Yale French Studies, No. 1, Existentialism (1948)

YALE FRtENCH SOTUIS EXISTENTIALISM Jean-Paul SARTRE HenriPEYRE

SLOCHOWER Harry Wallace

FONLIE

MarjorieGRENE

DIECKMANN Herbert

+

MichelMOHRT

,

and others of theoriginalpublishers Reprinted bypermission KRAUS REPRINT CORPORATION New York 1965

PRINTED

IN THE UNITED

STATES

OF AMERICA

VOL. 1, NO. 1

SPRING-SUMMER1948

Scenes fromLes Miains sales JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

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Existentialism-a Literatureof Despair? HENRI PEYRE French Existentialismbefore Sartre HERBERT

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DIECKMANN

33 42

The Function of Myth in Existentialism HARRY SLOCHOWER

ExistentialistHero: a Study of L'Age de raisor WALLACE FOWLIE Sartre'sFirst Novel: La Nause'e ROBERT

G. COHN

62

Existentialismand the American Novel JEAN BRUNEAU Intimacy EDWARD MORRIS

66

73

The Making of a Leader MADELEINE

SMITH

8o

The Case for "Engaged" Literature CHARLES G. WHITING Sartre's View of Cartesian Liberty JEAN BOORSCH Sartre'sTheory of the Emotions MARJORIE GRENE Sartre's Theatre WALTER LEAVITT

Ethic and Poetry in the work ofCamus

go 97

BAYS

MICHEL MOHRT

Camus and the Novel of the "Absurd" VICTOR BROMBERT Camus's La Peste GEORGE JAGGER

d

84

102

Simone de Beauvoir: Ethics and Art GWENDOLYN

4

53

1o6 113 1i9

124

Editor: Robert GreerCohn Associate Editors: Richard C. Anderson,Reed G. Law, Edward P. Morris, II Designed by Norma Levarie

Yale French Studies is published semi-annuallyat Yale University,W. L. Harkness Hall, New Haven, Connecticut. Subscription $2.00 yearly. Printed by The Stewart Press, Middletown, Connecticut.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Jean-PaulSartrehas recentlypublished a

volume of criticismentitled Situations I; II and III are in preparation,as are the final volumes of Les Chemins de la libertS.

Henri Peyreis SterlingProfessorof French at Yale, author of numerous works in many fields, including Writersand Their Critics, Le Classicisme franvais;he is preparing three new volumes. HerbertDieckmannis

a Professorof French Literature at Washington University,author of studieson Claudel and Diderot; he has been awarded a GuggenheimFellowship for furtherwork on Diderot.

HarrySlochoweris Professorof German and Comparative Literature at Brooklyn College, an authorityon Thomas Mann, author of No Voice is WhollyLost, etc.; he is workingon a manual of ComparativeLiterature. Wallace Fowlie is well known for his works Rimbaud, Clowns and Angels, numerousarticles,as well as other volumes of criticism,four books of poetry,etc.; he has been awarded a GuggenheimFellowship for work on Mallarm6; he teaches French at the Universityof Chicago. JeanBoorschis Associate Professorof French at Yale, author of Etat prdsentdes etudes sur Descartes and otherworks. MarjorieGreneis a Professorof Philosophy at the Universityof Chicago, has recentlypublished Dreadful Freedom; a Critique of Existentialism and has writtenarticleson Existentialismfor Kenyon Review. MichelMohrtis the author of the leading work on Montherlant,other

critical works, a novel, Le Repit, and will soon publish a new novel and volume of essays; now teachingat Yale.

JeanBruneauis a

young Instructorat Yale, teachinga graduate course.

Gwendolyn Bays,RobertCohn,WalterLeavitt,Edward Morris,Madeleine Smith,Charles Whitingare

graduate stu-

&nts in the Yale French Department.

VictorBrombert, GeorgeJaggerare students at Yale. WarrenRamsey has published articles in Inventario and other magazines; he has been awarded a Sterling Fellowship in French at Yale where he is an Instructor.

JEAN-PAULSARTRE

ScenesFrom Les MainsSales The editors of Yale French Studies wish to express their deep gratitude to M. Jean-Paul Sartre for putting at their disposal the entire unpublished manuscriptof Les Mains sales. The play, Sartre's most recent, is made up of seven tableaux, each subdivided into scenes of varying number: it requires about three hours for its currentParis performance.An American version is scheduled for production on Broadway next fall: despite the title announced publicitywhich has been bruited about, for it, Red Gloves, and some falsifying this play, as will be seen, cannot be stamped as one giving comfortto anticommunists. We have chosen forpublication here Scene 6 of Tableau IV and Scenes 2-x, of Tableau V. A summaryof the precedingand linking action follows: Hugo is a young bourgeois intellectual,citizen of a certain Eastern European nation which is collaboratingwith Germany: the time is just afterStalingrad. Sufferingfromcomplex, many-levelledguilt and hatred of his own class, Hoederer Hugo entersthe ProletarianParty.In a factionalsplit, party-secretary stands for the creation of an anti-Germannational front(since the tide has turned) togetherwith conservatives,whereas Louis, another leader, is opposed to compromise. Siding with Louis, Hugo is ordered by him to assassinate Hoederer, and he becomes the latter's secretaryto this end. Olga is another Party-memberwith whom Hugo has formed more personal attachments;his relationswith his wife Jessicaare "unserious".Althoughhe is burning to prove himself,Hugo, sufferingfromHamletish indecision,delays the assassinationso long that some other agent comes and throwsa bomb into Hoederer's office. Presentare: the latter; his bodyguards,Georges and Slick; Hugo; Karsky,head of the bourgeois party (he is the only one to be wounded by the bomb); and the Prince, son of the fascist-befriending Regent. As all but Hugo and the bodyguards leave the stage (to attend to Karsky's wound), Jessica enters, bringingus to Scene 6 of Tableau IV. Later in the play Hugo carries out his assignment.But the Party "line" has changed over to that of the dead Hoederer, so that when Hugo comes out of jail he findshimselfbeing trackedby Louis and his men: he is to be put out of the way as an unreliable "anarchist". At the end Hugo bitterlygives himself up to Louis: in his own mind, at least, Louis and Hoederer are reconciled as equal membersof "the good sort". The play ends, as it began, with Hugo's R.G.C. aloneness and ambiguous guilt.

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Yale FrenchStudies

Les Mains Sales Pike en 7 Tableaux QUATRIEME

TABLEAU

Scene VI HUGO, JESSICA, GEORGES et SLICK HUGO (entre ses dents).-Les salauds. SLICK.-Hein? HUGO.-Les gens qui ont lanc6 le petard,ce sont des salauds. (II va se verserd boire.) SLICK.-Un peu nerveux,hein? HUGO.-BahI SLICK.-Il n'y a pas de honte. C'est le baptdme du feu. Tu t'y feras. GEORGES.-Faut meme qu'on te dise: h la longue, sa distrait.Pas vrai, Slick? SLICK.-Ca change, ca reveille,ca ddgourditles jambes. HUGO.-Je ne suis pas nerveux. Je rale. (II boit.) JESSICA.-Apr~s qui, ma petite abeille? HUGO.-Apr~s les salauds qui ont lance le p$tard. SLICK.-Tu as de la bonte de reste: nous autres, il y a longtempsqu'on ne rale plus. GEORGES.-C'est notre gagne-pain: si c'ftait pas d'eux autres, nous, on ne serait pas ici. HUGO.-Tu vois: tout le monde est calme, tout le monde sourit,tout le monde est content. II saignait comme un cochon, il s'essuyaitla joue en souriant, il disait: "Ce n'est rien." Ils ont du courage. Ce sont les plus grands fils de putain de la terreet ils ont du courage,juste ce qu'il faut pour t'empecher de les mxpriserjusqu'au bout. (Tristement) C'est un casse-te. (II boit.) Les vertuset les vices ne sont pas 6quitablementrepartis. JESSICA.-Tu n'es pas lache, mon A'me. HUGO.-Je ne suis pas lache, mais je ne suis pas courageux non plus. Trop de nerfs.Je voudrais m'endormiret rover que je suis Slick. Regarde: cent kilos de chair et une noisette dans la boite cranienne,une vraie baleine. La noisette,la-haut, elle envoie des signaux de peur et de colere, mais ils se perdent,dans cette masse. Ca les chatouille, c'est tout.

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JEAN-PAULSARTRE SLICK (riant).-Tu l'entends. GEORGES (riant).-Il n'a pas tort. (Hugo boit.) JESSICA.-Hugol HUGO.-HO? JESSICA.-Ne bois plus. HUGO.-Pourquoi? Je n'ai plus rien t faire. Je suis relev6 de mes fonc tions. JESSICA.-Hoederer t'a relev6 de tes fonctions? HUGO.-Hoederer? Qui parle d'Hoederer? C'est bien sa; quand tu veux tirerquelque chose d'un type comme moi, commence par lui faire confiance. Tu peux penser ce que tu veux d'Hoederer, mais c'est un homme qui m'a fait confian-ce.Tout le monde ne peut pas en dire autant. (II boit. Puis va vers Slick.) I1 y a des gens qui te donnent une mission de confiance,hein, et tu te cassesle cul pour l'accompliret puis, au moment,ou tu vas reussir,tu t'apersois qu'ils se foutaientde toi et qu'ils ont fait faire la besogne par d'autres. JESSICA.-Veux-tu te tairel Tu ne vas pas leur raconternos histoiresde mdnage. HUGO.-De mdnage? Hal (Ddride) Elle est merveilleusel JESSICA.-C'est de moi qu'il parle. Voila deux ans qu'il me reproche de ne pas lui faire confiance. HUGO (a Slick).-C'est une tate,hein? (A Jessica) Non, tu ne me fais pas confiance.Est-ceque tu me fais confiance? JESSICA.-Certainement pas en ce moment. HUGO.-Personne ne me fait confiance.Je dois avoir quelque chose de traversdans la gueule. Dis-moi que tu m'aimes. JESSICA.-Pas devant eux. SLICK.-Ne vous genez pas pour nous. HUGO.-Elle ne m'aime pas. Elle ne sait pas ce que c'est que l'amour. C'est un ange. LUnestatue de sel. SLICK-Une statue de sel? HUGO.-Non, je voulais dire une statue de neige. Si tu la caresses,elle fond. GEORGES.-Sans blague. JESSICA.-Viens, Hugo. Rentrons. HUGO.-Attends, je vais donner un conseil i Slick. Je l'aime bien Slick, je l'ai a la bonne, parce qu'il est fortet qu'il ne pense pas. Tu veux un conseil, Slick? SLICK.-Si je ne peux pas l'&viter. HUGO.-Ecoute: ne te marie pas trop jeune. SLICK.-Ca ne risque rien.

Yale FrenchStudies HUGO.-Non, mais 6coute: ne te marie pas trop jeune. Tu comprendsce que je veux dire, hein? Ne te marie pas trop jeune. Te charge pas de ce que tu ne peux pas faire. Apres, sa pese trop lourd. Tout est si lourd. Je ne sais pas si vous avez remarqu6: c'est pas commode d'etre jeune. (II rit.) Mission de confiance.Dis! ou elle est la confiance? GEORGES.-Quelle mission? HUGO.-Ahl Je suis charge de mission. GEORGES.-Quelle mission? HUGO.-Ils veulent me faire parler, mais avec moi c'est du temps perdu. Je suis impenetrable. (Ii se regarde dans la glace.) Impdntrablel Une gueule parfaitementinexpressive.La gueule de tout le monde. Ca devraitse voir,bon Dieul Ca devrait se voirl GEORGES.-Quoi? HUGO.-Que je suis charg6 d'une mission de confiance. GEORGES.-Slick? SLICK.-Hmm. JESSICA.-(tranquillement) .-Ne vous cassez pas la tate: ?a veut dire que je vais avoir un enfant. 1i se regarde dans la glace pour voir s'il a l'air d'un pore de famille. HUGO.-Formidablel Un pere de famille! C'est-?a. C'est tout A fait sa. Un pere de famille.Elle et moi nous nous entendonsi demi-mot.Lmpnd& trable! Ca devrait se reconnaitreun . .. p&re de famille.A quelque chose. Un air sur le visage. Un gouitdans la bouche. Une ronce dans le coeur. (II bait.) Pour Hoederer, je regrette.Parce que, je vous le dis, il aurait pu m'aider. (il rit.) Dites: ils sont 1M-hautqui causent et LUon lave le sale groin de Karsky. Mais vous 6tes donc des bfiches?Tirez-moi dessus. SLICK.- ( Jessica).-Ce petit gars lU ne devrait pas boire. GEORGES.-Ca ne lui r6ussit pas. HUGO.-Tirez sur moi, je vous dis. C'est votre metier. Ecoutez donc: un pere de famille,c'est jamais un vrai p~re de famille. Un assassin c'est jamais tout * fait un assassin. Ils jouent, vous comprenez.Tandis qu'un mort,c'est un mort pour de vrai. Etre ou ne pas 6tre,hein? Vous voyez ce que je veux dire. I1 n'y a rien que je puisse etre sinon un mortavec six pieds de terrepar dessus la tate, je vous le dis, c'est de la com~die. (II s'arre.tebrusquement.) Et sa aussi c'est de la comddie. Tout cal Tout ce que je vous dis 1k. Vous croyez peut-etreque je suis d&sespdr&?Pas du tout: je joue la comddie du d&sespoir.Est-ce qu'on peut en sortir? JESSICA.-Est-ce que tu veux rentrer? Comment peut-on dire: je HUGO.-Attends. Non. Je ne sais pas ... veux ou je ne veux pas? JESSICA (remplissant un verre).-Alors bois.

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JEAN-PAULSARTRE HUGO.-Bon (II boit.) SLICK.-Vous n'etes pas cinghlede le faire boire. JESSICA.-C'est pour en finir plus vite. A present, il n'y a plus qu'a' attendre. (Hugo vide le verre. Jessica le remplit.) HUGO.-Qu'est-ce que je disais? Je parlais d'assassin?Jessica et moi nous savons ce que ?a veut dire. La v~rit6c'est que sa cause trop PU-dedans.(II se frappe le front.) Je voudrais le silence. (A Slick) Ce qu'il doit faire bon dans ta tete: pas un bruit, la nuit noire. Pourquoi tournez-voussi vite? Ne riez pas: je sais que je suis saoul, je sais que je suis abject. Je vais vous dire: je ne voudrais pas etre * ma place. Ohl mais non. Ca n'est pas une bonne place. Ne tournez pasl Le tout, c'est d'allumer la mkche.Ca n'a l'air de rien mais je ne vous souhaite pas d'en etre charges.La meche, tout est la. Allumer la meche. Apr6s tout le monde saute et moi avec: plus besoin d'alibi, le silence, la nuit. A moins que les morts aussi ne jouent la com~die. Supposez qu'on meure et qu'on d~couvre que les morts sont des vivants qui jouent A e'tre mortslOn verra. On verra. Seulement faut allumer la m&he. C'est le moment psychologique. (It rit.) Mais ne tournez pas, bon Dieu! ou bien je tourne aussi. (II essaye de tourneret tombe sur une chaise.) Et voilMles bienfaits d'une education bourgeoise. (Sa tete oscille. Jessica s'approche et le regarde.) JESSICA.-Bon. C'est fini. Voulez-vous m'aider * le porter dans son lit. (Slick la regarde en se grattantle crdne.) SLICK.-I1 a racont6de droles d'histoires. JESSICA (riant).-Vous ne le connaissez pas. Rien de ce qu'il dit n'a d'importance. (Slick et Gearges le souI.vent par les epaules et les pieds.) R I D E A U CINQUIMME TABLEAU Scene II' HUGO, JESSICA JESSICA.-Je rallume? HUGO.-Attends. Elle sera peut-6treobligoe de revenir. (lls attendent dans le noir.) JESSICA.-On pourrait entr'ouvrirles volets,pour voir. 1 In Scene I Olga visits Hugo and Jessica in their apartmentand reveals that it was she who threw the bomb. PT,

Yale FrenchStudies HUGO.-Non. (Un silence.) JESSICA.-Tu as de la peine? (Hugo ne ripond pas.) RMponds,pendant qu'il fait noir. HUGO.-J'ai mal au crAne,c'est tout. (Un temps.) Ca n'est pas grand'chose, la confiance,quand sa ne rnsistepas i huit jours d'attente. JESSICA.-Pas grand'chose, non. HUGO.-Et -commentveux-tuvivre,si personne ne te fait confiance? JESSICA.-Personne ne m'a jamais fait confiance,toi moins que les autres. Je me suis tout de meme arrangee. HUGO.-C'6tait la seule qui croyaitun peu en moi. JESSICA.-Hugo... HUGO.-La seule, tu le sais bien. (Un temps.) Elle doit etre en suretd A present. Je crois qu'on peut rallumer. (II rallume. Jessica se ddtourne brusquement.) Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? JESSICA.-Ca me gene de te revoir i la lumiere. HUGO.-Veux-tu que j'eteigne? JESSICA.-Non. (Elle revientvers lui.) Toi. Toi, tu vas tuer un homme. HUGO.-Est-ce que je sais ce que je vais faire? JESSICA.-Montre-moi le revolver. HUGO.-Pourquoi? JESSICA.-Je veux voir comment c'est fait. HUGO.-Tu l'as promene sur toi tout l'apres-midi. JESSICA.-A ce moment-lA,ce n'&ait qu'un jouet. HUGO.-(le lui tendant).-Fais attention. JESSICA.-Oui. (Elle le regarde.) C'est drole. HUGO.-Qu'est-ce qui est drole? JESSICA.-Il me fait peur A present. Reprends-le. (Un temps.) Tu vas tuer un homme. (Hugo se met rire.) JESSICA.-Pourquoi ris-tu? HUGO.-Tu y crois A present!Tu t'es d6cidee a y croire? JESSICA.-Oui. HUGO.-Tu^ as bien choisi ton moment: personrken'y croit plus. (Un temps.) I1 y a huit jours, sa m'aurait peut-etreaide . . . JESSICA.-Ce n'est pas ma faute: je ne crois que ce que je vois. Ce matin en-core,je ne pouvais meme pas imaginer qu'il meure. (Un temps.) Je suis entree dans le bureau tout A l'heure, il y avait le type qui saignait et vous 6tiez tous des morts. Hoederer, c'6tait un mort; je l'ai vu sur son visage! Si ce n'est pas toi qui le tues, ils enverrontquelqu'un d'autre. HUGO.-Ce sera moi. (Un temps.) Le type qui saignait,c'6tait sale, hein? JESSICA.-Oui. C'ktait sale.

