Week 8: Sartre

I think this was the most difficult reading to get through thus far in this class, mostly because of my own lack of understanding. I had to keep looking up works and people to keep my grasp on the situations at hand, and often the irony of a situation.

For most of Sartre I didn't like the protagonist, of which the work is named after. My first impressions of him is that he is full of himself and lies a lot, as seen when he absurdly tells the other boys in the school yard he has a mistress, and as he takes pity on Catholic students and rescues them from a bully, but states "He's known God hasn't existed since he was twelve." It seems as though he lives in his own world, and this is enforced when the book states he didn't really notice the political upheaval happening pre WW2, post WW1 Germany.

I think his most endearing quality is that he never changes. Although I think knowing him personally, he would have driven me mad, I admire being true to oneself, especially when they're fighting for a righteous cause like attaining freedom (and rejecting Capitalism).  It's a good thing he never changed too because in such tumultuous times, his ideas were rendered useless. And although resistance in the written words were/are important, actions are more so.

There was no time for philosophy during WW2. Events spoke for themselves. In times of great horror what else is there to say?

Interestingly enough, the novel didn't really emphasize the horrors of the war. Sure, he was locked up and hungry, but in his despair he didn't think about the absurdity of war (or at least it didn't tell us he did), instead he stared at objects, thinking of the absurdity of a table. He was quite a character, and the world needs these characters to move forward.