Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser as Responses to Vichy France
The Second World War seems to have had an enormous impact on theorists writing on literary theory. While their arguments are usually confined to a structure that at first blush seems to only apply to theory, a closer examination finds that they contain an inherently political aspect. Driven by the psychological trauma of the war, theorists, particularly French theorists, find themselves questioning the structures that led to the particular events and situations of the war. Many of these writers found themselves driven to engage the lackluster resistance against the Vichy regime in France and sought critical models that explain or lay to rest the guilt of a complacent citizenry.
In particular, Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser reshaped the notion of the author and the subject to encompass the existence of a complacent citizenry. Sartre primarily concerned himself with the role of the author while Althusser addressed the role of the subject. It must be remembered, however, that Sartre’s model of the committed author has implications that modify the notion of the subject to some extent, just as Althusser’s model of ideology modifies the concept of the author. In accordance to their focus (the author or the subject), the two writers come to contradictory conclusions regarding the role of personal responsibility.
Addressing the issue of a complacent citizenry in “What is Literature?”, Sartre’s abstract notions of the writer reveal a certain preoccupation with the failed resistance in World War II. Specifically, he chooses to directly address the Resistance poets:
How can one hope to provoke the indignation or the political enthusiasm of the rea...
... middle of paper ...
... the complexity and the guilt of a complacent citizenry, both writers re-evaluated the idea of the author and the subject. In spite of being largely contradictory, they both leave room for some agreement. One could argue that the choice presented by the author to the subject in Sartre fits within Althusser’s ideology of ideologies. Insofar as it is the author’s responsibility to reveal the ideology, the world, to the subject and it is the subject’s responsibility to interpret the ideology or the text. However, this common ground is both narrow and unstable and would be difficult, at best, to support.
References
Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Contemproary Critical Theory. Dan Latimer (ed.). San Diego: Harcourt 1989.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “What is Literature?” and Other Essays. Cambradge, MA: Harvard University Press 1988.
Sartre then proceeds to take this theory and applies it in an attempt to find a solution to anti-Semitism. The author writes that a plausible idea to get rid of anti-Semitism is to have a National Socialist revolution. In that way, all citizens are on the same footing and there is no need for the anti-Semite to "create the Jew" as a form of managing the anti-Semite’s aggression. In hind sight, it can be seen that it is not a feasible solution and that National Socialism does not work. So in that sense Sartre's work is probabl...
In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.
In The Underdogs written by Mariano Azuela, we are introduced to a character that strongly symbolizes the fuel of the Mexican Revolution. Heroes like Demetrio Macias brought the Serrano’s hope of giving them what they felt they truly deserved. Although Demetrio Macias, the general (colonel) of a rebel army is hunting down the army of Pancho Villa, he seems to have the same ideals as the enemy. In addition to Demetrio Macias, we meet women like Camilla and War Paint who represent the different roles that women played during the Mexican Revolution.
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.
...ar idea with Stephen; they both wanted to do anything and create their own human nature, and our value of freedom through those free choices. Generally, Sartre suggested that men have freedom to construct their nature and essence through their actions.
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (selection),in Fifty Readings in Philosophy (4th edition), ed. Donald Abel, McGraw Hill (2012), 347-358
...field against the opposition forces, but essentially battled against the past stereotypes that demeaned their limitations as humans. Both as a camp aide like the Adelitas or a combatant like the Soldaderas, women liberated themselves from the restraints in their lives and successfully achieved equality with men. The women who took on the political edge to the revolution committed themselves to attain the equality they deserved. When the objectives of the feminist groups were met in the Mexican Revolution, ultimate success was achieved for all. Unfortunately, the participation of women in the Mexican Revolution is often overlooked, unlike that of Pancho Villa or Emiliano Zapata. However, women truly were successful in the revolution and it is unfortunate to see that the numerous gains in achieving complete rights for females during the Revolution are disregarded.
Jean-Paul Sartre claims that there can be no human nature, or essence, without a God to conceive of it. This claim leads Sartre to formulate the idea of radical freedom, which is the idea that man exists before he can be defined by any concept and is afterwards solely defined by his choices. Sartre presupposes this radical freedom as a fact but fails to address what is necessary to possess the type of freedom which would allow man to define himself. If it can be established that this freedom and the ability to make choices is contingent upon something else, then freedom cannot be the starting point from which man defines himself. This leaves open the possibility of an essence that is not necessarily dependent upon a God to conceive it. Several inconsistencies in Sartre’s philosophy undermine the plausibility of his concept of human nature. The type of freedom essential for the ability to define oneself is in fact contingent upon something else. It is contingent upon community, and the capacity for empathy, autonomy, rationality, and responsibility.
Existentialism, a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness, isolation and freedom upon and individual is a major theme in John Fowles’, The French Lieutenants Woman. Is our life ordained by the superior, or do we power our future? In chapter 13, Fowles interrupts the narration and notes the natural aspects of writing as a novelist, the freedom of the characters that he has created, and the time and structure o f the novel itself. Though awkward to incorporate the authors visions in their own literature, it is manipulated fiction, meta-fiction that is, which perhaps is a subject of major interest amongst the readers of The French Lieutenants Woman. At first, in chapter 13, it becomes evident that he himself, Fowles, is uncertain of his writings, “I do not know” he immediately confirms. By the third paragraph he has repeated the word “perhaps” five times, demonstrating Fowles puzzlement of whether he restrains his characters, or, they control him? Fowles addresses on behalf of all novelists, and comments on the natural features of writing, that a novelist has no predetermined illustration from chapter one.
Much of the critical literature regarding All Quiet on the Western Front concerns the binary relationship between the symbols of present and past. For example, critics Barker and Last assert: "This rupture with the past is one of the most dominant themes of Remarque's work, the discontinuity of life, this jolting from one place of existence to another, for which man is completely unprepared" (54). This opposition is represented in Remarque's descriptions of the contrasting environments of present and past.? The present is depicted as a state of unpredictability, uncertainty, and impermanence in which the soldiers merely exist on the edge of life. The narrator, Paul Baumer, imparts the dismal desperation of the front: "Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks--shattering, corroding, death. Dysentery, influenza, typhus‑scalding, choking, death" (Remarque 283). In contrast, the past is...
...vious objections. In this paper argued that man creates their own essence through their choices and that our values and choices are important because they allow man to be free and create their own existence. I did this first by explaining Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote, then by thoroughly stating Sartre’s theory, and then by opposing objections raised against Sartre’s theory.
This type of writing interests me because it was used as a tool to open people’s eyes to the brutality of war. In a way it protested and spoke up against this injustice and most importantly gave a voice to the people who became the biggest victims of war – the soldiers themselves.
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.
“The man who involves himself and who realizes that he is not only the person he chooses to be, but also a law-maker who is, at the same time choosing all mankind as well as himself, can not help escape the feeling of his total and deep responsibility.” (Sartre, 202) The feeling Sartre is describing here is anguish, a dread and misery that comes with the realization that we are completely responsible for all of our choices, and their consequences – we our own moral compasses. He wants us to feel anguish, because when we do, we recognize the responsibility of our choices, which in turn, will lead us to want to make choices that all of society could make, instead of just ourselves. According to Sartre, it’s important to realize that other
Sartre says that man is sovereign in assigning existence to himself through the act of will. This existentialist view depicts the idea that one is not based on the essence of a soul, but rather, based on decisions made throughout life. Sartre also believes that every man is responsible for all men. Man is independent, and the decisions that he makes will create an overall set of principles and beliefs for all of mankind. Man is nothing other than his own project.