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JEAN-PAULSARTRE HUGO.-Hoederer aussi va saigner. JESSICA.-Tais-toi. HUGO.-Il sera couch6 par terreavec un air idiot et il saignera dans ses vrtements. JESSICA.-(d'une voix lente et basse) .-Mais tais-toidonc. HUGO.-Elle a jeti6 un petard contre le mur. I1 n'y a pas de quoi etre fi&e: elle ne nous voyait meme pas. N'importe qui peut tuer si on ne l'oblige pas A voir ce qu'il fait. J'allais tirer,moi. J'&taisdedans, je les regardais en face et j'allais tirer; c'est elle qui m'a fait manquer mon coup. JESSICA.-Tu allais tirer pour de bon? HUGO.-J'avais la main dans ma poche et le doigt sur la gachette. JESSICA.-Et tu allais tirerlTu es suirque tu aurais pu tirer? HUGO.-Je . . . j'avais la chance d'etre en colere. Naturellement,j'allais firer.A presenttout est A recommencer(II rit.) Tu l'as entendue: ils disentque je suis un traitre.Ils ont beau jeu: l&-bas,quand ils decident qu'un homme va mourir,c'est comme s'ils rayaient un nom sur un annuafie: c'est propre, c'est 6lgant. Ici, la Mort est une besogne. Les abattoirs,c'est ici. (Un temps.) II boit, il fume, il me parle du Parti, il fait des projets et moi je pense au cadavre qu'il sera, c'est obscene. Tu as vu ses yeux? JESSICA.-Oui. HUGO.-Tu as vu comme ils sont brillantset durs? Et vifs? JESSICA.-Oui. HUGO.-C'est peut-etredans ses yeux que je tirerai. On vise le ventre, tu sais, mais l'arme se rekve. JESSICA.-J'aime ses yeux. HUGO.- (brusquement).-C'est abstrait. JESSICA.-Quoi? HUGO.-Un meurtre,je dis que c'est abstrait.Tu appuies sur la gachette et aprks sa tu ne comprendsplus rien i ce qui arrive. (Un temps.) Si l'on pouvait tirer en dftournant la tete. (Un temps) Je me demande pourquoi je te parle de tout sa. JESSICA.-Je me le demande aussi. HUGO.-Je m'excuse. (Un temps.) Pourtant si j'etais dans ce lit, en train de crever,tu ne m'abandonnerais tout de m~me pas? JESSICA.-Non. HUGO.-C'est la meme chose; tuer, mourir,c'est la meme chose: on est aussi seul. Il a de la veine, lui, il ne mourra qu'une fois. Moi, voilA dix jours que je le tue, A chaque minute. (Brusquement.) Qu'est-ce que tu ferais, Jessica? JESSICA.-Comment? HUGO.-Ecoute: si demain je n'ai pas tue, il faut que je disparaisse ou

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Yale FrenchStudies alors que j'aille les trouveret que je leur dise: faites de moi ce que voul voudrez. Si je tue . . . (II se cache un instant le visage avec la main.) Qu'estce ,qu'il faut que je fasse? Que ferais-tu? JESSICA.-Moi? Tu me demandes a' moi ce que je ferais k ta place? HUGO.-A qui veux-tuque je le demande? Je n'ai plus que toi au monde. JESSICA.-C'est vrai. Tu n'as plus que moi. Plus que moi. Pauvre Hugo. (Un temps.) J'irais trouverHoederer et je lui dirais: voi1I; on m'a envoys ici pour vous tuer mais j'ai chang& d'avis et je veux travailleravec vous. HUGO.-Pauvre Jessical JESSICA.-Ce n'est pas possible? HUGO.-C'est justement ga qui s'appellerait trahir. JESSICA.-(tristement).-Tu voisl Je ne peux rien te dire. (Un temps.) Pourquoi n'est-ce pas possible? Parce qu'il n'a pas tes ides? HUGO.-Si tu veux. Parce qu'il n'a pas mes idies. JESSICA.-Et il faut tuer les gens qui n'ont pas vos id6es? HUGO.-Quelquefois. JESSICA.-Mais pourquoi as-tu choisi les idWesde Louis et d'Olga. HUGO.- Parce qu'elles 6taient vraies. JESSICA.-Mais, Hugo, suppose que tu aies rencontreHoederer l'an dernier, au lieu de Louis. Ce sont ses idWesi lui qui te sembleraientvraies. HUGO.-Tu es folle. JESSICA.-Pourquoi? HUGO.-On croirait A t'entendre que toutes les opinions se valent et qu'on les attrape comme des maladies. JESSICA.-Je ne pense pas sa; je . . . je ne sais pas ce que je pense. Hugo, il est si fort,il suffitqu'il ouvre la bouche pour qu'on soit suirqu'il a raison. Et puis je croyaisqu'il etait sinc&e et qu'il voulait le bien du Parti. HUGO.-Ce qu'il veut, ce qu'il pense, je m'en moque. Ce qui compte c'est ce qu'il fait. JESSICA.-Mais. HUGO.-Objectivement, il agit comme un social-traitre. JESSICA.- (sans comprendre).-Objectivement? HUGO.-Oui. JESSICA.-Ahl (Un temps.) Et lui, s'il savait ce que tu prepares, est-ce qu'il penserait que tu es un social-traitre? HUGO.-Je n'en sais rien. JESSICA.-Mais est-cequ'il le penserait? HUGO.-Qu'est ce que sa peut faire? Oui, probablement. JESSICA.-Alors, qui a raison? HUGO.-Moi. JESSICA.-Comment le sais-tu?

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JEAN-PAULSARTRE HUGO.-La politique est une science. Tu peux demontrer que tu es dans le vrai et que les autres se trompent. JESSICA.-Dans ce cas pourquoi h~sites-tu? HUGO.-Ce serait trop long a t'expliquer. JESSICA.-Nous avons la nuit. HUGO.-Il faudrait des mois et des ann~es. JESSICA.-Ahl (Elle va aux livres.) Et tout est ecrit la-dedans? HUGO.-En un sens, oui. II suffitde savoir les lire. JESSICA.-Mon Dieu! (Elle en prend un, I'ouvre, le regarde, fascinde et le repose en saupirant.) Mon Dieul HUGO.-A present, laisse-moi.Dors ou fais ce que tu veux. JESSICA.-Qu-est-ce qu'il y a? Qu'est que j'ai dit? HUGO.-Rien. Tu n'as rien dit. C'est moi qui suis coupable: c'Stait une folie de te demander de l'aide. Tes conseils viennent d'un autre monde. JESSICA.-A qui la faute? Pourquoi ne m'a-t-onrien appris? Pourquoi ne m'as-tu rien expliqu&? Tu as entendu ce qu'il a dit? Que j'ktais ton luxe. Voili dix-neuf ans qu'on m'a instalhkedans votre monde d'hommes avec defense de toucher aux objets exposes et vous m'avez fait croire que tout marchait trbsbien et que je n'avais 'a m'occuper de rien sauf de mettredes fleursdans les vases et du parfum dans vos vies. Pourquoi m'avez-vousmenti? Pourquoi m'avez-vouslaissde dans l'ignorance,si c'6tait pour m'avouer un beau jour que ce monde craque de partout et que vous etes des incapables et pour m'obliger i choisir entre un suicide et un assassinat.Je ne veux pas choisir: je ne veux pas que tu te laisses tuer,je ne veux pas que tu le tues. Pourquoi m'a-t-onmis ce fardeau sur les 6paules? Je ne connais rien A vos histoireset ni revolutionje m'en lave les mains. Je ne suis ni oppresseur,ni social-traitre, naire, je n'ai rien fait, je suis innocente de tout. HUGO.-Je ne te demande plus rien, Jessica. JESSICA.-C'est trop tard, Hugo; tu m'as mise dans le coup. A present il faut que je choisisse.Pour toi et pour moi: c'est ma vie que je choisis avec la tienne et je . .. Ohl mon Dieul Je ne peux pas. HUGO.-Tu vois bien. (Un silence. Hugo est assis sur le lit, les yeux dans le vide. Jessica s'assied prhsde lui et lui met le bras autour du cou.) JESSICA.-Ne dis rien. Ne t'occupe pas de mois. Je ne te parlerai pas; je ne t'empecheraipas de rilkchir. Mais je serai 1U. II fait froid au matin: tit seras content d'avoir un peu de ma chaleur, puisque je n'ai rien d' -utre A te donner. Ta tate te fait toujours mal? HUGO.-Oui. JESSICA.-Mets-la sur mon 6paule. Ton frontbrnile. (Elle lui caresse les cheveux.) Pauvre tte.

11.

Yale FrenchStudies HUGO.- (se redressant brusquement).-Assez! JESSICA. (doucement).-Hugol HUGO.-Tu joues i la mere de famille. JESSICA.-Je ne joue pas. Je ne jouerai plus jamais. HUGO.-Ton corps est froid et tu n'as pas de chaleur k me donner. Ce n'est pas difficilede se pencher sur un homme avec un air maternel et de lui passer la main dans les cheveux; n'importe quelle filletter~verait d'6tre h ta place. Mais quand je t'ai prise dans mes bras et que je t'ai demand6 d'ktre ma femme,tu ne t'en es pas si bien tir&. JESSICA.-Tais-toi. HUGO.-Pourquoi me tairais-je?Est-ceque tu ne sais pas que notre amour 6tait une com~die? JESSICA.-Ce qui compte, cette nuit, ce n'est pas notre amour: c'est ce que tu feras demain. HUGO.-Tout se tient. Si j'avais &t6 sfir . . . (Brusquement.) Jessica, regarde-moi.Peux-tu me dire que tu m'aimes? (II la regarde. Silence.) Et voilA. Je n'aurai m~me pas eu ca. JESSICA.-Et toi, Hugo? Crois-tuque tu m'aimais? (II ne repond pas.) Tu vois bien. (Un temps. Brusquement.) Pourquoi n'essayes-tupas de le convaincre? HUGO.-De le convaincre? Qui? Hoederer? JESSICA.-Puisqu'il se trompe, tu dois pouvoir le lui prouver. HUGO.-Penses-tul Il est trop chinois. JESSICA.-Comment sais-tu que tes ides sont justes si tu ne peux pa! le dcmontrer?Hugo, ce serait si bien, tu r6concilieraistout le monde, tout le monde serait content, vous travailleriez tous ensemble. Essaye, Hugo, je t'en prie. Essaye au moins une fois avant de le tuer. (On frappe. Hugo se redresse et ses yeux brillent.) HUGO.-C'est Olga. Elle est revenue; j'ftais suirqu'elle reviendrait.Eteins la Iumi~re et va ouvrir. JESSICA.-Comme tu as besoin d'elle. (Elle va Steindre et ouvre la porte. Hoederer entre. Hugo rallume quand la porte est fermee.)

SCiNE III HUGO, JESSICA, HOEDERER JESSICA.- (reconnaissantHoederer) .-Ha! HOEDERER.-Je t'ai fait peur.

12

JEAN-PAULSARTRE JESSICA.-Je suis nerveuse,ce soir. 11 y a eu cette bombe . . Bien suir.Vous avez l'habitude de resterdans le noir? HOEDERER.-Oui. JESSICA.-J'y suis force. Mes yeux sont tr~s fatigues. HOEDERER.-Ah! (Un temps.) Je peux m'asseoir un moment? (11 s'assied dans le fauteuil.) Ne vous genez pas pour moi. HUGO.-Vous avez quelque chose i me dire? HOEDERER.-Non. Non, non. Tu m'as fait rire tout i l'heure: tu etais rouge de colere. HUGO.-Je. t'excuse pas: je m'y attendais. Je ne serais meme HOEDERER.-Ne tu n'avais pas protests. II y a beaucoup de choses qu'il faudra inquidt6 si que je t'explique. Mais demain. Demain nous parlerons tous les deux. A present ta journre est finie.La mienne aussi. Dr6le de journce hein? Pourquoi n'accrochez-vouspas de gravuresaux murs? Ca feraitmoins nu. Il y en a au grenier. Slick vous les descendra. JESSICA.-Comment sont-elles? HOEDERER.-Il y a de tout. Tu pourras choisir. JESSICA.- Je vous remercie. Je ne tiens pas aux gravures. HOEDERER.-Comme tu voudras. Vous n'avez rien a boire? JESSICA.-Non. Je regrette. HOEDERER.-Tant pis! Tant pisl Qu'est-ce que vous faisiez avant quc j'arrive? JESSICA.-Nous causions. HOEDERER.-Eh bien causezl causezl Ne vous occupez pas de moi. (11 bourre sa pipe et l'allume. Un silence trhslourd. II sourit.) Oui, &videmment. JESSICA.-Ce n'est pas tres commode de s'imaginerque vous n'etes pas 1M. HOEDERER.-Vous pouvez tres bien me mettre i la porte. (A Hugo.) Tu n'es pas oblige de recevoirton patron quand il a des lubies. (Un temps.) Je ne sais pas pourquoi je suis venu. Je n'avais pas sommeil, j'ai essayd de travailler. . . (Haussant les Spaules.) On ne peut pas travaillertout le temps. JESSICA.-Non. HOEDERER.-Cette affaireva finir... HUGO.- (vivement).-Quelle affaire? HOEDERER.-L'affaire avec Karsky.Il se fait un peu tireri'oreille mais sa ira plus vite que je ne pensais. HUGO (violemment).-Vous... HOEDERER.-Cht. Demainl Demainl (Un temps.) Quand une affaire est en voie de se terminer,on se sent ddsoeuvr.. Vous aviez de la lumiere il y a un moment? JESSICA.-Oui. HOEDERER.-Je m'6tais mis a la fenetre. Dans le noir, pour ne pas

13

Yale FrenchStudies servirde cible. Vous avez vu comme la nuit est sombre et calme? La lumi~re passait par la fentede vos volets. (Un temps.) Nous avons vu la mortde pr&s. JESSICA.-Oui. HOEDERER (avec un petit rire).-De tout prks. (Un temps.) Je suis sorti tout doucement de ma chambre. Slick dormait dans le couloir. Dans le salon, Georges dormait. IUon dormait dans le vestibule. J'avais envie de le rzveiller et puis . . . Bahl (Un temps.) Alors voilI: je suis venu. (A Jessica) Qu'est-cequ'il y a? Tu avais l'air moins intimidbecet apr~s-midi. JESSICA.-C'est it cause de l'air que vous avez. air? HOEDERER.-Quel JESSICA.-Je croyais que vous n'aviez besoin de personne. HOEDERER.-Je n'ai besoin de personne. (Un temps.) Slick m'a di( que tu 6tais enceinte? JESSICA (vivement).-Ce n'est pas vrai. HUGO.-Voyons, Jessica, si tu l'as dit A Slick, pourquoi le cacher k Hoederer? JESSICA.-Je me suis moqu6e die Slick. HOEDERER (la regarde longuement).-Bon. (Un temps.) Quand j'6tais d&put&au Landstag, j'habitais chez un garagiste.Le soir, je venais fumerla pipe dans leur salle A manger. Il y avait une radio, les enfantsjouaient . . . (Un temps.) Allons je vais me coucher. C'itait un mirage. JESSICA.-Qu'est-ce qui 6tait un mirage? HOEDERER (avec un geste).-Tout ca. Vous aussi. Il faut travailler, c'est tout ce qu'on peut faire. Tu t&lphoneras au village, pour que le menuisier vienne rvparer la fen6tredu bureau. (ll te regarde.) Tu as l'air &reint; Il parait que tu t'es saoul6? Dors, cette nuit. Tu n'as pas besoin de venir avant neuf heures. (II se 1ve. Hugo fait un pas. Jessica se jette entre eux.) JESSICA.-Hugo, c'est le moment. HUGO.-Quoi? JESSICA.-Tu m'as promis d'essayer de le convaincre. HOEDERER.-De me convaincre? HUGO.-Tais-toi. (II essaie de l'Pcarter.Elle se met devant lui.) JESSICA.-II n'est pas d'accord avec vous. HOEDERER (amusi).-Je m'en suis apercu. JESSICA.-II voudrait vous expliquer. HOEDERER.-DemainI DemainI JESSICA.-Demain il sera trop tard. HOEDERER.-Pourquoi? JESSICA (toujours devant Hugo).-Il . . . il dit qu'il ne veut plus vous servir de secritaire si vous ne l'&outez pas. Vous n'avez sommeil ni l'un ni

14

JEAN-PAULSARTRE l'autre et vous avez toute la nuit et . . . et vous avez fr6IMla mort,sa rend plus conciliant. HUGO.-Laisse tomber,je te dis. JESSICA.-Hugo, tu m'as promisl (A Hoederer.) I1 dit que vous etes un social-traitre. HOEDERER.-Un social-traitreIRien que caI JESSICA.-Objectivement. I1 a dit: objectivement. HOEDERER (changeant de ton et de visage).-Ca va. Eh bien, mon petit gars,dis-moice que tu as sur le coeur, puisqu'on ne peut nas l'empkher. 11 faut que je regle cette affaireavant d'aller me coucher. Pourquoi suis-je un social-traitre? HUGO.-Parce que vous navez r Is le droit d'entrainer le Parti dans vos combines. HOEDERER.-Pourquoi pas? HUGO.-C'est une organisation r&volutionnaireet vous allez en faire un parti de gouvernement. Partis rdvolutionnairessont faits pour prendre le HOEDERER.-Les pouvoir. HUGO.-Pour le prendre. Oui. Pour s'en emparer par les armes Pas pour l'acheter par un maquignonnage. le sang que tu regrettes?J'en suis fache mais tu HOEDERER.-C'est devrais savoir que nous ne pouvons pas nous imposer par la force. En cas de guerre civile, le Pentagone a les armes et les chefs militaires.I1 servirait de cadre aux troupes contre-revolutionnaires. HUGO.-Qui parle de guerre civile? Hoederer, je ne vous comprends pas; il suffiraitd'un peu de patience. Vous l'avez dit vous-meme: l'armne rouge chassera le Rkgent et nous aurons le pouvoir pour nous seuls. comment ferons-nouspour le garder? (Un temps.) HOEDERER.-Et Quand I'Armnerouge aura franchinos frontieres,je te garantis qu'il y aura de durs moments a passer. HUGO.-L'armee rouge... HOEDERER.-Oui, oui. Je sais. Moi aussi, je l'attends. Et avec impatience. Mais il faut bien que tu te le dises: toutes les arm&esen guerre,lib& ratricesou non, se ressemblent:elles vivent sur le pays occupe. Nos paysans d&testerontles Russes, c'est fatal, commentveux-tu qu'ils nous aiment, nous que les Russes auront imposs? On nous appellera le parti de l'etrangerou peut-6trepis. Le Pentagone rentreradans la clandestinite; il n'aura m~me pas besoin de changer ses slogans. HUGO.-Le Pentagone,je ... HOEDERER.-Et puis, il y a autre chose: le pays est ruinC; il se peut meme qu'il serve de champ de bataille. Quelque soit le gouvernementqui

15

Yale FrenchStudies succ&dera ; celui du R~gent, il devra prendre des mesures terriblesqui le feronthair. Au lendemain du d~part de I'Arm&e rouge, nous serons balayes par une insurrection. HUGO.-Une insurrection,sa se brise. Nous 6tablironsun ordre de fer. HOEDERER.-Un ordre de fer? Avec quoi? M~me apres la Revolution le proltariat resterale plus faible et pour longtemps.Un ordre de ferI Avec un parti bourgeois qui fera dU sabotage et une population paysanne qui bruilerases ricoltes pour nous affamer? HUGO.-Et apres? Le Parti bolcheviken a vu d'autres en 17. HOEDERER.-Il n'6tait pas impos6 par 1'etranger.Maintenant ecoute, petit, et tAchede comprendre;nous prendronsle pouvoir avec les liberaux de Karsky et les conservateursdu Regent. Pas d'histoires,pas de casse: l'union nationale. Personne ne pourra nous reprocherd'etre installs par 1'6tranger. J'ai demands la moitie des voix au Comitt6de Resistance mais je ne ferai pas la sottisede demander la moitie des portefeuilles.Une minorite,voilk ce que nous devons etre. Une minorit6qui laissera aux autres partis la responsabilitd des mesuresimpopulaireset qui gagnera la popularite en faisantde 1'opposition i l'int~rieur du gouvernement.Ils sont coincs: en deux ans tu verras 13 faillite de la politique lib~rale et c'est le pays tout entier qui nous demander; de faire notre exprience. HUGO.-Et a ce moment-lIale parti sera foutu. HOEDERER.-Foutu? Pourquoi? HUGO.-Le Parti a un programme:la r6alisationd'une &onomie socialiste et un moyen: l'utilisation de la lutte de classes. Vous allez vous servirde lui pour faire une politique de collaboration de classes dans le cadre d'une economie capitaliste. Pendant des ann&s vous allez mentir, ruser, louvoyer, vous irez de compromisen compromis;vous ddfendrezdevant nos camarades des mesuresr6actionnairesprises par un gouvernementdont vous ferezpartie. Personne ne comprendra:les durs nous quitteront,les autresperdrontla culture politique qu'ils viennent d'acqudrir. Nous serons contamin6s, amollis, desorientds; nous deviendrons r~formisteset nationalistes; poui finir,les partis bourgeois n'auront qu'i prendre la peine de nous liquider. Hoederer! cc Parti. c'est le votre,vous ne pouvez pas avoir oubli6 la peine que vous avez prise pour le forger,les sacrificesqu'il a fallu demander,la discipline qu'iI a fallu imposer. Je vous en supplie: ne le sacrifiezpas de vos propresmains. HOEDERER.-Que de bavardagestSi tu ne veux pas courir de risques il ne faut pas faire de politique. HUGO.-Je ne veux pas courir ces risques-lM. HOEDERER.-Parfait: alors commentgarder le pouvoir? HUGO.-Pourquoi le prendre? HOEDERER.-Es-tu fou? Une armee socialiste va occuper le pays et tu

