes us all infinitely empty and it is something that is inescapable. Depression and loneliness are simple byproducts of acceptance of the ugliness of our world at least according to Sartre. Even if the concept of “hell is other people” is refuted, it does not place one’s own inner nature. Regardless, “No Exit” holds a message of being forever alone at least to achieve a state of happiness. Therefore, loneliness must be examined in three scopes sadness, love, and communication as to understand the purpose of this life, which John G. Mcgraw addresses in his article, “God and the Problem of Loneliness.”
“No Exit,” by Jean-Paul Sartre, is a play that illustrates three people’s transitions from wanting to be alone in Hell to needing the omnipresent “other” constantly by their sides. As the story progresses, the characters’ identities become more and more permanent and unchangeable. Soon Inez, Garcin, and Estelle live in the hope that they will obtain the other’s acceptance. These three characters cannot accept their existentialist condition: they are alone in their emotions, thoughts and fears. Consequently, they look to other people to give their past lives and present deaths meaning. Forever trapped in Hell, they are condemned to seek the other for meaning in their lives; even when given the chance to exit the room, the characters choose to stay with each other instead of facing uncertainty and the possibility of being detached from the stability of their relationships with the others. Without other people, the characters would have no reason to exist. Each characters’ significance depends on the other’s opinion of them; Garcin needs someone to deny his cowardliness, Inez yearns for Estelle’s love, and Estelle just wants passion with no commitment. This triangle of unending want, anguish and continual disillusionment because of the other is precisely Sartre’s definition of pure Hell.
Existentialism is a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining his or her own development through acts of the will. To Sartre, saying that som...
...e’s theory relies upon his belief that because there is no creator, human beings have no essence, and so they are “left alone, without excuse” and “born without reason.” He says that people realize this “the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.” Similarly, White too admits to Black that he has always hated life and that when he realized that religion was just a “guise,” his hatred turned into boredom (138). White’s skepticism about life and God echoes throughout the play and through the suicidal choice that White makes even before the dialogue begins. Comparably, Father Vincent Minceli voices similar concerns about Sartre, concluding that Sartre’s philosophy leads directly to despair and suicide. McCarthy’s comparison of White and Sartre is remarkable, as both are not only atheists, but also convey life’s useless nature through using synonymous phrases.
John Paul Sartre is known as one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He wrote many philosophical works novels and plays. Much of his work is tied into politics. The essay Existentialism is a Humanism is just one of his many works. Existentialism is a Humanism is a political essay that was written in 1945. Its purpose was to address a small public during World War II in Nazi occupied France. This essay stressed the public not to conform. Sartre introduced a great number of philosophical concepts in Existentialism. Two of these concepts are anguish and forlornness. They are simply defined, as anguish is feeling responsible for yourself as well as others and knowing that your actions affect others and forlornness is realizing that you are alone in your decisions. These two concepts are interwoven throughout the essay and throughout many of Sartre's other works. Sartre's view of anguish and forlornness in Existentialism is a Humanism addresses his view of life and man.
Man goes through life, waking each day and participating in his own existence without truly existing. He is always in search of a greater meaning, and in the process fails to find one as he is on a constant search for something that cannot be grasped by the normality that is the human psyche. A similar example can be found in the capitalistic work force of modern day. Man works the majority of his life, always training and aiming for more, only to retire and live on a portion of what he was making. During his time working he lost out on his family, his sleep, often times his own enjoyment, for an ideal that often times is never achieved. This is a trivial situation, yet it is painted in a rather angelic light in our society. Why is it, then, that Sartre can be dismissed as trivial when trivialities exist in nearly every day to day life? Quite likely, this is because Existentialism is an “on-paper theory” so to speak, and in theory is looks quite differently than in reality. Man, as in this case, does not realise that he often follows the rules which he opposes. In addition, much of today’s society exists under a form of organized religion, a society with which Existentialism exists in
In his defense of existentialism, Sartre first defines the unifying factor of existentialism, (for both atheist and deist alike), as the belief that existence precedes essence. To help illustrate his point he presents the example of a paper knife, an object that possess a set of qualities that enable it to carry out its purpose. He states that it would not have been created without a particular purpose, therefore its essence precedes its existence. (Sartre) Sartre rejects this idea when it comes to mankind and declares that humans in themselves have no nature and define themselves after coming into existence. This stems from his atheistic worldview, in which the rejection of a higher power leads him to accept the fact that humans are the “Creator”, the first to exist, and it is our job to give meaning to the rest of the world.
Existentialism tends to focus on the question of human existence — the feeling that there is no purpose, indeed nothing, at the core of existence. The term itself suggests one major theme: the stress on concrete individual existence and, consequently, on subjectivity, individual freedom, and choice. Sartre did not believe in God, so there was no place for the essence of humanity to be before human existence. For Existentialists like Sartre, the absence of God has a much larger significance than the metaphysics of creation. Without God there is no purpose, no value, and no meaning in the world. Existentialism posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for them. Meursault, the main character and narrator of The Outsider, lives existentially and knows that his life will terminate one day. To Meursault, Life is all a person possesses, and there is no intrinsic meaning in life: