Life According to Sartre

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Recommended: Concept of existentialism

“The Room” by Jean-Paul Sartre takes us on a journey through the conflict of man with the world. Eve makes the choice to sacrifice self identity to care for her mentally ill husband Pierre. In the beginning of the book “The Wall and Other Stories” Sartre invites us to interpret the text from an existentialist point of view. So we must understand Sartre philosophical meaning of life.

“What is the meaning of life?” Jean-Paul Sartre defines life as first accepting our own faults and strengths, to then understand that the world exists regardless of our actions, and it is only when we actively participate and take responsibility for our place in the world do we honestly experience life. In Sartre’s autobiography The Words he explores the concept brilliantly. As a child, Sartre was a scrawny, crossed eyed boy who retreated to solitude of reading literature and hid from the world. This did not stop the world from existing and he was living dishonestly until he used his literary talent with purpose. In this context, Eve and Pierre are hiding from their responsibility to take action in the world. Sartre uses his gift of storytelling to explain his view of the world, and living in “The Room”.

Eve’s life with Pierre is avoidance of their responsibility in the world. Eve is forced to realize that the world exist outside their dark room. Eve’s father, M. Darbedat visits every Thursday to visit, and is a weekly reminder of such. Then as her father leaves the sunlight shines through the closed blinds of the living room. She opens the window and watches her father walk out, and resents that “a little part of their life had escaped from the closed room and was being dragged through the streets, in the sun, among the people”. (30) Sh...

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... on her self-identity in order to stay connected to her husband.

Eve must decide who she is apart from her husband. She could decide to become a activist for the mentally ill, write a book on the mentally ill, or just walk out into the sunlight a let her skin be warmed. But she will not know “the meaning of life” until she finds accepts who she is. Then she must accept that the world will continue to evolve without her participation. But to truly live is to take a hand on approach and interact with the world on purpose and with responsibility.

Works Cited

Scharfstein, Ben. The Philosophers, Their Lives and the Nature of Their Thought

New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Baskin, Wade. “The Wisdom of Sartre” New York: Citadel Press, 1956.

Onof, Christian J. “Sartre’s Existentialism” February 15, 2011,

http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-ex/#SH5b 2004

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