16

JEAN-PAULSARTRE la laisserais repartirsans profiterde son aide? C'est une occasion qui ne se reproduirajamais plus: je te dis que nous ne sommespas assez fortspour faire la RMvolutionseuls. HUGO.-On ne doit pas prendre le pouvoir i ce prix. HOEDERER.-Qu'est-ce que tu veux fairedu Parti? Une 6curie de courses? A quoi sa sert-ilde fourbirun couteau tous les jours si l'on n'en use jamais pour trancher?Un Parti, ce n'est jamais qu'un moyen.I1 n'y a qu'un seul but: le pouvoir. HUGO.-I1 n'y a qu'un seul but: c'est de faire triomphernos iddes, toutes nos id&es et rien qu'elles. HOEDERER.-C'est vrai: tu as des idces, toi. Ca te passera. HUGO.-Vous croyezque je suis le seul i en avoir? Ca n'dtait pas pour des idees qu'ils sont morts,les copains qui se sont fait tuer par la police du Regent? Vous croyezque nous ne les trahirionspas, si nous faisionsservirle Part i dddouaner leurs assassins? HOEDER.ER.-Je me fous des morts. Ils sont morts pour le Parti et le Parti peut dcider ce qu'il veut. Je fais une politique de vivant, pour les vivants. HUGO.-Et vous croyezque les vivantsaccepterontvos combines? HOEDERER.-On les leur fera avaler tout doucement. HUGO.-En leur mentant? HOEDERER.-En leur mentant quelquefois. HUGO.-Vous . . vous avez l'air si vrai, si solidel Ca n'est pas possible que vous acceptiez de mentiraux camarades. HOEDERER.-Pourquoi? Nous sommesen guerreet sa n'est pas l'habitude de mettrele soldat heure par heure au courant des operations. HUGO.-Hoederer, je . .. je sais mieux que vous ce que c'est que le mensonge; chez mon pere tout le monde se mentait,tout le monde me mentait. Je ne respireque depuis mon entree au Parti. Pour la premierefoisj'ai vu des hommes qui ne mentaientpas aux autres hommes.Chacun pouvait avoir confianceen tous et tous en chacun, le militantle plus humble avait le sentiment que les ordres des dirigeantslui rivlaient sa volonte profonde et, s'il y avait un coup dur, on savait pourquoi on acceptaitde mourir.Vous n'allez pas... HOEDERER.-Mais de quoi parles-tu? HUGO.-De notre Parti. HOEDERER.-De notre Parti? Mais on y a toujoursun peu menti.Comme partout ailleurs. Et toi Hugo, tu es suirque tu ne t'es jamais menti,que tu n'as jamais menti,que tu ne mens pas k cette minute meme. HUGO.-Je n'ai jamais menti aux camarades. Je . . . A quoi sa sert dc lutterpour la liberation des hommes,si on les mepriseassez pour leur bourrer le crane.

17

Yale FrenchStudies HOEDERER.-Je mentiraiquand il faudraet je ne m~prisepersonne.Le mensonge, ce n'estpas moiqui l'ai invent6:il estn6 dansune socift6divis~een de en naissant.Ce n'estpas en refusant classeset chacunde nous l'a hMritW mentirque nous abolironsle mensonge:c'esten usantde tousles moyenspour les classes. supprimer HUGO.-Tous les moyensne sontpas bons. HOEDERER.-Tous les moyenssontbonsquand ils sontefficaces. HUGO.-Alors,de quel droitcondamnez-vous la politiquedu R6gent?I1 a ddclarEla guerrei l'U.R.S.S. parce que c'&taitle moyenle plus efficace de sauvegarder nationale. l'ind~pendance HOEDERER.-Est-ce que tu t'imagines que je la condamne? Je n'ai pas le tempsk perdre.I1 a faitce que n'importe quel typede sa casteauraitfaita sa place. Nous ne luttonsni contredes hommesni contreune politiquemais contrela classequi produitcettepolitiqueet ces hommes. HUGO.-Et le meilleurmoyenque vous ayiez trouvdpour luttercontre elle,c'estde lui offrir de partagerle pouvoiravec vous? HOEDERER.-Parfaitement.Aujourd'hui,c'est le meilleurmoyen. (Un tetrtps.)Commetu tiensi ta purec-,mon petitgarslCommetu as peurde te salirles mains.Eh bien restepurl A qui cela servira-t-il et pourquoiviens-tu parminous?La purety,c'est une idde de fakiret de moine.Vous autres,les intellectuels, les anarchistes bourgeois, vousen tirezprntexte pourne rienfaire. Ne rienfaire,resterimmobile, serrerles coudescontrele corps,porterdesgants. Moi j'ai les mainssales.Jusqu'auxcoudes.Je les ai plongiesdans la merdeet dans le sang. Et puis apres?Estce que tu t'imaginesqu'on peut gouverner innocemment? un jour que je n'ai pas peurdu sang. HUGO.-On s'apercevra peut-6tre HOEDER.ER.-Parbleu: des gantsrouges,c'est e.legant.C'est le restequi te faitpeur.C'est ce qui pue i ton petitnez d'aristocrate. un typequi n'a HUGO.-Et nous y voilkrevenus:je suis un aristocrate, jamais eu faimlMalheureusement pour vous,je ne suis pas seul de mon avis. HOEDERER.-Pas seul?Tu savaisdoncquelque chosede mesnkgociations avantde venirici? HUGO.-N-non. On en avait parld en l'air, au Parti et la plupartdes typesn'6taientpas d'accordet je peux vous jurer que ce n'&taientpas des aristocrates. HOEDERER.-Mon petit,il y a malentendu:je les connais,les garsdu Partiqui ne sontpas d'accordavec ma politiqueet je peux te direqu'ils sont S'ils ont de mon esp~ce,pas de la tienne-ettu ne tarderaspas a le d&couvrir. c'est toutsimplement dtsapprouv4ces ndgociations, qu'ils les jugentinopporils seraientles premiersi les engager.Toi, tu tunes;en d'autrescirconstances en faisune affaire de principes.

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JEAN-PAULSARTRE HUGO.-Qui a parl6 de principes? HOEDERER.-Tu n'en fais pas une affairede principes?Bon. Alors voici qui doit te convaincre:si nous traitonsavec le Regent, il arretela guerre; les troupes illyriennesattendentgentimentque les Russes viennent les disarmer; si nous romponsles pourparlers,il sait qu'il est perdu et il se battra commeun chien enrag6; des centaines de milliersd'hommesy laisserontleur peau. Qu'en dis-tu? (Un silence.) Hein? Qu'en dis-tu?Peux-turayercent mille hommesd'un traitde plume? HUGO (peniblement).-On ne fait pas la revolutionavec des fleurs.S'ils doivent y rester... HOEDERER.-Eh bien? HUGO.-Eh bien tant pis! HOEDERER.-Tu vois! tu vois bien! Tu n'aimes pas les hommes,Hugo. Tu n'aimes que les principes. HUGO.-Les hommes?Pourquoi les aimerais-je?Est-cequ'ils m'aiment? HOEDERER.-Alors pourquoi es-tuvenu chez nous? Si on n'aime pas les hommeson ne peut pas lutterpour eux. HUGO.-Je suis entrdau Parti parce que sa cause est juste et j'en sortirai quand elle cessera de l'#tre.Quant aux hommes,ce n'est pas ce qu'ils sont qui m'int~ressemais ce qu'ils pourrontdevenir. HOEDERER.-Et moi, je les aime pour ce qu'ils sont. Avec toutes leurs saloperies et tous leurs vices. J'aime leurs voix et leurs mains chaudes qui prennentet leur peau, la plus nue de toutes les peaux, et leur regard inquiet et la lutte ddsespdr&equ'ils mnnentchacun h son tour contrela mort et contre l'angoisse. Pour moi, ca compte, un homme de plus ou de moins dans le monde. C'est precieux. Toi, je te connais bien mon petit, tu es un destructeur. Les hommes, tu les d6testes parce que tu te d&testestoi-meme; ta puret6 ressembleA la mort,et la Revolution dont tu reves n'est pas la n6tre: tu ne veux pas changerle monde, tu veux le faire sauter. HUGO (s'est lev) .-Hoedererl IHOEDERER.-Ce n'est pas ta faute: vous etes tous pareils. Un intellectuel sa n'est pas un vrai rnvolutionnaire;c'est tout juste bon a faireun assassin. HUGO.-Un assassin. Ouil JESSICA.-Hugol (Elle se met entre eux. Bruit de cli dans la serrure.La porte s'ouvre. Entrent Georges et Slick.)

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Yale FrenchStudies Scene IV Les mnmes,SLICK et GEORGES GEORGES.-Te voilk. On te cherchaitpartout. HUGO.-Qui vous a donn6 ma c1I? SLICK.-On a les cl6s de toutes les portes. Dis: des gardes du corpst GEORGES (ai Hoederer) .-Tu nous as flanque la frousse.II y a Slick qui se reveille: plus d'Hoederer. Tu devrais privenir quand tu vas prendrele frais. HOEDERER.-Vous dormiez ... SLICK (ahuri).-Et alors? Depuis quand nous laisses-tudormir quand tu as envie de nous rMveiller? HOEDERER (riant).-En effet,qu'est-cequi m'a pris? (Un temps.) Je vais rentreravec nous. A demain, petit. A neuf heures. On reparlera de tout qa. (Hugo ne rdpond pas.) Au revoir,Jessica. JESSICA.-A demain, Hoederer. (Uls srrtent.) Scene V JESSICA, HUGO (Un long silence.) JESSICA.-Alors? HUGO.-Alors? Eh bien tu 6tais lM et tu as entendu. JESSICA.-Qu'est-ce que tu penses? HUGO.-Que veux-tuque je pense? Je t'avais dit qu'il &tait chinois. JESSICA.-Hugol II avait raison. HUGO.-Ma pauvre Jessica! Qu'est-ce que tv peux en savoir? JESSICA.-Et toi qu'en sais-tu?Tu n'en menais pas large devant lui. HUGO.-Parbleu! Avec moi, il avait beau jeu. J'aurais voulu qu'il ait affairei Louis; il ne s'en serait pas tire si facilement. JESSICA.-Peut-etre qu'il l'aurait mis dans sa poche. HUGO (riant).-Hal Louis? Tu ne le connais pas: Louis ne peut pas se tromper. JESSICA.-Pourquoi? HUGO.-Parce que. Parce que c'est Louis. JESSICA.-HugoI Tu parles contre ton coeur. Je t'ai regards pendant que tu discutais avec Hoederer: il t'a convaincu. HUGO.-Il ne m'a pas convaincu. Personne ne peut me convaincrequ'on doit mentir aux camarades. Mais s'il m'avait convaincu, ce serait une raison de plus pour le descendreparce que sa prouveraitqu'il en convaincrad'autres. Demain matin, je finiraile travail. R I D E AU

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HENRI PEYRE

Existentialisma Literatureof Despair? It has oftenbeen remarkedthat French political criseshave a strangeway of being exalted to the plane of universal and ideological crisesof conscience, in which other nations take sides with more eagerness than in their own debates. The literaryand artisticquarrels which Parisian circles periodically launch under some new label or "movement"-Realism,Impressionism,Symbolism, Cubism, Surrealism-similarlyarouse enthusiasmor revulsionabroad. Magazines which one would hardlycall literarysuddenlygrant ample space to fact and rumor,concrete pictures and even abstractideas, to ieport on the latest Gallic creation. Existentialism,whose fathersand forefathers were mostlyGermans,with a Dane and a Spaniard figuringprominently,has been adapted and transformed by the French, and is now re-exportedby them to the rest of the world. The doctrine itselfis not easy to grasp; the original quality of much literarywork that it inspired appears only dimly through translations.Serious studies on Existentialismhave thus far been scarce. But there are two aspects on which superficialobservers seized: the immoralityand the pessimism of the new literary"School." With the firstof these two notions we shall not deal here. Sartrewritesno Sunday-schoolstories;neither did Proust nor Zola, Hemingway nor Steinbeck. Indeed few were the writersof importance,beginningwith Balzac and Baudelaire, who were not accused of corruptingthe youth.Everycountryexperiences an enhanced pleasure if it can fling the charge of immoralityat a foreign writer.English and American criticslong enjoyed a comfortingsense of their own superioritywhen judging the writersfromthe Continent; the French were when they discovered in Joyce,Lawrence, Henry Miller equally self-righteous had them in unconventionalboldness. Immoralityin literaoutdone rivals who ture,alasl is one of the most insecureof charges,and one whichoftenrebounds perilouslyagainst the accuser, to cover him with ridicule fiftyyears later. If few great writerswere wilfullyor inordinatelyimmoral,we find many more who deserve to be called pessimists: Sophocles, and a score of other Greeks, dramatistsand lyricists,Lucretius; Seneca, who in a splendid chorus of his tragedy,The Trojan Women,celebratedthe returnto nothingnesswhich awaits men after their brief existence; Marcus Aurelius, who compared man

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Yale FrenchStudies refusingthe call of death to preventingthe fig tree fromhaving juice, Montaigne,and mostof all Shakespeare,who mightbe called an Existentialistavant la lettrewhen he proclaimed throughhis charactersthe absurdityof this "tale told by an idiot ... signifyingnothing" and bade us "endure our going hence even as our coming hither. Ripeness is all." We pass from these pessimiststo Hardy, Kafka, and Faulkner; we find them in every literature,especially the youngestof all, the Russian and the American.Theoretically,a pessimistis the rare and paradoxical mind who contendsthat thisworld is the worstof possible worlds. In practice, he is merely the person inclined to dwell on the uglier or darker side of things.There are many shades to such a mood, fromanger vented in scathingepigramsagainst God or Fate, to the consistentdenouncing of existence as irretrievablysubject to pain and misery.While pessimismis ultimatelyto be traced to personal, perhaps to physiologicalcauses, it may also be due in part to the difficulties of the time in whichone lives. Fear, insecurity, the sense that a whole civilizationis near its collapse may invade whole groups of thoughtfulor sensitivepersons.It did so at the time of Lucretius,and again at the time of Marcus Aurelius; in the fourteenthcenturyand again in the late nineteenth.Are we again in an age of fear and despair today?What attitude can be adopted by the modern writeraware of the threatshanging over our heads? The easiest one, and not the least charitable,is escapism. Literature,after all, has always been called upon to adorn life and to weave garlands around the sombre textureof reality.Men of courage and intelligence,such as the late Jean Giraudoux, preferred,aftergoing throughthe First World War, to forget its ugliness and to take refugein a world of poetical fancy.Others chose the refuge,perhaps more cowardly,of humor; refusingto see tragedyas tragic, theystressedman's ability to laugh in the midst of his sorrowsand to preserve the gesturesand conventionsof civilized life. Thus are the English and Scottish officers sketchedin Maurois's war books, gentlemenall. A third attitude is that of the dilettanti,who watch their fellow-beings with amusement,expect little from fate, regard self-pityas vulgar, and derive Neronian comfortfromthe dismal sightsofferedto them by the cataclysmsof history.Closely allied to them are the Epicurean hedonists,who wiselylet the world have its way. They are convinced that theycould do little to improveit. that they would sufferin the attempt,and that it is wiser to enjoy the few benefitsof life. More reasonable than Pascalian frightappears to them Hebbel'" sally, quoted approvinglyby Gide in his diary for 1937: "What is the most sensible thing for the rat caught in the trap to do? Eat up the fat." When practised by more passionate temperaments,this hedonism can become the Dionysian revolt of those immoralistswho proclaim, with a characterin The Possessed: "If God does not exist,everythingis permitted."

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HENRI PEYRE The Existentialistshave been impressedby this sayingof Dostoievsky;but theyhave consistentlyopposed its conclusion.Far fromconsentingto a hedonist or a moralistattitude,theyhave preached a code of universalresponsibility and proclaimed their duty to improve this world. These atheistsare Puritans after a manner; the repressedor invertedSunday-schoolteacher lurks behind the Existentialist.It is no secretthat Sartreis at presentat workon formulating his systemof ethics. And he openly stressed,in his article of Les Temps Modernes June 1947, p. 1629)), the Jansenistseverityof his position: "We are Jansenists,because our age has made us thus, and since it has forced us to explore our own limits,I would say that we are all metaphysicalwriters." The escapist,the cynicallyhumorous,and the Epicurean brands of pessimism are certainlyalien to Sartre and his Existentialistfriends.Nor do these Frenchmenof 1940-48 side with the starkestand the truestof pessimists,the prostrateones, who wail our mournfulfate, deride, with Leopardi, our ludicrous effortsto repel the hydra of "Infelicith,"or repeat that we cannot play a game in which the dice have been loaded against us. Shakespeare'sGloucester clad theirdesolation in immortallanguage: As fliesto wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for theirsport. The picture of the world drawn fromExistentialistliteratureis not a rosy one. Some themes recur with a revealing insistence in their novels: nausea (physical and metaphysical),inordinate absorption of hard drinks "d l'am~ricaine," homosexuality,abortion, even occasional scatology.The inertia of the characterswho accept the sordidnessof their existenceis depicted with a complacencywhich the reader (wrongly) feels to be akin to complicity.Evil is not even depicted with the tense energy which endows other descents into the inferno, such as Proust's, or Weline'sVoyage au bout de la nuit, with a Dantesque or Miltonic grandeur. Love is never deified as it is in D. H. Lawrence; the body and its miseriesare debased as if viewed by Christianascetics. If Existentialismis un-Christian,it is even more alien to paganism. But the picture of the world offeredin these Existentialistnovels and plays is drawn with a purpose. And that purpose is not the debasing of man or the deliberate excitementof his lowest instincts.When Sartre plumbs the ugliest abysses of eroticismor scatology,as he has done on occasion in the volume Le Mur and in Les Chemins de la liberte,he repels his readers and harms his art; but one does not feel as one does with Jules Romains that the author deliberatelycontrivesto pepper every volume with bawdy scenes, to tempt readers of falteringgood-will into buying volume after volume of the long saga. Sartre is not, or not yet, a great novelist; he can already be called

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Yale FrenchStudies a powerfuldramatist.But neitherin his fictionnor in his drama does he dally with vice or condescend to the use of inartisticmeans. He stands for man's ability to remain or to become the master of his fate. His charactersare not doomed by hereditynor conditioned by outward circumstances;man's willpower does not founder in a sea of sordid objects. In other words, Sartre stands resolutelyagainst the determinismof Naturalist fiction. Naturalism rested upon the two assumptionsmost flatlyrepudiated by Existentialism: materialism and determinism.The new doctrine severs our links with the past; it depicts us as makingperpetuallya choice which projects us into the future,and divorces human reality frommaterial reality.Sartre's bitterestcriticismhas been levelled at Flaubert, at Maupassant,l at realistic plays "made up of storiesof defeat,laissez-faire,and drifting."2In a revealing interviewgiven to Mme Dominique Aury,3he declared: "Zola's books are writtenin the past, my charactershave a future.Each of my characters,after having done anythingwhatever,may still do anythingwhatever. . . I never calculate whetherthe action accomplishedis logically insertedin the sequence of other acts, but I take the situation,and a libertychained in situation .... The gain I make is that of unpredictability."Sartre'sreader is not depressed, as Zola's or Dreiser's reader was, by man's inabilityto disengage himselffrom the shackles of a preordained fate. But he is anguished by the immensityof the task proposed to his responsible and free choice. He needs to musterall his courage because he has to bear his burden alone. There is no God to assist him. Here is doubtless the basic assertion which has aroused much hostility toward Existentialistliterature.Yet the famous cry "God is dead" had been utteredfiftyyears earlier by Nietzsche; and much of our thinkingand writing since then has been done as if Nietzsche's assertion were unquestioningly accepted by us. Proust's,for example. The Existentialists,followingup a lead given by Malraux's earliest work, La Tentation de l'Occident, drive this atheism to logical, and constructive,consequences: can man survivethe death of God? Can he accept his position as a derelict and anguished creaturein a world fromwhich the notion of Providence' has once for all been expelled, and give a meaning to his own life, and to the world? For atheism is not borne lightheartedlyby the Existentialists."Few are those who have the rightto disbelieve,"Renan said once. Existentialistatheism "Qu'est-ce que la litt6rature?"V, Les Temps Modernes,June, 1947. "'Forgersof Myths,"Theatre Arts,June, 1946,p. 329. 8 Les Lettresfranpaises, November 24, 1945. ' Cf. "Qu'est-ceque la litt~rature?," V (Les Temps Modernes,June, 1947), p. 1634; "We wish to drive Providence out of our writingsas we have driven it away fromour world." 1

