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Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980). Professor of philosophy at Le Havre (1931) studied in Berlin (1932) took part in the Resistance Nobel prize in 1964. Some important works:. Nausea (1938) The Wall and Other Stories (1939) Being and Nothingness (1943) The Flies (1943)
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Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) • Professor of philosophy at Le Havre (1931) • studied in Berlin (1932) • took part in the Resistance • Nobel prize in 1964
Some important works: • Nausea (1938) • The Wall and Other Stories (1939) • Being and Nothingness (1943) • The Flies (1943) • Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946) • No Exit (1947) • What Is Literature? (1947)
The Wall (1939) • “the best introduction to the heart of Sartre’s thought” (Kaufmann). • contains central existentialist motif: confrontation with death • solitary hero compelled to choose values that define what it means to be a human being • Sartre “felt the need to assert the individual´s freedom in the face of an increasingly totalitarian world situation” (Pitts).
Other important themes: • an absurd world • man’s highest value: integrity • all men are free • need to choose our own values • creative freedom as law unto itself • existence precedes and governs essence • essence is a succession of choices • other themes?
Some questions to discuss in groups: • What does Pablo’s intention to “die decently”/cleanly mean? • What does it mean that Pablo thinks his life is “only a sketch”? • Why are love, frienship, political cause all emptied of meaning? What does it mean that they are? • Why does he refuse to betray Ramón Gris? • How do you interpret the ending? • What does the wall symbolize?