2

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HE:NRI PEYRE is not likely to seduce the many. It would oftenbe more pleasant for Sartrian charactersthemselvesto feel a friendlypresence by their side, a powerful shoulder onto which they might shift their burden; it would be temptingto exorcize their Heideggerian "Sorge" and "Angst" through prayer. But their lot is to strugglethroughtheircare and their anguish. They wonder why they exist, and why the universe exists, and why anythingshould exist, and why human life suddenly irrupted, unwanted, in this world. Their question is indeed the fundamentalone asked by all philosophical minds.5Their anxiety increaseswhen theyrealize that theyare a paradox in this irrationaluniverse, where, alone with his reason, man is "de trop," unwanted, unfitted,puzzled by the absurdityof his own presence,vainly applying his reason to explain a universewhich bafflesrationality.Camus has best expressed this obsession with the absurd and he may in this respect be grouped with the Existentialists, althoughhis philosophylacks coherenceand depth. But these writerswill accept no easy solace, no refuge in a dream-world, no escape froma burden which theyhave not soughtto carry.Even love offers littlecomfort,since it is an attempt,often defeated,to break throughour loneliness and, more often still, a mere will to be loved so that we may be confirmedin our own existence.Freedom has been given us. Everyone of our acts constitutesa freemove which engages not only the one who does it, but man in general, and entails a universal scale of values. We thread our way among mazes and stumble along the brink of precipices. But we shall not renounce the attributewhich plunged us into this dereliction: the use of our liberty. In the gravest and perhaps the most perfect of Sartre's works to this day, Les Mouches, Zeus confessesto Aegisthusthe secret of the gods: men are free, and "once freedomhas burst into a man's soul, the gods are powerlessagainst that man." Orestesproudlyassumeshis criminalburden, for that burden is also his freedom.Tormented by the Furies,he confrontshis makerwith the defiance of a new Prometheus: "I shall not return under your law; I am doomed to have no otherlaw but mine . . . For I am a man, and everyman must discover his own path. Nature abhors man, and you too, sovereignof the gods, you abhor men." It is clear that there is no light-heartedgaiety in such an attitude, but equally clear that it is perhaps the most generous,and the most deeply concerned with the general problemsof man's fate that France has seen since the eighteenthcentury."Everyone is responsiblefor everythingbefore everybody": 5 Bergson, in L'Evolutioncrdatrice,has definedtheproblemof nothingness (whydoes anything exist?)as theprimary one in philosophical but reflection, one whichalso had to be dismissed, nothingness beingunthinkable.

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Yale FrenchStudies the Existentialistshave made theirsthese words fromThe BrothersKaramazov, and definedtheirdoctrineas a humanism,since it deems nothinghuman alien to it, and, indeed, stressesthe "human, all too human" featuresof our condition. In truth,the most valid charge that mightbe profferedagainst such a doctrineis the same as was put forwardagainst seventeenth-century Jansenism: its aim is set too high,and it demands too much fromits adepts. The responsibility for the whole of mankind which everyone of our acts involves is a burden to be borne only by a chosen and strongfew. The austere heroismwhich Existentialismpreaches can only be attained throughlucidity,courage, intellectual agility to guide us among pitfalls,and fraternityfelt in the heart as well as reasoned in the mind. The word heroism is indeed not out of place. A selection of thoughts fromthe French Existentialistsmightbe compiled, all advocating a loftyand ambitious ethics,which would placate their enemies but would probably disappoint some of theiryoungeradmirerswho are drawn to the abstrusedoctrine by the feeling that it is advanced and "naughty." A few examples may here suffice. Taking his stand for Corneille, the psychologistof the will set at the very core of passion, against Racine, who studies the dialectic of love "without ever allowing moral considerationsor human will to deflect the inevitability of its solution," Sartre defined the drama of the new French generation as Cornelian, austere,moral. "The very severityof these plays is in keeping with the severity of French life; their moral and metaphysicaltopics reflectthe preoccupation of a nation which must,at one and the same time,reconstructand recreate,and which is searchingfornew principles."s Commentingon some of the sordid scenes in Les Chemins de la liberti, in which the characterMathieu frittershis life away because he waits for salvation to come fromoutside and will not make use of his liberty,Sartre has clarifiedhis position toward this character,whom blind reviewershave presented as the mouthpiece of the author, while he is really but a caricatureof misconceivedfreedom. "Mathieu is still waiting for the help of God, I mean, of something outside him which might beckon to him and tell him: this is Mathieu's cause. But his cause will only be the one which he will decide to be his." And again: "I write on what is. And I am much more optimisticthan the 'wisdom of nations' which,in presence.ofa horrid action, simplysays: it is human. I show it forwhat it is: horrid.Can I help its being so?"7 6

"Forgersof Myths,"op. cit.,p. p2 and p. 335.

7 Les Lettresfranaises, loc. cit.

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HENRI PEYRE In the announcementwhich accompanied the publication of the firsttwo volumes of Les Chemins de la libertd (the forthcomingvolume-or volumeswill raise the charactersto heroism,after they have discovered their freedom and accepted their solidaritywith other men), Sartre has clearly confessedhis aim: "It is indeed a novel of heroes that I wish to write. But, in contrast with our bien-pensants [orthodox and conservative French writers],I do not believe heroismto be easy." Almost at the same time, in the manifestowhich opened the review Les Temps Modernes, Sartre,who has not been sparing in statementsof his intentions,declared: "We take our stand with those who want to change the social condition of man and the conception he entertainsof himself." Camus has disclaimedaffiliationwith the Existentialistgroup, but his point of departure,his main tendencies,even the philosopherswhom he quotes in Le Mythe de Sisyphe (Kierkegaard,Nietzsche,Husserl, Heidegger,Jaspers) ally him in fact with Sartre; his divergence from the group may appear more markedlylater, as he evolves his own originality.The ethics he advocates is nominally anti-Christian;or rather,as his Catholic criticsin France have not failed to notice, remainsparallel to the Christianone while rejectingChristian premises. In his earliest work,Les Noces, in which Camus's talent as a prose-writer was at its highest,he rejected faithin immortalityas insultingto the beauty of our life on earth. "If therebe a sin against life, it consistsless in despair about this earthlyexistence than in putting our hope in another one, and evading the implacable greatnessof this our life." In Le My-thede Sisyphe,Camus, who has been called in a Catholic publi,;ation, almost bidding for his conversion to faith, "a Pascal without Christ," wrote these Pascalian lines: "The men withoutgospel have their Mount of Olives, too. And on theirsalso one must not go to sleep ... One must startfromclearsightedindifference." In a debate with Mauriac reported in the Nation (August i8, 1945), Camus again clarifiedhis position in regard to Christianity: "I believe I have a just conceptionof the grandeurof Christianity, but some of us in this persecutedworld have the feelingthat if Christ died for certain men, he did not die for us. Moreover, we refuse to despair of man. Without having any exaggeratedambition to save him, we hold at least to the idea of servinghim . . . To the last we shall reject a divine charitythat would deprive men of the justice which is theirdue."

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Yale FrenchStudies This is also the lesson that Camus seemsto have wishedto impartin La Peste,his 1947 novel concernedwithman'spositionin respectto the evil him on earthon all sides.The novelcultivates-onthewhole whichconfronts successfully-one of the mostdifficult of the formsof fiction:the allegory.It does so with Stendhalianrestraintand with credibility, while avoidingany ideologicalthesiswhichmightspoil the narrator's and the vividimpartiality nessof the tale.Yet Camus'smessageis hardlyambiguous.Abovethepriestor his dutytowardGod, he ranksthe doctorwho does not the saintwho fulfills believeand who wantsto be a man even more than a saint.For thereare than man and his poor and terriblelove." They men "who look no further are contentwithfindingmorein theirfellowmen whichdeservesadmiration and are resolvedto help theirbrothers thanwhatjustifies contempt, in earthly miserydefendthemselves againstwhatwouldkill them. Whenhe came to Americain 1946to lectureto studentaudiences,Camus disclaimedthe stigmaattachedin manymindsto the word pessivigorously mism.Inertia,to him,is the strongest and inertiais moreoften temptation, thanto pessimism. allied to optimism His positionwas describedin thefollowing termsin an articleforVogue (Spring,1946): to determine "Is thispessimism? what No, thisis an honesteffort is wanted, what unwanted . . . We young Frenchmen label as pessi-

miststhosewho say thatall is well and thatnothingchangeshuman nature.We call thempessimists because theyare amongthosefrom whomnothingcan be expected.They will be to blame if the world indeedneverchanges.But thereare amongus enoughmenof decision pledgedto do all thatis withintheirpowerto curethemselves and the worldof theirpresentsickness." And in a movingseriesof lettersaddressedto a Germanfriendand first publishedin underground newspapersduringthe occupation,Camus formulated his creed: "I shall continueto believethatthisworldhas no highermeaning.But I knowthatthereis one thingin it thathas a meaning:man, becausehe alone demandsto have a meaning." Men do not like to be told the truth.The anguishof the Existentialists and theirethicsof desperateheroismhave been treatedslightingly by someas a mereoutgrowth of the SecondWorldWar and a reflection of the bad consciencefeltby Francein 1940 and since.In truth,a greatdeal of whatis most originalin Sartrewas presentin La Nausde,publishedin 1938,and thebestof Camuswas alreadyin Les Noces,-written in thesameyear.Sartrewas a pessimistas a youth,beforehe formulated the philosophywhichhelpedhim outgrowit, as shownby a striking letterwritten as earlyas 1928 and quotedin an inquiryon themood of present-day studentsby Roland Alix,in Les Nouvelles

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HENRI PEYRE littdraires (February2, 1929). But the eventsof the last ten years have helped destroysome of the illusions throughwhich previous generationshad lulled themselvesinto quietude. And the truthstaught by those events are not local and exceptional ones. Behind the present decay of the middle class and the tragedypeculiar to our time, some metaphysicalintuitionsof lasting and universal value have been perceived by the writerswho have, against their own wish,been dubbed Existentialists. In Les Temps Modernes fromFebruary to July, 1947, Sartre published a series of articles entitled "Qu'est-ce que la littdrature?,"which is likely to remain as one of the most important professionsof faith, not only of this centurybut in the historyof French letters.These pages teem with original views expressedwith brilliance; theyconstitutethe keenestanalysisyet attempted, of the relations between writers and their public in the seventeenth, eighteenth,nineteenth centuries,and in our day. But they are not content with analyzing and theorizing.They are instinctwith faith, as writingsof a pessimistor of a cynic could not well be. They make it evident by implication that the true demoralizershave been the selfishpoets and novelistswho, from Anatole France to Proust and Val'y, enjoyed the benefitsof a social order in which they refused to take any interest (but for Anatole France's belated conversion to anti-militarismand Communism), and abstracted themselves from the anguish of their contemporaries.They polished their words for posterity,rose serenelyabove their time and place to be universal and detached in their appeal. Some of them committedthe most incredible blunders when they expressedan opinion on the problems of their time. Too many of them would have thought it beneath their Olympian dignity to help their fellow men to improve theirlot down below.8 Sartre does not wish poetry,painting, music, to accept "engagement"and to set themselvesat the serviceof any cause. But the prose-writer is different; he uses wordsas signs,not as objects. Writing,to him, means enteringthe realm of action. He must aim at his own contemporaries,and deliver a messagevalid for them,firstof all. Today, he is bound to the cause of freedomand democracy.

"There is no such thing as a given freedom; one must conquer oneself,over passions,race, class, nation, and conquer other men along with oneself. . . The freedomto writepresupposesthe freedomof the is bound citizen.One does not writeforslaves. The art of prose-writing up with the only regime in which prose retains a meaning: demQcracy... Writingis a certain fashionof wantingfreedom." 8 The firstpart of "Qu'estce que la littrature?" appeared in English in The Partisan Review, January,i948. Parts IV, V, and VI are, however,by far the most remarkable.

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Yale FrenchStudies In a magnificentoutburst, Sartre goes on to explain how he and his generation could not remain insensitiveto evil, and felt impelled to address themselvesto a particular public which was then either sufferingfromevil or exposed to sufferfromit the next day. Political realism and Marxist dialectics may ruthlesslytreat such evil as part of the great realm of history.Suffering is necessaryin order that the ultimate victoryof the modern Messiah, the proletariat,may come about. Philosophical idealism may treat immediate evil as a temporaryshadow, necessaryfor some ulteriormasterpiece.But, exclaims Sartre with vehementconviction, "the very fate of our works was bound up with that of France in peril; . . . our public was made up of men like ourselveswho awaited war and death. Of theirwar, of theirdeath, we had to write . .. We learned to take Evil seriously; it was not our fault, nor was it our merit, if we happened to live in an era when torturewas a daily occurrence. . . We knew that the destructionof the human in man that torturebrings about, was a Black Mass being celebrated everywhere in Paris while we ate, while we slept, while we loved; we heard whole streetsecho with the shrieksof the torturedones, and we understood that Evil, the fruitof a free and sovereignwill, is absolute as Good is. A day may come when a happy generation,looking back and our shame one of the paths that serenely,will see in our suffering led to its Peace. But we were not on the side of completed history; we were so situated that everyminute actually lived appeared} to us as somethingirreducible."s Such an unforgettableexperience was conducive to thinking."Insecurity is what makes one think,"says Camus in Caligula. We become metaphysicians, Sartrecontinues,even if many of us mightrefusethe title througha misunderstanding,"for metaphysicsis not a barren discussion on abstractideas which cannot be seized by experience,but a living effortto embrace man's fate in its entirenessand from the inside." The authors called Existentialiststhen realized that the old technique of drama or fictioncould no longer fit their dismal experience.They had to approach theirreadersdifferently. They seized upon the Americannovel, not because it was harsh and pessimistic,but because it offereda technique newer and richer in possibilities,and expressedfeelings similar to those of the French in 1940-45: feelingsof men lost and swamped in an immensecontinent,baffledby conditionsimpossible to understand,expressing throughbrutal means of communicationtheirderelictionin theircountry, akin to the derelictionof Europeans crushedby the wheel of history. There was little complacency toward miseryin all that; there was even less pessimism.The last chapter of "Qu'est-ce que la littrature?" does for the * "Qu'est-ce que la litt6rature?,"V, Les Temps Modernes, June, 1947, p. 1627.

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HEINRIPEYRE secondhalfof the twentieth centurywhatVoltaireand Diderothad done two hundredyearsearlier.It envisagesthe new public thatmustbe won to literaand democracy withit,are to survive.It definesalso thetask tureif literature, and it courageously takessides.On theone hand,thereis Comof thewriter, munism.Sartredoes not mincehiswords:"I maintainthatthepolicyof Stalinis incompatiblein Francewiththe freeand honestplying ian Communism of thewriter'strade."A Communist writeris reducedtodayto act thepartof a lackey.On the otherhand standCapitalismand a middleclass associated in fact,the massof our readers,acknowwithit. The latterstill constitutes, ledgesSartre.They beg us to providethemwithreasonsforlivingand for hoping,witha renovatedideology.But againstthemalso we mustturn. "We have nothingto sav to them.They belong,in spiteof themVictimsno doubt,and innocent,they selves,to a classof oppression. in our are nevertheless tyrants and guilty.All we can do is to reflect mirrors theirunhappyconscience, thatis to say acceleratethe decay of theirprinciples. Our ungrateful taskis to reproachthemwiththeir faultswhenthosefaultshave becomecurses." Mustwe thendespair?No. Mass media,ifwe knowhow to use them,may win forus a new public.We cannotabandonworking-classes to the Jesuitic tyrannyof Communistorthodoxy:theymay one day listen to our voice. Sartreconcludeswitha formulary whichwritersfromotherlands maywell wishto maketheirown. The firstdutyof writers is to reestablish languagein its dignityand rejuvenateor transform worntechniques. The secondis to take sidlesagainsteveryinjustice,whereverit may come from.Then to represent the world and bear witnessto it. Above all, to build. Europeansare in dangerof resignedly abdicatingbeforea new threatof war.It is up to thoughtfulwriters to remindthemof theirown immense power,providedtheyinvent new solutionsto fitnew circumstances. are boundup withthe "The chancesof thesurvivalof literature adventof a SocialistEurope. . . It is our duty,as writers, to help this new Europe,through our writings, to be born."10 Wordslike these,bold and far-reaching, are the call whichour age needs, and mayheed. Others,the truepessimists, lulled theenergyof youngmen to sleep twentyand fortyyearsago. The resulttodayconfronts us. These perniciousmastersof falseoptimism repeatedthatwe livedin an age of progress, in whichtheworldwouldnecessarily improve, whatever we did,becausescience and techniquewereconstantly beingperfected. Theyflattered theyouth,whose and revolutionary reproaches impulsestheydreadedaftera bloodyWorldWar, by lavishingpraise upon it because it was the youth.They lured it into 10

"Quest-ce

que la litterature," VI, Les Temps Modernes, July, 1947,

p. 113.

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Yale FrenchStudies quiescence, by telling it that life was glorious and the world splendid, that the youngergenerationwould easily cure the few evils that remained. Meanwhile they went about their own affairs,calmly disregardedthe gaping wounds of the modern world: social iniquity,race prejudice, nationalism,unlimitedgreed. French literatureof the nineteen-twenties seems to have kept strangelyaloof fromthe great issues of the age. Youth meanwhile tried its best; but it was spoiled and deceived by the flatteryof dictators,politicians, educators, moralists.The task to be accomplished was immense and would have required the cooperation of several generations, all strugglingfor one com on cause. But the older men and women seemed to have abdicated; they distrustedthe validity of the wisdom and experience which they might have gained, and which should have been added to the freshnessof approach of the young. Conformity, ambition,selfishness, prejudice smotheredthe flameof the much-praisedyouth of 1920-25 as it reached the age of 30 or 40. Optimism which had disregardedevil was suddenly faced with Evil triumphantin the world. It still kept its eyes closed and tried to forget.Like Sartre's hero, Mathieu, many a young man then insisted that the bell had not tolled for him. He deemed himselffree; but he was like a small pea in a can of peas, tossed about by events and forcesat play-at Godesberg and Munich, at Prague, Dantzig and Warsaw- soon to become mashed into a thickpaste. Sartre prefersto show the youth of today the intriit will have to unravel, the nauseating anguish it will expercate difficulties ience. Freedom and life have to be conquered anew everyday, throughdeliberate acceptance of one's responsibility.Goethe had already proclaimed in Faust and elsewhere" he had formulatedthe noble the messagewhichSartrereaffirms; lesson that man must accept the conditionsof his being, harsh as theymay be, and cannot expect Time nor any power to bringhim salvation fromoutside. Malraux, Sartre,Camus are tragic writers,far remote from the Victorian complacencywhich mars much of Browning,Tennyson, Hugo, and Whitman for us modems. They live the problems of our time concretely.They refuse to implore the gods,who help best those who help themselves.They want their novels and plays to be impregnatedwith the intellectual anguish which they take to be the truestexpressionof our age. Their negation is no cynicalmockery; theiroccasional debasementof man is no complacencyin sordidness.They are determined to think fearlessly,to will obstinately,to revolt in order to build on more secure foundations.If this be called despair, let us admit that to such despair we must be grateful,for beyond it a vista of unlimitedhope extends. 11

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Goethe, Orphische Urworte;"Damon." "So musstdu sein, dir kannstdu nicht entfliehen. . . Und keine Zeit und keine Macht zerstilckelt GeprAgteForm, die lebend sich entwickeL."

HERBERT DIECKMANN

FrenchExistentialism BeforeSartre Some' representativesof the new trend of thought called philosophy of existencedo not recognizeJ. P. Sartre'sExistentialismas a faithfulexpose, or a legitimatecontinuation,of their ideas. They reproach him for having turned Existentialisminto a literaryfad or having distortedit into a nihilisticand atheistic doctrine. We cannot decide here whether this accusation is correct, but it is certain that Sartre has created a broader and more intensiveinterest in the philosophyof existencethan any of its originatorsor modem exponents. It is on account of Sartre that many have taken up reading Kierkegaard, Schelling, Husserl, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Karl Barth, who, before Sartre, were known only to a limited group of philosophersand theologians.It is due to the success of Sartre's plays and novels that several books and numerous articles have recentlybeen published on the foundersand the modem representativesof Existentialism. It seems to me that in these historicalstudies more attentionshould have been paid to the work of a group of French thinkerswho, before Sartre, became interestedin the new philosophy of existence and made a definite attempt to introduce it into France. This group was undoubtedlyknown to Sartre. Not that Sartre could not or did not find his way to Husserl and Heidegger or to the fundamentalissues of Existentialismentirelyby himself. I do not intend to trace Sartre'sideas back to French intermediaries.But I do believe it necessaryto take into account the factthat thereexisted,immediately before Sartre,a group of thinkerswho not only studied, translated,and intera paper read beforethe 1 This articlereproduces,with a fewmodifications, Twentieth Centurygroup of the Modem Language Association at its Detroit meetingin 1947. My intentionwas to point to a promisingfieldof studyin the historyof Existentialism.It would require a much more detailed investigation than the presentone to encompass,let alone to investigatethoroughlythisfield. Even broader is the question of the historyof Husserl or Kierkegaardin France (which is much older than the present movement of Existentialism), or the historyof currentsof French thought which are similar to those of Existentialismand may have prepared it indirectly.All these various aspects will have to be considered in a comprehensivestudy on the origins of Existentialismwhich,for evidentreasons,could not be consideredin a shortpaper.

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Yale FrenchStudies preted Husserl, Heidegger, and Jaspers,but went back to the very sources of Existentialismand, above all, created in French a vocabularyfor the new mode of thinking.2 The main contributionsof this group appeared in Recherches philosophiques, a periodical founded in 1931 by A. Koyr;, H.-Ch. Puech, and A. Spaier. To be sure, articleson questions related to the philosophyof existence were published also in other periodicals, but only in the Recherches philosophiques does one find a series of well-integratedstudies which give a coherentpicture of this philosophy.The followingsurveyis based on the first six volumes of this periodical,which go from 1931 to 1937. The very firstarticle of the firstissue is a study by Jean Wahl, entitled "Vers le concret"; it gives, as it were, the theme and indicates the orientation of the new periodical. In the article we already find several referencesto Heidegger and Kierkegaard;of the formerJ. Wahl states: We shall have ratherfrequentoccasion to referto Heidegger. He has a profound consciousnessof several of the aspirations of contemporarythought,and the clear consciousnessof this obscure ground joined with his remarkableskill in translatinginto abstracttermshis own observationsor those of his predecessors,be they Kierkegaard, pragmatism,Dilthey, or Spengler,joined also to his great masteryof the philosophical language which he has created for himself,make of his work a precious sign and landmark. Above all, and this is what gives to his undertakingall its significance,he has been able to join to the feeling of individual existencesuch as Kierkegaardhad experienced it, the feeling of out existence in the midst of thingssuch as it reveals itself in contemporaryphilosophy. J. Wahl's article itself is a critical re-examinationof the philosophic positionsof realism and idealism as reflectedin recentcurrentsof thought,and deals with the characterof reality as offeredto our mind, with the relation between thought and reality,with the question of immanence of being or being-in-the-world, with a new conception of dialectical thinkingand other related issues. It servesas preface to a book which bears the same title Vers le concret,and which contains threestudies on William James,A. N. Whitehead, and Gabriel Marcel. J. Wahl discovered certain fundamentalsimilaritiesbe2 They owe a certain debt of gratitudeto the studyby G. Gurvitch:Les Tendances actuelles de la philosophic allemande, Paris, 1930. Mr. Gurvitch'& book contains a resume of the main ideas of E. Husserl, M. Scheler,E. Lask, N. Hartmann and M. Heidegger,as well as a discussionof the relationof these ideas to the preceding systemsof thought.Since Mr. Gurvitchfollows in his presentationthe conventionalline of the historyof ideas and since,in addition, his interest is predominantlyepistemological and ethical, the philosophic positions of Husserl, Scheler and Heidegger often do not appear in their true light,at least if we judge theirposition froman Existentialistpoint of view.

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HERBERT DIECKMANN tween these three philosophers and found, as his notes indicate, that these similaritiesare furthermorerelated to certain themes of the philosophy of existence. These various philosophers represent in his opinion a common movementdirected"towardsthe concrete",a movementwhich is animated and directed by an inner dialectics. Thanks to the broad conception of his study, Wahl has given us the most comprehensiveevaluation we yethave of the recent originsand the multiple currentsof Existentialism.His discussionof G. Marcel attests the keenness of his judgment on the philosophy of existence, for Marcel's Journal metaphysique is, in all probability, the firstdocument in France of strictlyExistentialistthinking;it appeared in 1927, but the entries in the Journal go back to 1914. Now, 1927 is the very year in which Heidegger's

Sein und Zeit appeared in Germany.Jaspers' threevolumes on the philosophy of existence appeared only in 1932. It is thus beyond doubt that Marcel discussed a number of issues which are characteristicof Existentialistthinking, entirelyindependentlyfromthe modern Existentialistmovementin Germany.3 Since, in recentdiscussions,G. Marcel has alwaysbeen describedas the Catholic representativeof the new philosophy,it is necessaryto stressthat his Journal metaphysiquewas written and published several years before his conversion to the Catholic religion. It was his analysis of religious experience and the realityperceivedin this experiencewhich afteryearsof "independent" thinking led to his conversion.J. Wahl in his essay shows that G. Marcel's discussionof the concept of realityand objectivity,his definitionof existence,of individual existenceboth with regardto itselfand the existenceof the person outside of us (the relationship between the moi, the toi, and the lui), his criticismof Descartes' conception of consciousnessand of Hegel's idea of mediation and the concrete,deal with problems which formthe center of Kierkegaard'sand Heidegger's thought. The firstvolume of Recherches philosophiques contains furthermorea translationof one of Heidegger's most importantwritings: Von Ivesen des Grundes (Of the nature of cause), in which he analyses the proper conditions under which the problem of cause -canbe raised, the characterof being-in-theworld, and, in connection with it, the question of liberty.The followingtwo quotations will illustrate the strikingresemblance between this treatise and Sartre'sL'Etre et le neant:*

8 One must however add that Schelling'5 philosophy, particularlyin its last phase, is one of the main sources of Marcel's thought and that both Heidegger and Jaspersalso go back to Schelling. * Editor's note: Since Heidegger's original text is not available here it is necessaryto presentit in the French version.

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Yale FrenchStudies Ainsi nous nous rendons bien compte que le principe de causalite ne peut avoir son "lieu de naissance", ni dans la nature du jugement, ni dans la veritdde jugement,mais dans la verite ontologique, ce qui revient i dire dans la transcendancemetme.La liberte est 1'originedu principe de causalite, car c'est en elle, unite du surpassementet du retrait,que se fonde la justifications'6laborant comme vwrit6ontologique. L'homme-bien que se sentant au milieu de l'existant et p6n-tr6 par lui-est jetd (ddlaissi) parmi l'existant comme un libre pouvoiretre. Qu'il soit-en puissance-un "soi-meme",qu'il le soit en fait selon sa liberte; que la transcendence,en tant que ph6nombneoriginel, se temporalise,cela n'est point au pouvoir de cette libert6. Mais cette impuissance (delaissement) n'est pas le rdsultatde la penetration de l'existant dans l'homme; elle definitson etre meme. The translationof Heidegger's treatise is followed by a "Symposiumon the Irrational" which is indirectlyrelated to our present theme by the disinherentin everyidealism. The different cussion of the fundamentaldifficulties articles emphasize the irreducibleelements of reality both inside and outside of us and prepare the way for a new realism.The "Symposium"thus bears on the same theme as J. Wahl's book Vers le concret. A substantial part of the firstvolume as well as of all the following volumes is devoted to reviews and discussionsof philosophic publications in various countries. Special attention is given to studies in the field of phenomenologyand philosophyof existence. The reviewsare a unique source of informationfor the development of this specific field and form almost by themselvesa historyof Existentialistthinking. The theme of Jean Wahl's article "Towards the Concrete" and of the "Symposium on the Irrational" appears again in the second volume in the "Symposiumsur les transcendances",particularlyin M. Souriau's studyon "La matibre et le concret" in which the author discusses among other things the philosophic position of phenomenologywith regard to the concept of matter4. 4Not only have Husserl's definitionsof phenomenologychanged during his life, but his followershave taken up or developed differentcurrentsof his thought.It is thus very misleading if, in a number of articles on Existentialism,phenomenologyis treateden bloc, as a uniform,homogeneousphilosophic doctrine. The connection between Husserl's phenomenology,i.e. its chief method and some of its tenets,and the philosophyof existencewas provided by Heidegger, though it was prepared already by Max Scheler's use of the phenomenological method in his analysis of the forms of emotional life. Souriau, in his article on matter and the concrete,establishes the link between the new realism and Husserl's phenomenology.A more detailed study on Sartre and his immediatepredecessorswill have to define in each case the precise aspect of Husserl's philosophy upon which these thinkershave dwelt.

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HERBERT DIECKMANN Another article of the Symposiumwhich seems to me particularlyworthyof attention is the one by H. Conrad-Martiuson "L'existence, la substantiality et l'ame"; it is translatedfrom the German and offersa remarkable critical examination of the tenets of the philosophy of existence, particularly of Heidegger. More importantstill in the second volume of Recherches philosophiques are two extensive intepretativestudies: the firstby Gabriel Marcel on the "Situation fondamentale et situation limite chez Jaspers", a lucid expose of one of the main topics of Karl Jaspers'sphilosophy,which Marcel rightlyconsidersrelated to his own philosophic speculations.The second study is J.Wahl's article"Heidegger et Kierkegaard".In it the authordoes not simply compare certain ideas of Heidegger and Kierkegaard,but goes beyond such a confrontationand analyzes the points where Heidegger chafiges,transforms, and abandons Kierkegaard. One finds in this essay a thoroughdiscussion of the conception of anguish, of care and death, of the individual existence,of the various formsof being-in-the-world, of the element of time and historyin existence.J. Wahl raises in the course of his inquiry a question which seems to go to the veryroot of the philosophyof existence: he wonderswhetherit is possible and admissible to transform-as Heidegger does-Kierkegaard's or Nietzsche's highly personal, fluctuatinginner experiences into abstract and objective,i.e. general,systematizedand staticconcepts.Will not these concepts once separated from the inner experience,lose their authenticity?His second query shows a keen anticipation of the futuredevelopmentof Existentialism. He raises the question, "whetherHeidegger's position is not particularlyunstable, whetherit will not be necessaryeither to transformhis philosophyinto a theologyor to eliminate fromit all theology"; "what would remain of this philosophyif one eliminatedfromit all theology,everyreligiousidea"? (p. 362) To be sure, Wahl immediatelyadds that valuable elementsof this philosophy will remain and he goes on to show what these elements are. His question remainshowevervalid, as the atheisticand nihilistictrendsof the more recent Existentialismhave shown. J. Wahl's study on Kierkegaard is continued in the third volume of the Recherches philosophiques in the article "Sur quelques categories kierkegaardiennes: 1'existence,L'individuisok6,Ia penske subjective",where-J. Wahl interpretsKierkegaard'sconcept of existence (with the subdivision of choice, passion, becoming [devenir] and risk), the solitude of existence, existential thinkingor subjectivityof thought,communicationof existence,contradiction and paradox. Everyreader of Sartre is aware that these categoriesare identical with the fundamentaland recurrentthemesof Sartre'sworks.J. Wahl has later collected these and other studies in Etudes kierkegaardiennes,1938, which is one of the most thoroughand pertinentstudies on Existentialismwe possess. The article "Sur quelques categories kierkegaardiennes"is part of a

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Yale FrenchStudies "Symposiumsur le temps, 1'etre et 1'Esprit",a series of articles by different philosophers. The majority of these articles is not directly related to our theme,with the exception of M. Souriau's "La Matibre,la lettre et le verbe" which continues his study on matter and the concrete and G. Marcel's "Esquisse d'une phenomdnologiede l'avoir", in which the French philosopher develops his distinction between having and being, his separation of the sphere of what I "have", of what is or becomes object, from the sphere of being, where no objectivation and no detachmentare possible, where thereis no more fear of loss, escape or hiding of the other,but where I myselfparticipate with and am personally involved in the other and thus achieve a true immanence.Again it is strikinghow much Sartre'sreflexions(in L'Etre et le neant) on the role and functionof the body, on the other,the person outside of me, and the world outside of us have a definite relation to Marcel's philosophy. One of the most interestingcontributionsin Volume III is the article by H. Corbin, "Th6ologic dialectique et histoire", in which the author studies the direction followed by both the philosophy of existence and dialectical theology,two movementswhich originated in Kierkegaard. The author gives a concentratedanalysis of the ideas of historyand time in the post-Hegelian and in modem Protestant theology, especially in the Geisteswissenschaften worksof Barth, Bultmann3and E. Brunner. His discussionof the hermeneutic of historic existence in dialectical theology and in the Geisteswissenschaften is of particularinterestfor the literaryhistorian. In the remainingthreeissues of the Recherchesphilosophiques one notices a deliberate attemptto broaden the discussionof the fundamentalproblemsof the philosophyof existence,to show how theyappear in the light of a general, not strictlyphenomenologicalor existentialphilosophic inquiry. We find first a series of well organized studies on the four topics: "De I'&trede la realitC", "De la nature de l'existence","De l'existencede l'homme","Les attitudesde la r6flexion".Each of these topics is discussedin a series of individual articlesby differentauthors. Of outstandinginterestis an article by Karl Liwith, translated from the German, on "L'achbvement de la philosophie classique par Hegel et sa dissolution chez Marx et, Kierkegaard". This excellent and welldocumentedstudythrowsmuch light on the recentdiscussionsbetweenMarxists and Existentialists.One realizes that the discussion originatedin the criticism of Hegel's philosophyby Marx and Kierkegaard.L6with's studywas of course writtenand published before Sartre became known, and it is interestingto observe to what extent the modem discussion was anticipated in the nine5 Cf also Corbin's review of Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen,in the same issue of Recherches philosophiques.

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HERBERT DIECKMANN criticismof Hegel's philosophyand how much more substantial teenth-century and far reaching this criticismis than its recent revival. Marx's and Kierkegaard's criticismbears on the same issues,but differsessentiallyby the principle whichdirectsit.6 The discussionof the concepts of being and existence is followed,in the next volume,by a comprehensivediscussionof the notion of time: "Le probleme du temps", "Le temps et la vie", "Le verbe et le temps", "Le mythe et l'histoire"are the topics of some of the articles.The majorityof these articles is howeveronly indirectlyconnectedwith the issues of Existentialism.It would seem that the editorsintended to offera view on these issues as theyappear to thinkerswho are not connected with this movement.The only article in the issue directelyrelated to our theme is that by Lbwith on "La conciliation hegeienne"; it carries on the investigationof his study in the preceding volume. In the last volume of the Recherchesphilosophiques we findan interesting sur l'etre en situation" articleby Gabriel Marcel: "Apersus phUnome'nologiques and a discussionof Karl Jaspers'sbook on Nietzsche by Jean Wahl. Marcel's article consists of a series of reflexions on one of the main themes of Existentialism,the being in a determinate situation and the category oL "belonging" (to oneself, to a social group, a religious community,or God). In Jean Wahl's critical review the origins of Existentialismin Nietzsche are set forthwith great clarityand precision. Besides these two articles,there are, as in volume V, a number of general contributionson the topics "Existence et situation", and "Significationde l'existence". Indirectlyrelated to our theme and of special significancein view of the later discussionson Marxismand Existentialismis an articleby Raymond Aron, entitled "L'Idiologie". In the general frameof a criticaldiscussionof the term iddologie,Aron examines the philosophic meaning and validityof the criteria which are either implicitlyor expliitly used in judgmentson political ideologies; he shows, e.g., which general philosophic assumptionsunderlie the criticism of Marxism, and he raises the fundamentalquestion of to what extent and in what manner ideologies can be criticizedor refutedby either abstract, i.e. absolute, or historicaland factual arguments.Though Aron does not refer to Existentialism,he clearly sets forth the common origins of Existentialism and Marxism, and reveals the fallacies and arbitraryassumptions of their idealisticor liberalisticopponents. 6 A very instructivestudy could be made on the strikingsimilaritybetween Marx's criticismof the bourgeoisworld in his The EighteenthBrumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Kierkegaard'scriticismof the same world in his Criticism of the present time, and, on the other hand, Sartre'sAge of Reason, and Reprieve.

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Yale FrenchStudies Aron's article is followedby one of the earliestand most importantphilosophic studies of Jean-Paul Sartre: "La Transcendance de l'Ngo".7 The fact that this article appeared in the Recherches philosophiques may be taken as an outward sign of the essentiallink between Sartreand the group of thinkers behind the periodical. "La Transcendance de l'go" is a brilliant example of strictphenomenologicalanalysisof the conceptsof ego and moi and theirrelation to consciousness.The central question is: Can the ego or the moi be founded on consciousnessor do theyhave to be founded on the world itself? In his answer Sartre somewhat deviates from Husserl, and one can already notice here that he would later abandon Husserl's phenomenologyfor Heidegger's philosophy of existence, or, in philosophical terms,that he would substitutethe analysis of human existence for the analysis of pure consciousness, its acts and theirintended objects. The following passage shows that the direction and some of the main themesof Sartre's thoughtare already apparent in this early article,and that Sartre arrived at a clarificationof these themesby phenomenologicalanalysis: The theoristsof the far Left have at timesreproachedphenomenology with being an idealism and with drowningrealityin the wave of ideas. But if idealism be the philosophy without evil of M. Brunschvicg,if it be a philosophy wherein the effortof spiritual assimilation never encounters external resistances,wherein suffering, hunger, war are diluted into a slow process of unificationof ideas, nothing is more unjust than to call phenomenologistsidealists. For centuries,on the contrary,there has not been such a realisticcurrent in philosophy.They have plunged man back into the world,theyhave given back all their weight to his anguishes and his sufferingsand, moreover,to his revolts. Unfortunately,as long as the I remains a structureof absolute consciousnessone will still be able to reproach phenomenologywith being a "refuge-doctrine", with pulling a portion of man out of the world,and with turningattentiontherebyfromreal problems.It seems to us that thisreproachhas no longer a raison d'etre if one makes of the Moi an existent being which is rigorouslycontemporaryto the world and whose existence possessesthe same essential characteristics as the world. The conclusionsto be drawn fromthe presentinquiry can be stated in a few words: Sartre's Existentialismis part of a larger'movement of modern French philosophy,which came into its own in the years following the first World War. In this movementFrench philosophic thoughtjoined a European 7 This article should be read in conjunction with a short article on Husserl's conception of intentionality,which Sartre published in the Norvelle Revue Frarnaise (ler janvier 1939). This remarkablearticleof only threepages presents in concentratedform Sartre's interpretationand immediate literary transformation of one of Husserl's centralideas.

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HERBERT DIECKMANN philosophic tradition which began with Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, and Husserl, and which includes Whitehead, Jaspers, and Heidegger. Sartre's Existentialismcan be fullyunderstood,interpreted,and evaluated only in this tradition.My observationdoes not imply that I question Sartre'soriginalityas a thinkerand writer.His firstarticles clearly indicate that he does not raise problems in the fashion of a historian of philosophy,but uses the work of other thinkersto clarifyhis own thought.Still, only when one realizes that the main themesand methodsof the philosophyof existencehad been raised and formulatedin France before Sartre took them up, can one understandSartre's position and significance.

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HARRY SLOCHOWER

The Functionof Myth In Existentialism Some approaches to Existentialismhave viewed it as an expressionof the dilemmaspresentedby our war years,particularlythose confrontingman in the aftermathof the Second World War. Existentialismwould counter the historical perspectiveby grounding itself in absolute categories.Yet the specific historicalsituation of France and Germany,it has been argued, provides the catalystfor its vogue. But only the catalyst.And only the mood and accent of the movement. For Existentialismis geared to principleswhich have a renownedphilosophical ancestryand relationship: the doubt and critique of Descartes, Pascal, and Montaigne, the either-orchoice of Kierkegaard,Nietzsche'svoluntarism,Husserl's phenomenology,Heidegger's "anxiety" and "anguish", and Jaspers'sneoCartesian radical doubt and irresolvableantinomies. The supra-historicalconcern of Existentialismappears more directlyin its referenceto the myth.Sartre has treated the Orestes mythin The Flies, and Camus (who may be consideredas at least related to the movement)has been preoccupiedwith the mythof Sisyphus.The Existentialistapproach to the myth mightwell suggesttheirbasic burden as well as theirown historicinvolvement. To state our thesisforthwith: Existentialismhas seized on one aspect of the literarymythand raised it to an absolute. It centerson the second stage of the myth,that which is concerned with the revolt of the individual against the mythicalcollective. It is the stage in whichJob challengesthe Lord to justifythe afflictions heaped upon him, PrometheusdefiesZeus, Oedipus demands to know how in nature he was evil, Orestes trespassesthe law of the Erinyes.It is Dante identifyinghimself with Paolo and Francesca, Don Quixote counteringthe traditional chivalric mythand the secular authoritiesof his historicpresent. It is Hamlet in his mother'sroom,Faust abandoning his Gothic chamber,SiegfrieddefyingWotan, Ahab leaving wife and home, Joseph wandering to Egypt. In these literary myths,the individual challenges his authoritativecommunalityand exercises freedomin making his personal choice. In this process of loosening, the mythical hero experiences alienation, fear, and guilt. Yet, he continues on his journey away from "home", accepting the responsibilityof his free action or his crime.

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HARRY SLOCHOWER However, this is but the midwaystage of the literarymyth.It is preceded by the initial stage out of which the ego is born, and it is followed by the third stage where the ego finds reconciliationwith and rehabilitationin his collective. Job is reconciled with the Lord of the Whirlwind, Prometheus with Zeus, Oedipus with Theseus, his father-substitute, Oresteswith his replaced authorities,Apollo and Athena, and so on. This reconciliationbecomes possible because the individual grows to awareness of the hybrisin his revolt,of the dangers in an unqualified repudiation of the old. This leads to his limiting and restraininghis own demon. His choice can therebybecome critical and self-critical,and his responsibilityethical. Moreover, the last stage is possible only because there has been recognitionof the firststage. The hero can be redeemed only because he can return "home." To be sure, reconciliationretains,as a dialectical moment,the elementof revoltthroughwhich the mythical hero has passed. The hero does not submit or surrender.He is not redeemed by returningas a child to a collective nursery.In the thirdstage, the authoritative code itselfhas been modifiedby virtueof the individual challenge. That is, the hero is saved because of his revolt. Thus, basic to the graph of the traditionalliterarymythis the notion that there is a common ground to human experience, that man lives in the same universeof matterand motion, and that he functionsin typical and recurrent emotional and psychologicpatterns.Even as the mythdeals with the heroic variation, this variation is seen as existingwithin "the deeper sources of common life" (J. Lindsay) which follow the graph of a timeless schema. The literarymyth objectifiesman's communal existence. It voices our collective beginningsand our collectivegoals. It restson belief in "the people." The hero foreverrevolts against his commune; but he revolts only against its static forms,its "systematized"stage, against what Eliot calls "mass-culture."But in his veryrevolt he gets to know the excesses of his own demon, and by recognizing learns to control and tame it. Thereby he becomes ready for re-alignment. He is no longer in fear of the demonic powers-althoughstill subject to them-for these powers are now known to him. But, to repeat, the hero can be redeemed in a new home because he once came from an old home. The myth is the celebration of the high recognition-moment of man's collective status. The myth of Existentialismlives exclusivelyin the second stage: i. e., negation of the old collective ("essences", "metaphysics","the system",etc.), and accepts the resultinghomelessness,estrangement,fear, and anguish as a final "resting" point. It does not subject its negation to critical self-analysis. It does not explore the question of the sources and bases out of which it has arisen. The individual is not born-he is "thrown"into existence.And as he has no parents,he produces no offspring. For thisreason,Existentialismcannot and

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Yale FrenchStudies does not ask the question of rehabilitation.Its hero does not attemptto mitif gate, humanize,or socialize his guilt. Existentialismdoes referto "temporality" and the future.It even speaks of the past and of tradition.But this past is "freely" created, not discovered as an objective existence. Its impious recreation of our heritage produces a futurismwithout a future-to use Mann's characterizationof Nazism as "Futurismus ohne Zukunft." Where the classic mythrelates the ego's rebellion to the commonground of things,Existentialism would relate it to the groundlessnessof things,to "Nothing." It begins with "Nothing" and its goal, at least with some, is the nothingnessof death. Sisyphus The characteristicmythical hero of Existentialism is not Prometheus, created by his motherTerra, and finallycoming to termswith Zeus, the Father, but Sisyphus. Not Prometheus who would free mankind both from fear of nature and man as well as for control of physical and human nature, but Sisyphus,forevercondemned to roll a rock to the top of a mountain,with the rock always falling back of its own weight. It is Sisyphus who absorbs the interest of Albert Camus at the moment when he descends to the plain "towards the tormentthe conclusion of which he will not know." For this is "the hour of consciousness!"In these moments,Sisyphustranscendshis destiny. Althoughpowerless,he "knows that the entire extentof his clairvoyancewhich constituteshis tormentcontains at the same time his victory."In this moment, Sisyphussees thathis destinybelongs to him: the verysuccessionof unconnected actions which is his destiny,has been created by him, "unified under the gaze of his memory,and soon broken offby his death." His is the superior loyalty "which denies the gods and lifts the rocks." And Camus imagines that in all this Sisyphusexperiencesa silent joy. Sisyphusis happy in his useless labor, his labor of indifference, happy because it is his uselessnessand his indifference, happy because he continues,even in his punishment,to rebel against the system. It is he, not someone else, who is being tormented;it is he, not some other, who continues to roll the rock up the mountain. In its abstract,general formulation,Existentialismmay well be philosophically untenable. Spinozists, Kantians, Hegelians and Marxists, critics from Guido de Ruggiero to Gunther Anders have attacked its notions of undetermined freedom and causeless action. They question the claim that a nonobjective attitude can have an objective value, that you can derive a morality fromnon-moralaction, and have quoted Marx's characterizationof Stirneras the "proud possessorof no possessions"as applicable to Existentialism. However, it is doubtful whether the heart of the doctrine is reached by this approach. Nor does the meaning of the doctrine necessarilyemerge from

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HARRY SLOCHOWER the concrete individual and social behavior of the Existentialists.In point of fact, various groups, from Catholics to atheistsclaim to derive their doctrine from Existentialism.Its art work, on the other hand, presentsits philosophy in sensuous,dramaticform.It can tell us what is meant by personality,freedom, involvement,action, and anguish, since it must present charactersin concrete relations and inter-participation.Art is also the most favorable context for revealing the element of irony or self-criticism. With this in view, we propose to examine Sartre's The Flies, his most serious and compact dramatic art work and one which deals directlywith the myth. The Myth of Orestes The Flies is a recreation of the Orestes myth in termsof Existentialist freedom,containing ironic reservations. The scene is Argos whose people (with the exception of Electra) have been enchained by a propaganda technique of fear and guilt. They fear the ghosts of the past and feel guilty of their silence and secret enjoymentover the murderof Agamemnon.The dead are used to rule the living. The people have been reduced to a cringingattitude of submission.They are slaves to a dead myth,"the good old piety of yore, rooted in terror."The religious and secular "systems"of Zeus-Aegisthushave brought "the flies" to plague the people. They have indeed become the "flies" themselves,hummingand buzzing about without human communication.When Orestes appears with his tutor, theytryto speak to someone. But not a window is open anywhere;none opens the door or listens to them. Their very fear and guilt are officialand officially regulated. Their piety is to dead mummery.The Greek Chorus has been converted to the people as a mob-swarm. Orestes appears to restore to the people "their sense of human dignity." As a result of his tutor's liberal education, he has become "free as air," free fromprejudice and superstition.He has "no ties, no religion, and no calling no home, no roots." This homelessnesshas created a void withinhim, and he wishes he could acquire the people's memories.their hopes and fears. He admits to his sister Electra that "of all the ghosts haunting this town today, none is ghostlierthan I." And he confesses:"I want to be a man who belongs to some place, a man among comrades." Undecided as to whetherhe should stay and avenge his father,he calls on Zeus to point a way. Now Zeus, like Aegisthus,has but one passion, the passion for ritual and order. His sign counsels Orestes to live at peace. This at once makes for Orestes's resolution to do the very opposite-not to take orders from gods or men, but to follow his own path. He gives up his "aery lightness" to take a burden on his shoulders. He will hew the walls of Argos asunder to free its people from their stench by taking over their crime and remorse.This path takes the form

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Yale FrenchStudies of killing Aegisthusand Clytemnestra.By thus "stealing" the burden of guilt fromthe people, he means to liberate them to act freely. The play was purportedlywrittenas an attack on the Nazi systemand Vichy collaboration. Yet, it is more an indictmentof the people than of the systemwhich forged their chains. In fact, Zeus, Aegisthus,and Clytemnestra have statureor evoke sympathy.Lack of remorsehas createda void in Aegisthus. He has kept order,but at the sacrificeof hope, love, even of lust. "No man in Argos is sadder than I," he tells Clytemnestra.Nor is he unscrupulous:he does not resist Orestes and opposes Zeus's urgings to throw him into a dungeon. Clytemnestraappears even less wicked. She is a resigned,almost pitiful figure. bearing "the heaviestload of guilt." Zeus is actuallydepicted as having dignity. He is a French Wotan withoutthe Wagnerian heavy metaphysicalpretensions. that it had to come. He accepts his defeat gracefullywith fore-knowledge The most dramatic repudiation of Orestes's freedom-is objectified in Electra. She begins in challenging, though impotent,fearlessnessbefore the arrival of Orestes, and in consequence of her exposure to Orestes's teaching and behavior,ends by renouncinghis formof freedom.Althoughshe loves her brotherand offersthe closest and most directfieldfor Orestes'spersuasions,she decides to stay behind with Zeus to be saved "frommy brother,frommyself." She is frightenedby Oresteswho shows no regretover having killed his mother. Electra is the warmestand most human characterin the drama, and her refusal to followher brotherevokes more identificationthan the withdrawalof Orestes. It is she who offersthe most telling critique of Orestes's freedomfromall ties when she asks: "Can you undo what has been done? Somethinghas happened and we are no longer free to blot it out." She is converted by Orestes-in reverse.She is humanized by his non-human attitude. Orestes helps no one, not the people whom he despises,not his sisterwhom he loves. He only helps himselfto anguish. Some furtherindications may be given of the self-criticism the play contains. This un-Freudian and un-Marxian hero knows better than to commit himself either to biological or to social determinants.Yet, actually, he does commit himselfand does react to existingauthorities.His acts are not causeless, as are those of Dostoyevsky'sKiriloff."Man is nothingbut what he makes of himself,"writesSartre.But Orestesdoes not "make himself,"is not "thrown" into existence. His tutor notes that it is only after Orestes has learned the secret of his birth that he begins to change. He re-acts to Zeus in precise reverse,and his path is decided in opposition to Zeus's path. That is, this would-be non-dialectical Existentialist acts in dialectical dis-attachmentto Aegisthusand Zeus. The sole act that might be said to have "nothing" as a motivationis the murder of his mother.Matricide has always offeredunique for motivation.But in Aeschylus,and even in O'Neill, some attempt difficulties

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HARRY SLOCHOWER is made: the order of Apollo and Orestes'slatent jealousy of his mother'slover in Aeschylus,and the more obvious incest motivation in O'Neill. There is none in Sartre'splay. Orestes kills his motherfor no "reason." Even his sister's pressure is absent-Sartre's Electra rather urges: "She can do us no more harm," now that Aegisthus is dead. Orestes kills in the name of some nonformulatedmaster-morality. Orestes himself thinks that his act is right. But this "knowledge" is his own mystery.He makes no attemptto make it known to othersor even to himself. The sole legitimacyfor Orestes's murder is the tradition of the legend itself.That is, in this "free" Existentialistact, Sartre'shero acts most like an unfree man, enslaved by the mere ritual of the old myth. This absence of legitimizationin termsof a selected traditionmakes for loneliness,and when Zeus tells Orestes: "You are as lonely as a leper," the latter agrees. His "yes" is more human and meaningfulthan his announcement:"I am my freedom." At the end, Orestes leaves. He does not know or care where he is going. With Wagner's Siegfried,he might say: "In der Ferne bin ich heim." He has rejected his origins (he has no "memories"), rejected the authoritiesof Zeus, Aegisthus,and his mother. For the people he has only contempt.With no base to start from,he has no lever to propel himself.His "free" act has consisted in the cold, mechanical,and unmotivatedmurderof his mother. Now, Orestes presumablykills for the sake of the people. That is, Sartre would reintroducethe social motif into Existentialism.But the play depicts the people in a mannerwhich does not make themworthyof being saved. They show no change in attitude which mightbe a basis for their futureself-libera. tion. On the contrary,Orestes's treatmentof them only tends to de-dignify them even more. His freedom-actremains a gesture. Beginning with an unworthy commune, this myth cannot reach out for the humanization and socializationof the demon." 1 Translated into forensicExistentialistterminology, the people of Argo3 have "being" ("Dasein"), whereas Orestes is true "existence." The firstare finite,temporal, and guilty; the latter is an emergenttranscendanceout of being. But Existentialismdoes not make clear how emergencetranspires.The antithesis between the two categories(Orestes and the people) is drawn so sharplythat it is difficultto see how existencecan "emerge" frombeing. Prof. Ruggiero's commenton this point is relevant: "This emergenceis for Existentialism no less inexplicable than the original datum. The analysisof the given, in fact,offersus no justificationfor believing that anythingwill come out of it, nor are we told who draws it out . . . Existence springslike a fungusfrom the flat ground of the "Dasein," or better,to twista metaphorwronglyused by Existentialistsagainst idealism, emerges like Baron Mfinchausen pulling himselfby the hair out . . . with the strengthof his own arm ... To make of existence the protagonistof becoming means to exchange the effectwith the cause . . ." Existentialism, London, 1946, pp. 48-49.

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Yale FrenchStudies In Aeschylus'sversion of the Orestes myth,we also have the revolt of the ego against the old primitivecollective. Orestes violates the mechanical ritual of tribal collective guilt held by the Erinyes. But the turning-pointof the not the elimination,of the malign Erinyesinto Oresteia is the transformation, the benign Eumenides. The old "system"harborselementswhich make possible its assimilation with the new "system",under the aegis of a rising Athenian democracy.For Aeschylus,the Orestes mythis carried forwardby the societal interest.Athena herselfemploys "social" means in her recourseto an Athenian jury, in her use of reason and persuasion on the Erinyes. And Orestes,who begins with parricide, ends by accepting and being accepted by the replaced pair, Apollo and Athena. Nor does his social involvementdeprive father-mother him of individual stature. His "eminence" derives in part from the fact that he servesas a link in a communal chain. The situation in Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris, as in the Euripides version, Iphigenia has found refugewith is that,followingthe murderof Clytemnestra, King Thoas in Tauris. The king firstapppears as primitiveauthorityintenton exacting tribal vengeance on all Greeks who enter his land. Orestes is in a related state and would oppose Thoas by stealth and force. But he and Iphigenia tame their demon, and in the end Thoas is persuaded by both, as Aeschylus'sErinyes are persuaded by Athena. To be sure, in Goethe's play, thereis no chorus,no jury of Athenian citizensto contributeto the redemption. Germany,when the people's voice is largely Goethe is writingin 18th-century subdued, and when the inner,ethical approach of the individual alone appears representative. Thus, in Aeschylus and Goethe, the hero defies an old tradition,but chooses an alternativehigh tradition.In Sartre, there appears to be no room for any tradition, no room for persuasion, reason, or ethics to banish the Furies. His Orestes would carxy the burden by himselfwithout referenceto God, society,or family. A more related approach to Sartre'sOrestesappears in O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra. For O'Neill, Electra (Lavina) is the central pivot. (Orestes is a weak, sicklyfigure). Her formof freedomis acted out in satanic defiance and in a will to power. In pursuit of this power, O'Neill's charactersover power their own origins. But the destructionof their origins does not free them, and his Electra remains in the grip of the Furies. In his earlier and later work (The Hairy Ape and Days WithoutEnd), the American dramatist suggeststhe need for communal reference.But in Mourning Becomes Electra, the ego is freedonly for its own eternal damnation, freed to be foreveralone with itself,at home only in blank and black despair.

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HARRY SLOCHOWER Temporal Involvements The mythdeals with the eternal schema. Yet, thisschema has its timetable. While the formsremain the same, theirfunctionvaries with the historicalflux. The variations of the Orestes mythin Aeschylus,Goethe, and O'Neill are, as suggested,bound up with their varyingcultural demands. Existentialismtoo has received its accent in response to particularhistoricpressures.2 Essentially,Existentialismwould annul the categoryof mediation. Its prodocuments,forms, testis against mediators(the machine,bureaus, functionaries, political representation,abstract categories,organization)which strip the person of his singularityand of his human warmth,dissolving him in a grey anonymity.Yet this protestagainst the reductionof the individual to the role of an intermediaryis itselfthe expressionof a midwayposition. It is the voice of those resistinga situation where theyhover somewherebetween upper and lower powers, are not themselves,but are manipulated to serve either group. This midway status may be said to have received its impetus with the Renaissance and the rise of the middle classes. But the themesof homelessness are peculiarly relevant to the German and solitude, of militant self-assertion, bourgeoisie. Its late rise and retarded development long placed it helplessly at the mercyof the upper Junkerstrata,and later in fear of the lower proletariat. Existentialismis primarilya German import. Elements of it are to be found in Goethe's Faust, who would emancipate himselfcompletely,firstfrom his Gothic heritage,and later from the old pair, Philemon and Baucis, thus exposing himselfto the ghost of "Sorge." Faust still makes an effortto be born out of his medieval collective and in the end joins a social and religiouscommunality.Wagner's Siegfried,on the otherhand, would be born out of nothing. He does not know his fatheror mother,kills his substituteparent Mime, bypasses Wotan, and falls victimto society,"the court" of Gunther,finallyto end in "nothing", the pyre of the "G,6tterdamerung." He is not born from but against society(Fricka), free of traditionand of fear,existingin pure opposition to existingtables of value. And, as Sartre'sZeus cannot prevent the birth of the free man, so Wagner's Wotan is helpless against Siegfried.Wagner's hero is the freeman, freefromthose below (the Niebelungen) and those above (Walhalla) . This note is continued by Nietzsche who warred simultaneouslyagainst snobbishGerman metaphysicsand Wagner's aristocraticpretensions,and against "the many,all too many." In Nietzsche too we find"leaps" and transcendance, which make for the restlessand nervouspace of the Superman. Nietzschecould still attempt to limit freedom by the determinismin his theoryof eternal 2 For elaboration of O'Neill's position and of the factors in German development,discussed below, see my No Voice Is WhollyLost (N. Y., 1945), chapterson O'Neill, Nietzsche,and Spengler.

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Yale FrenchStudies recurrencewhich allowed for tenuous respite.Kierkegaardcountered the world of "clearance sales" by a leap of faith,and Strindbergapproximated that leap in his last years. Ibsen launches his heroic men on their free path. But dramaticallyhe shows that the Brands and Peer Gyntsare in need of grace to be redeemed, that the Stockmanns cannot help the people by remaining their "enemy." 20th-century Germanycould be more "heroically"desperate. Carried along by "foreign" interestsand) doctrines,its middle groups sought consolation in Spengler's proud "Untergang,"in expressionisticfreedoms,and in Heidegger's dignificationof "Sorge." As Gunther Anders points out,3 Heidegger's return from the firstWorld War was a homecoming to no home. There arose the insistence "to be there," to be "themselves"(the basic Existentialistvocabulary). He had faced "Death" and "Nothing" in the war and now wanted "to be" and to be "himself,"to exist-not in general and for others-but to himself; to be anxious not about the systembut about oneself.In Anders'sformulation, this expressed the bourgeois despair, the despair of those who are the victimsof the abused bourgeoisfreedoms,who have neverhad real opportunities for freedom,but have lived for the objectives of more powerfulgroups. This also fittedin with the ideology of the Third Reich on the analogy of the German self coming to itselfafter being robbed by the "world" and the Versailles "system."In reality,this freedomis a desperate affirmation of boundedness. Heidegger was to "prove" this by attaching himselfto the mcst Panzerlike systemof all-Nazism.4 Sartre tells us that his studies in Heidegger immediatelyafter Hitler's accession to power led to his theoryof Existentialism.This German product grew in the soil of the Vichy era among those who felt themselvescaught midway between foreignand native systemsboth of which denied their individual existence. But we venture the opinion that this German phenomenon will "Nihilismus und Existenz," Neue Rundschau, October, 1946. The his toric precedentsfor Existentialismapply to a lesser extent to England. Hamlet has been wronglyinterpretedas an Existentialistcharacter.His problem arises preciselyfromthe circumstancethat he cannot justify-morallyor socially-his complete severance from his collective: the Ghost, his mother, and even Claudius, who is capable of prayer. Hamlet goes to Wittenbergand later to England, but each time returnsto the court.The situationin the Scandinavian countries,placed in a non-heroicposition in relation to European industrial development,is more relevant,as indicated by the problems in Kierkegaard, Strindberg,and Ibsen. 4 Jasper'sdoctrineof final "shipwreck"is a versionof Heidegger's "Death." He also inveighsagainst the unity of opposites. But he is more aware of the dialectic relation between opposites. This may move him away fromthe camp of Existentialism.

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HARRY SLOCHOWER remain a drop of foreignblood in the French body. Irrationality,free individualism, metaphysicalconcern with "nothing," all this is indigenous to the historiccurve of the German bourgeoisie. The roots of modem France lie in Cartesian Rationalism, in the critical tradition of Montaigne, in the realism of its literature,in its sense of tradition,in its concentrationaround "schools" and "academies," and finally,in the realityof its revolutionarytraditionfrom of Paris. 1789, i83o, 1848, 1871 to the self-liberation between Sartre and Heidegger.5 There are indeed some differentiations The latter supported the Nazis-half-heartedly;Sartre was a staunch supporter of the Resistance movement.We find a deviation in theoryas well. Sartre recognizesthat "individualism is impossible without collective responsibility," that "man must use his free will to establish a workingbasis for living collectivelywithout destroyingthe dignityof the individual. To be responsible foroneselfmeans to be responsiblefor all men. This is the principle of "intersubjectivity"which holds that "the man who becomes aware of himselfthrough the cogito also perceivesall others,and he perceives them as the condition of his own existence."7While Sartredenies that thereis a universalhuman nature, he speaks of a universal human condition, the necessityto exist in the world withothers,the dutyof involvementin the problemsof the day.8 However these qualificationsremain sketchyand are not worked through towardslinkingfreedomwith tradition,past and future.Sartresaysthatprimary Kenneth E. Douglas well points out that Sartre realityis "being'in-the-world." "forgetshis hyphensand dwells exclusivelyon the conflictbetween man, with his inescapable freedom,and the external world which is in-itselfbut not foritself."9 Are Existentialistsaware of the insufficiency in their individual stress? They argue that freedomspells anguish. Does their anguish arise from their sensing that "collective responsibility"is not met by the individual free act? That in effectit ignores those who are not free,whose existence is not their own? That the non-rationalact by the isolated individual workingoutside of the systemis not effective, indeed not possible in a world of privateand public corporate powers?Have not the Existentialistsgeneralized existenceso that it has itselfbecome an essence,albeit a particularizedessence? The insufficiency of exclusive centeringin the second stage also appears within this stage itselfin that it does not question itself.This is dramatically 5 A reporthas it that Heidegger has repudiated Sartre

Interviewwith Dorothy Norman, The New York Post, April 9, 1946. Existentialism,New York, 1947. 8 "We Write For Our Time," The VirginiaQuarterlyReview, Spring,1947. E "The Nature of Sartre'sExistentialism,"The VirginiaQuarterlyReview, 6 7

Spring, 1947-

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Yale FrenchStudies illustratedin Sartre'saccount of the studentwho came to him for advice. The young man faced the choice of joining the Resistance movementor stayingat home with his mother.Sartre told him that this must be his own choice. The young man then decided to stay with his mother; and Sartre adds that, in deciding to come to him, the young man had already made his choice. He had wanted to stay with his mother and knew that Sartre would not make any decision forhim. This storypresentsan astoundinglynaive attitude toward the problem of human choice. It assumes that what a person thinkshe wants, Oil the basis of his immediateknowledge about himself,is equivalent to what he might want if he learned more about his motivation. Does this not ignore Spinoza's distinction between inadequate and adequate ideas? Might not an analysisand probing of an individual's choice reveal that his motivesare based on an immediate desire which is contrary to his broader and long-range interests?In that Existentialismdiscouragessuch analysis,it tends to encourage a freedomin termsof compulsivewishfulfillments. Perhaps Ruggiero has this in mind when he chargesthat Existentialismcorruptsthe youth. "We have no excuse behind us, nor justificationbefore us," Sartre writes. This spells the mutilation of the myth into a process which is open at both ends. It convertsthe steadycontinuityof the mythinto a disconnectedseriesof leaps leading to death or shipwreck.Existentialismhas emptied the mythical collectiveand transformed it into a primeval abyss. In it man begins and ends with nothing.Between the two voids lies the realm of existencewhose emergence remains a mystery.In sum, it deprives the mythof its communal status and dignity. Still, the movement is a salutary antidote. It is a wholesome warning against the dead and false myth, against a sexless, mechanical collectivism, against Ersatz myths.Writingabout America,Sartre notes that here "the myth of libertyco-existswith a dictatorshipof public opinion; the mythof economic liberalismwith monstercorporationswhich embrace a continent,which finally belong to no one . .. ioo million Americanswho tryto satisfytheir need for the marvellousby reading the incredible adventuresof Superman or Mandrake the Magician."10The catharticvalue of the movementis to rouse the individual against surrenderand submissionto impersonality.Above all, it is a challenge to the most monstrousmythicalcollective of our day, the inhuman myth of totalitarianism.But it is not yet the human myth.

10 Quoted

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in The New York Times, February 2, 1947.

WALLACE FOWLIE

Hero: Existentialist a Studyof L'Age de Raison -IThe unity in L'Age de Raison comes fromthe protagonistMathieu. The novel is conceived as a series of scenes representingthe world closing in on Mathieu from all directionsin order to lay bare, irritate,and stimulatehis precious belief in human liberty. From the opening scene where Mathieu meets on the rue Vercingotorixa drunkard to whom he has the choice of giving or not giving a few francs and thus expressinghis total freedomin creating his immediate future moment, to the final scene where he is left alone in his apartmentafterDaniel's departure and where he assures himself that the past experiences have propelled him into the age of reason, every episode would seem to contradicthis liberty.Sartre's work is a metaphysical novel constructedon the paradox of the world inflictingits complexitiesand constrainingbonds on a hero, and the boundless inner libertypreservedby the hero. and teaches philosophy in a Paris lyc~e. We see Mathieu is thirty-four him always in his relationshipwith a series of friends.At the few moments when he is alone, during the course of the novel, he thinksas a philosopher might and abstractsthe meaning from his acts. After leaving the drunkard in the opening scene, he enters the room of Marcelle, who has been his mistressfor seven years. Without appearing so in any obvious way, the successive settingsin the novel possess a strong symbolicvalue. They are valid parts of the inner action. Mathieu feels, as he enters Marcelle's room, that he is going into a shell. He has to enter the room stealthilyand surreptitiously in order not to awaken Marcelle's mother who is sleeping in a neighboring room. During the course of the conversation,he learns that Marcelle has become pregnant.This is a furthersymbolof somethingsecret and closed in, of a trap laid to impede his liberty.The outer action of the novel is to become Mathieu's search for an abortionistand then his search for the five thousand francswith which to pay the abortionist.But during the early pages of the novel, afterhe has learned of Marcelle's pregnancy,Mathieu's mind is haunted by the image of the tiny foetus growing in her womb and of the darkness of that restrictedspace. Always juxtaposed with the image of the foetus (la cloque qui gonflait,p. 49) which he feels must be removed,is the abstracttermof libertywhich Mathieu invokes as if it were a deity and which

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Yale FrenchStudies he explains from time to time in terms of an image: La liberte, c'est son jardin secret (p. 54). Liberty too is a closed-in site, a garden, a private domain, warm and hidden. Marcelle is the woman whom Mathieu has loved but no longer loves. Their unborn child represents the bond between Mathieu's present incapacity to love her (his newrfreedom) and his past love. But he discovers simultaneouslya new freedomin his absence of love for Marcelle and a new enslavement in his growing love for Ivich, a girl much younger than himself. We firstsee Mathieu and Ivich togetherin two places reminiscentof the closed and constrictingarea which has already characterizeda threat to Mathieu's liberty.It is in a taxi where Mathieu firstdares to kiss Ivich. He feels shame at what she is probably thinking and realizes that their entire relationship has been modified by that one act. They enter a Gauguin exhibit where the closeness of the pictures and spectators force them closer togetherin the strange connivance which Mathieu's kiss created. The walls of the gallery are comparable to the walls of a pink bedroom or 'the flesh walls of a womb where a new life or a new love is growing,but ineluctably, uncontrollably. Mathieu then passes through two rooms in his search for money: first, Daniel's room and then, that of his brotherJacques. Both friendand brother refuse to lend him the five thousand francs.The image of the foetus in the womb grows dimnin Mathieu's mind, as it is replaced by the image of bills in a wallet. The growing power of the child he has created is lost sight of notes which would effect in his preoccupationwith the fiveone-thousand-franc the disappearance of the child before its birth. A curious brief scene takes place in Mathieu's apartmentwhere a young and an older man, Boris and Brunet, face him and face one another. In a great economy of writing,Sartre is often successful,as in this scene (pp. 118in depicting a complicated pattern of human existence and motivation. 129), Boris is Mathieu's disciple, his student in philosophy,who admires him and loves him in a ferventway he is unable to feel in loving a woman. Brunet has a similar kind of love and admiration for Mathieu; but he is of the same age, and his fidelityto the Communist Party has absorbed his capacity and his rightfor love. He wants to love Mathieu as a fellow Communistand invites him to join the Party. Mathieu is subconsciouslyapprehensive of his potential Socratic love for Boris and his potential ideological love for Brunet. They occur to him as possible inducementsor as facile absorptions of himself in another being. But Mathieu marks.his essential liberty in choosing the impossible,in followingthe predictable destinyof man by electing Ivich for his love, Ivich who is so differentfromhim in age and temperament,so inaccessible to him in her childishnessand conflictingsexual impulses.

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WALLACE FOWLIE This central scheme of absurdityand recklessnessin love is masterfully delineated in the episode of the night club Sumatra, where Mathieu finds presences of Boris, Ivich, and himselfin the midst of the constantly-moving Lola. Lola is the favoritesinger in the club. She is the mistressof Boris and loves him passionatelyand jealously. But she is much older than Boris and hence is a curious female counterpartof Mathieu. Without much exchange of words, Lola and Mathieu understand one another. A solidarityexists between them, in their similar age and in their similar longings for a being younger than themselves.In order to scandalize and horrifya woman who is watchingher, and also in order to release her strong emotions,Ivich cuts into the palm of her hand with a knifeacquired by her brotherBoris. Mathieu takes the knife and cuts his own hand. It is his only permittedact of homage and love to Ivich. Knives and blood are permanent symbols throughoutthe novel. They objectify the themes of abortion, of abortive love, of theft,of liberty of action. In termsof the protagonistMathieu, the action moves rapidly in short scenes after the elaborate scene at the Sumatra. When Ivich fails her examination, Mathieu rescues her fromsome dangerous companions. He robs Lola of the 5000 francs,and offersthem to Marcelle. When he candidly confesses to Marcelle that he has no more love for her, one realizes that their separation is consummated.When Daniel announces to Mathieu that he is going to marryMarcelle and permit her to have her child, a feeling of hate and rivalrygrows up between the two men; and Mathieu is left, at the end of the novel, in total solitude, as the world withdrawsfrom him in precisely the opposite movement from that with which it had pressed against him at the beginning. If Mathieu is seen throughoutthe novel as moving fromroom to room, Marcelle is always seen in her room as the permanent testimonyof existence, the woman who is waiting for the future to become the present. Her desire for her child grows,as the child physicallygrows in her. She waits with her love for the man who will fatherher child. The anguish of existencein man (in Mathieu and in Daniel) is the anguish of waiting in woman (in Marcelle who awaits the birth of her child, in Ivich waiting for her examinationgrade, in Lola waiting for Boris's return to her.) Marcelle is the one visited, the woman who occupies the fixed center of existence (her room is a shell and her womb is growing with child); whereas Mathieu is the visitor,the man who moves about on the peripheryof existence. He visits Marcelle in his capacity as progenitor unwilling to fulfill his obligation. She prefers the calls "archangel" and who apvisitation of Daniel, whom she affectionately at has a time when she heard the angelic announcement, propriatelyappears realm a within she is chained the of when miracle. Daniel speaks her already

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Yale FrenchStudies words for her when he says that she wants her child. Daniel, vous m'avez ddlivrde (p. 163) is her acceptance of the miracle and the angel's intervention. Daniel's words form the firstact of her release, and Mathieu's words at the end of the novel, when he says he no longer loves her, form the final act of release: Ie n'ai plus d'amour pour toi (p. 286). Marcelle's action in the novel is her change frommistressto mother,the discoveryof her freedom to bear her child, to move out from the spell of the passionate lover into the radiancy of the passionate archangel. Boris is the character dramatically caught between many conflicting worlds because of his great beauty and youthfulness.Half-gigolo,half-intelhe knows somethingabout many ways of lectual, hal~boy, half-sophisticate, life, but he has not yet found a vocation or a love strong enough to direct him and give permanent vigor to his adolescent anxiety. Boris is tired of his sexual love with Lola because it doesn't satisfyhim spiritually.He has simply to exist, with his particular kind of Slavic beauty, in order to attract older women. The sexual act itselfdisgustshim (Cela me ddgoiltede faire l'amour. p. 41), but he is physicallyexcited when Lola calls him "boy": je jouis quand tu dis: mcme (P. 30). His real love is for Mathieu, whom he worshipsand over whom he can feel jealousy. He has not had to rob Lola; she gives herself too easily. But he has to learn a way to get Mathieu. His lessons on theft and his suggestionof robbing Lola for Mathieu are all symbolicof this need he feels of justifyinghimselfbefore Mathieu and of winning him. The brief scene in Mathieu's apartmentwhere Boris and Brunet but remarkably-drawn face one another and try each in his own way to draw Mathieu to himself, is the most obvious key to Boris's particular anxiety. (Boris is perhaps the most fitfully-anguished characterin L'Age de Raison.) Boris stays as long as he can in order to impede any rapprochementbetween Mathieu and Brunet, and then leaves broken-hearted(d'un air navrd,p. 12i) almost as if he were the jilted lover. After this scene, his need to commit a theftis the need of purgation. He calls it that (c'etait une asc.se, p. 145). His need to steal the dictionaryof slang is his need of sexual release after his frustrationin the presence of Mathieu. At the very moment when he is about to seize the dictionary(the symbolicgestureof union with Mathieu), he feels Daniel's hand on his shoulder. This coming-togetherof Boris and Daniel at a moment both highlyrealistic and symbolicties up the knot of the drama at some distance fromthe protagonistand indicates perhaps that the centerof the drama is shiftingfrom Mathieu to Boris or to Daniel. These two, throughoutthe novel, represent the two types of male beauty, who are destined to attract all those whom theyare unable to love and repel those few whom theymight love. They are types of potential lovers whose very beauty forces them into a strange species of ascetic. Ie suis un chaste, Boris tries to explain a bit

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WALLACEFOWLIE laterto Mathieu(p. 185). One senses,in the dictionary-theft scene,thatthe particularkind of anxietyin Boris and in Daniel is the same,and that it has graduallybeen assumingfirstimportance. Ivich,sisterof Boris,and his double in manyways,is more instinctive thanhe is, and onlypartiallyawareof her effect on othersas well as of the enjoymentshe derivesfrom tormenting them. She doesn't need men, as Marcelle,Lola, and Sarah do. In fact,she is jealous of men,becauseshe is strongly attractedto women.Her incapacityto pass her examinationis a projectionof her incapacityto know-whomshe loves.She drinksexcessively, as she is hourlyattractedto this personand that one, and alwaysinsists, quite honestly, thatshe likesno particulardrink.She is best definedin her unexpectedspeechand reactions.That is, she cannotbe definedin any recognizableway.Of all the characters in L'Age de Raison, she is themostelusive and the leastwell drawn.She is mostvisiblewhenshe appearsin sceneswith Boris,becauseshe takeson someof his colorand stronger Brother consistency. and sisterare actually,I suppose,one character splitinto twoby the novelist. one theshadowor theecho of the other.Only whenIvich is drunk,is Sartre able to give her a convincingform.When sober,she is incompetent before and has to relyon half-felt any stronghumansentiment insolenceand petty cruelties. Afterthe two main couples-Mathieuand Marcelle (loverand mistress) and Borisand Ivich (brotherand sister),two setsof relationships whichare treatedin thenovel as dissolving-there are fourothercharacters of decidedly secondary i. Lola is thenightclub singer, importance: whosedeath-like Erance, aftershe has druggedherself,terrifies her youngloverBoris.Both the trance and the terrorare symptomatic of theirpurelyphysicaldependenceon one another.2. Sarah is the othertypeof woman,who has discoveredhappiness in conjugalfidelity and motherhood. She represents what Marcelleis to become,as Lola may well be the typewhichIvich is to become.3. Jacques, brotherof Mathieu,is the exemplarof bourgeoisvirtues,the typeof man whohas reachedveryearlytheage of reason.4. Brunetis thecharacter whose love formankinddependson mankind'sacceptanceof his politicalideology. He illustratesan extremetype of fervorand sublimationwhich Mathieu mighthave developedin himself. -II-

One characterremainsto completethe repertory: Daniel, who through the courseof the novel,graduallyseemsto assumethe place of firstimportMathieu'sfunctionof proance, and who ends perhapsby appropriating tagonist.Daniel may well be an example of the characterwho resiststhe and forcibly originalintentionof the novelistand who growsmysteriously

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Yale FrenchStudies into unpredicteddimensions.Daniel is, of all the charactersin L'Age de Raison, the most subtly and persuasivelydrawn. His particular dilemma combines the infernoof inversionand the paradise of an archangel who by his suffering lives through a veritable purgatory. It is significantthat Daniel's firstappearance takes place after almost one-thirdof the book is completed. Before we see him, we hear of him in two related connections,in two functionsof kindness: 1. as Mathieu's friend who might possibly lend him money for the abortionist,and 2. as the archangel friendof Marcelle who is going to call on her. Every detail in Daniel's firstscene (pp. 87-102) is meaningfuland must be used in order to recompose anything that would resemble a psychological portrait of the man. Naked to the waist, he is shaving before a mirror.He avoids a pimple under his lip because he has a horrorof cuts, and yet he is contemplatingsuicide, by means of his razor, at a fixed time just a few hours off.A slight noise at the door makes him leap in a kind of franticrage in order to catch a young girl who has the habit of leaving for him a bunch of flowersas homage to her silent love. But she escapes again this morning and he kicks the flowersthrough the stairway opening. He appears already as the man who is loved, who attractsvery forciblyothers whom he is unable to love and whom he turns against in an explosive wrath. As he looks in the mirror at his archangel face,he knows it to be his secretforceof attractionand would like to convert it at will into a mask of horror with which to terrifythe world he doesn't love. He cuts throughthe pimple under his lip in order to disfigurehimself even slightlyand impermanently.The appearance of his room is impersonal. No souvenirsclutterit up. His life is as stripped as his beauty is vulnerable. This firstscene accentuatesDaniel's love of his three cats, of their feline independence and individuality.He places them in a basket and takes a tramwayto a spot on the Seine just outside of Paris where he has planned to drown them. This act would have been the preparation for his suicide, but he is tenderlyunable to go throughwith the drowning of the animals and returnswith them to his room. There he finds Mathieu, who asks him for the loan of money. Daniel has the money, but pretends he hasn't and refuses to help his friend. Even the brief narration of these acts or lack of action (his incapacityto drown the cats and his unwillingnessto lend money to Mathieu) indicates the complicated life of deception which Daniel leads and which has brought him to a moment of crisis and decision. The playfulness and tendernessof his characterhave to be expended on cats. They alone receive the complicated ritual of his affectionbecause they are unable to betray him. Mathieu is a human being, close to Daniel, but with whom Daniel has never succeeded in being honest and against whom Daniel is thereforeable to turn in bitterness.This scene reveals the impenetrable

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WALLACE FOWLIE mask which Daniel has forged for himself and wears in the world, a mask which by its ever-increasingweight and thicknessis now on the point ot stiflinghim. Daniel's second scene (pp. 130-140) combines the surreal quality of a nightmareand a boldly realistic tableau de moeurs. At the kermesseon the boulevard de Sebastopol, a shabby kind of street fair, Daniel watches the Paris fairies (tapettes d'occasion) entice and make up to their older and wealthier customers.Every gesture is studied and every glance is meaningful. Daniel stands off from the carefullyplotted but monotonous scenes between the voycus and the messieurs,and knows that what he watches is the caricature of his own instincts.He suffersand forces himself to suffer.He gloats over interruptingthe various attempts at seduction and endures the agony of their emptinessand crudity.When he is recognized and approached by a certain Bobby, a boy whom he once knew, his torturereaches its height in this reminder that he also has played the part of a monsieur in the luridlylighted kermessescene. His sarcasm and anger with Bobby are pitiful efforts to prove to himself that he has changed, but he knows that he has been caught at the post, in the center of the scene of degradation to which he has returnedalmost hypnotically.A bit later, after leaving the kermesse,he nleets Boris just at the moment when the boy is on the point of stealing the dictionaryof slang. This short scene is a conclusion to the kermessenightmare. Boris is the young intellectual and the Slavic beauty whom Daniel might have loved. Behind all the questions he asks Boris, one senses his anxiety over knowing whether Boris might one day turn toward him. He envies Mathieu's rOle of teacher,his power of attractingyoung students.In a powerful image he compares the cups of coffee and the theories which Mathieu offersto his disciples in the cafes, to sacred hosts. (et le petit avale tout, les cafds-cremeet les theories, comme des hosties p. 152). When he contrasts Boris with Bobby, the wrath in him convertshim into the statureof an archangel of hate and a judge. His third scene is preciselythat of an archangel,but this time manifesting tendernessin the presence of Marcelle. He has learned from Mathieu that Marcelle is pregnant and he succeeds in making her confess that she wants to have the child. Daniel, as he bends down to kiss Marcelle's hand, enacts an almost liturgical ending of an episode in which he has been the agent releasing Marcelle fromherself,and in which he is seen as participating in an experience for which the French have the precise word of amitieamoureuse. After such a scene which points out Daniel's purgatory,the novelist revertsto the infernal punishments.The fourthscene takes place in Bobby's room where Daniel and Ralph (Bobby's roommate) have just gotten out of

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Yale FrenchStudies bed. The sexual act is over and a deep feeling of hate exists between the two, but Ralph is obsequious (he still has to be paid for his service) and Daniel is harsh and bitter after the abandonment of himselfwhich is a loss of his self-respect.They wrestle togetherand pretend that it is a joke, but it serves to give vent to Daniel's overpoweringhate and anger. As he pins the boy's back to the bed (a skillful transpositionfrom the mat or the floor of an authentic wrestlingmatch), he feels some meagre satisfactionin this symbolictriumph.His one thought,as he leaves the room, is to wash his body and repurifyhimself.The sinner longs to recapture his r6le of archangel. Daniel's fifthscene is related to his first.It is the moment of his projected suicide. He holds the razor in his hand. The manner of his death he has planned as a terriblevengeance and judgment. He is to cut his genitals: monrtela bete (p. 274), and be found on the floor,his trousersopened and covered with blood. He places the razor on the table, touches the blade with his hand, and then rushes out into the hall, down the stairwayand out into the street. In the firstscene he had chased away a young girl fromhis door with the same abruptness and wrath. The knife theme, associated with the early passages on abortion, with the covetousnessof Boris, with the frustrated desires of Mathieu and Ivich in the Sumatra, is here recapitulated in Daniel's test of his own will. The obstacle to his suicide is the new r6le he has to play for Marcelle, the new chance offeredhim to realize his prerogativesof archangel. His escape from suicide, from an infernaldeath which, from its planned stylization,would have indkated to the world the particular sin which had occasioned it, leads Daniel into his sixth and final scene, the confessionof his sexual aberration,which he makes to Mathieu: Mathieu, je suis piddraste (p. 302). This in itself is a kind of capitulation to the world, a worldly suicide. It is the demolishing of his social mask. It is Daniel's bid for redemption. With the confessionhe announces that he is going to marryMarcelle and serve as fatherof her child. The hatred he feels at this moment for Mathieu is comparable to the hatred he felt for Ralph in the fourthscene. In both cases he betrayed himself: by his act, to Ralph; by his words, to Mathieu. The boy and the man serve as executioners,or at least as judges who know fully the truth of Daniel's drama. The novel ends with the world descending powerfullyover Daniel. The six scenes in which he appears contain an action progressively violent. 1. With the cats he is the impotent hero, overcome by tendernessand unable to performan act. 2. At the kermessehe is the voyeur,another species of impotent, who enjoys the forbidden spectacle but is unwilling (or unable) to participate in it. In his meeting with Boris at the bookstore,he is both impotent and voyeutr,unable to establish relationship with the young man but ob-

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WALLACE FOWLIE servantof him as if he were a possible prey. 3. In his behavior with Marcelle, he is still impotent to an importantdegree. He is able to kiss her hand and manifest an impersonal kindness, that of an archangel inhabiting another realm, in the solution he offersto the young woman. 4. With Bobby, Daniel's rage and hate, which grow out of his one act of sexual potency, invalidate the act itself and point to a renewal of frustrationin him. 5. Alone again, as in the firstscene, he comes close to suicide and to the act planned earlier, but is unable to realize his desire. 6. With Mathieu, at the end, Daniel's avowal almost follows the rite of confession. He has no real sense of contrition and hence no peace following the confession. But the pattern exists and points out the way to redemption,or at least to self-redemption. Daniel is bound to his destinyof marryingMarcelle and becoming the fatherof her child. He becomes by intention that which he is called affectionately,"an archangel", and findshimselfin the very center of the drama of libertyafter Mathieu has moved out from it. The novel of Sartre is much more than a furtherexample of naturalism. Its subject is the condition of man in the universe. The anguish of his existence is reminiscentof that already described by Pascal and Rimbaud, although Sartre never gives it the vibrant poetic tone of his predecessors.The single fact of existence engenders the problem of libertywhich provides the entire work with its metaphysicalfocus. Of all the characters,Mathieu speaks the most of libertyand thinks about it the most directly.He considers his existence a condemnation of liberty.In leaving Marcelle, at the end of the novel, he realizes that there is no real reason for his leaving her. Life around him is seen as superfluousand absurd. Much of the art of the novel is devoted to the stiflinguniverse in which Mathieu finds himself,to the closed world in the center of which his precious concept of libertyseems to be his astounding lucidity. There he is powerful and free, as Daniel is also. As Mathieu is seen emergingout of the abundant confusion and engulfingpower of the world, Daniel is seen descending into it. Each protagonistin his action preserves his personal consciousnessand his awareness of the continual presence of death. Sartre, both philosopher and novelist, has projected himself into Mathieu, teacher of philosophy and thinker,and into Daniel, closer to the artist, who descends from his angelic aloofness into the confused pattern of human existence.

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ROBERT G. COHN

SartresFirstNovel: La Nausee Antoine Roquentin is a pre-Mathieu.If Mathieu has not attained the Age of Reason in the firstvolume of Sartre'strilogy,his predecessormay be said to representa much earlier stage: relatively,that of an embryo.While Mathieu moves on to a stubbornstumblingdefinitionof liberty,Roquentin coils upon investigation:he seeks the pre-conditions himselfin a Heideggerian voarontisch himselfaway fromoutside forcesand man cuts a of being itself. Now when tracksmeaning down into his small intestines,he may encountermerely-a bad taste. And so the novel begins with a methodicalnegation or isolation,clearing the scene for an infant dispepsia which may yet become a man-sizedAnguish. In other words,by the process called "phenomenologicalreduction" Sartrehas here revised Descartes'sformulato read: "I belch, thereforeI am."' The night could have been the elation of creation (for the end of before this arriere-gou't this novel really is its beginning): but it wasn't. There we have-a tinyinsight into whySartreis many other thingsbesides an artist:he is a man who is going somewhere,and in the closing pages of this novel his hero is about to board a train to prove it. Let us slide a rapid thumbnailover his trajectory,startingat our map's edge. Jean-Paul Sartre as a professorof philosophy must have enjoyed Spinoza because his studentsprobably couldn't. FurtivelytiltingWill Durant frommy shelf,I discover that Spinoza was a thinkerwho favoredadequacy as much as Sartre favors authenticity,or Jung, sublimation. On page 92 of t'Etre et le nOantoccurs the phrase ". . . la libido est un conatus... ;" and on page 404 we read: "Conscience does not cease to 'have' a body; . . this perpetual apprehension by my pour-soi (reflexiveconsciousness) of a sour taste . . . is . . . Nausea"2 To sum up Spinozistikally,Nausea is the obverse of conatus, and 1 On such points Existentialistsoften trick themselvesinto thinkingthey really differfroman "Idealist" like Descartes because theybegin with a downward gesture,are "pessimists",renderWill as Sorge,etc. 2 Spinoza didn't like the taste of his body either and wrote his Ethics in tacit protest. However he failed to maintain strictimpartialitytoward what his was supposed to be a geometricsystem,and the result is twofold: firstly, overemphasison fear as negative on the one hand and on the Thought Mode as positive on the other hand allowed a kinetic flow fromhis would-be static and in an effortto stop the emanating rush this other Dutch boy dyke-system,

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ROBERT G. COHN Sartre is writinganother success-story, Bildungsroman,or "How I dug myself out of the mud (boue) of Bouville." Bouville is the name Sartregives Le Havre in returnfor the drearyyearshe spent there as a lycdeprofessor.Like Joyce's beery Dublin (doublin his mumper) or his hero-fragment Wallington's Waterloose, this provincial cityservesas a good fluidmother-substance to arise from. The last words of the book read: ". . . il pleuvra sur Bouville." Roquentin, like Joyce'srock-man,really does erect himself:". . . it is I who cut through the night,I am happy as the hero of a novel;" but there is no real phall. La Nausde is writtenin the formof a journal. This serves two main purposes: first,by eliminatingconnectivesor "verbal" flow,Sartre obtains for his fragmentsa total simultaneitymuch like that of poetry since, say, Rimbaud. The flow,being displaced from "architecturalverbs," now occurs throughkey images linked in a series which begins with the half-muddy,half-dryshingle and continues through the viscous oak tree and the seashore city's "gummy' Museum. Secondly,the journal-formallows for the interpenetrationof past and present,of action and comment,such as we see in Proust. In this connection it may be stated outrightthat for all of Sartre's critical fulminationsagainst precedinggenerationsof writers,we may detect many a theme and device for which he is beholden to Proust or Joyce.This is to his credit. On the title-pagea quotation fromGUline tells us what we soon learn in the novel itself: Roquentin is "alone, entirelyalone." He speaks to no one, receives nothing,gives nothing.True, he engages in makeshifttumblingwith the proprietressof the neighborhood cafe; however they barely nod to each other downstairs,and he remains primarily a drink-customerin her eyes. This prettywell defineswhat Roquentin does except that up till now he has 'been occupied by the preparation of a historical work on le Marquis de Rollebon; however, in his present "condition" he can't stomach immediate reality,let alone the junk-pile of the past. As for income,he has 300,000 francs socked away, which is not overwhelmingeven in pre-warterms,but again it is not bad for his thirtyyears. Sartre somewhereclassifieshimselfas a bourgeois, and one might point out that his hero's gastric trouble may be in part an occupational disorders La Nausie was writtenwhen the French bourgeoisie had to add successivelylarger footnotesto explain why fear kept creeping in as a step to adequation. Secondly, he enjoys the virtues of his defects and becomes an almost epicurean ancestor of robust geometricianslike Bertrand Russell, telling men "to make use of thingsand take delight in them as much as possible (not indeed to satiety)." Now all this left room for the Existentialists, who love to eat Idealists; however they fall into the same patterns,vide Sartre's 700 pages of hodge-podgemetaphysics,epistemology,psychology,and just plain garrulity;thereforewe are servingthem up to you, dear reader. s Roquentin's individualism is kept watertightbecause the only representative of social concern in this book is the humanist Autodidacte whose

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Yale FrenchStudie8 still seemed to have a future,and the bad taste in this son-of-a-bourgeois's mouth promises well from the first.Indeed, a hopeful sign appears early in the form of a jazz song fromAmerkca'srag-bag,"Some of these days," which Roquentin overhearsin the cafi. His reactionis simple: "I feltmy body harden and the nausea vanished." This music,at least, has a future-. But, meanwhile, Nausea is pouring out peninsulas everywhere,like Camus's peste, and soon envelops everything.Roquentin becomes consciousof many things,firstin their thingnessand then in their nasty superflousness.This is that reversealchemy and inside-out emanation by which gold becomes mud and all hierarchized oak tree and the framed Bulwarks objectivity,merde. The monstrous-rooted of Bouville are left founderingin a common viscous mess, faintlyrelated to the pitch-lake in the fifthChasm of Dante's Hell. Last to go under is the hero himself: "nmoiaussi jetais de trop" comes the needle-pointedclimacteric cry. A word about the scene in the picture gallery: people who think that Sartrecan't write,and theydo exist,had betterreread that passage. He demonstrateswith startlingpoise and forbearancehis own anti-Mauriac thesis concerning the author's objectivity.When the demigod of this creation does step in at the very last, he warms us to our tumtytumtoes with his envoi: "adieu salauds." The episodes thus pile up as layers of Roquentin's consciousness,and we musn't look forother development.There is a real woman in the story,Anny. but since she belongs to the past she goes the way of Rollebon. She appears only once in the "present" of the narrative,and we soon get wind of the fact that she too is suffering fromExistentialistindigestion.When she and the hero were going steady back in Meknbs, an entryin the journal tells us she played a role oddly like thatof Swann's Odette: Roquentin's love forher meant of time." Sartre thus pays tribute to mainly anguish and the "irreversibility Proust (and very much again at the end of the novel), but his hero breaks cleaner, is more manly,and is correspondinglyslimmer.As neat a testimonial as one could wish of the differencebetween the two is offeredin the following passage, which takes a direct slap at Noms de lieux (fromDu Cdtd de chez Swann): Sometimesin my narrative,it happens that I pronounce some of those beautiful names one reads in an atlas, Aranjuez or Canterbury. They give rise in me to freshimages, such as are formedby people who have never travelled: I make dreams upon words,that's all there is to it. interestin other men is clearlyhomosexual. Brunet of lAge de Raison is still a wee bit "that way", showingat once Sartre'spath of expansion and the concepts which,though elastic,will yet contain him.

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ROBERT G. COHN a shadyeventin Bouville'spublic park bringsus aroundby a Similarly, back Joyce'sWay. A half-fascinated girl watching commodiousrecirculation an old man exhibithimselfcould have been GertyMacDowell. (Justas the tripe-eating little Jew of Le Sursis could have been Bloom. Or Lulu in It are,unfortunate. is, all comparisons Intimitd,Mrs.Bloom). The comparison and showshow the smallernovelisthas unbalancedhis art withquick effects how above it all is the incomparable Joyce. of Roquentin'sProgressis markedhalf-way throughthe The trunk-route Spinozisticsign-post;the sole entryin the journal fot novel by a strikingly one whole day reads: "It ne faut pas avoir peur." (italics Sartre's).

returnlike the The closingpagesof La Nausie are givento a microcosmic Here the sprinkling one we findin the finalvolumeof Proust'smasterwork. of notesfroma jazz saxophoneplayspreciselythe same role as the (rementioned)septuorde Vinteuilthere.To Roquentinas to Marcelis revealedthe specificmeaningof creation: has just been born,a modelsuffering. A gloriouslittlesuffering Four saxophonenotes.They come and go, theyseem to say: "It is measuredly." necessary to do as we do, suffer, This musicdoesn'texist: it is. And I, I too wantedto be. That's even all I wanted;thereis the key word to my life . . . the same desires: . . . to purifymyself,

in orderto giveoffat last theclearprecisesoundof a hardenmyself, saxophonenote. his perfectly So Sartrespokein 1938. One cannotsay thathe has fulfilled ambitionin regardto precision. Ratherthanof a Sartriansaxophoneone might withcannonthrownin. At orchestra be temptedto thinkof a Berlioz-sized figurein Frenchwritingtoday. that,he is themostimpressive

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JEAN BRUNEAU

Existentialism and the AmericanNovel Existentialismis the firstFrench literarymovementon which the modern American novel has exercised a strongand' acknowledgedinfluence.Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir have enrolled in the school of Faulkner, Dos Passos, Hemingway, Caldwell and Steinbeck; they have gone so far as to canonize even Dashiel Hammett and James M. Cain in the Temple of Taste of the Cafe de Flore. In the wake of Sartreand de Beauvoir, Camus, Moloudji, Magnane, Desforkts,J.-L Bory . . . have in their turn borrowed attacks and devices from the New World writersthanks to whom the Existentialistshave effected"a revolutionin French novelistictechnique".It is no accident that the Existentialistsare responsible for what Sartre calls "the passage [of the novel] from Newtonian dynamics to generalized relativity".2He and Simone de Beauvoir, thinkersprimarily,became novelists because their philosophy was "an attempt to reconcile the objective and the subjective,the absolute and the relative, the timelessand the historical",and because "only in the novel is it possible to evoke the primordialgushing-forth of life in all its concrete,particular and temporal verity".8Such a position abolishes the distinction between philosophical treatise and literary work; certain pages of La Naust.e read like excerpts from L'Etre ct le ndant, and certain abstractanalyses,such as that of the caress, might with all fitnessbe insertedinto the love-storyof Marcelle and Mathieu. The traditionalFrench novel-formis an unsatisfactoryinstrumentfor the Existentialistwriter; "the novelist's technique is always a referenceto his metaphysics",writes Sartre'. How indeed could Sartreand de Beauvoir workwithin an estheticcreated out of philosophiestheyhad leftbehind? The Existentialisthero cannot reveal

1 Cf. Sartre,"American Novelists in French Eyes", The AtlamticMonthly, August 1946. I, Les Temps Modernes,June 1947, 2 Sartre,"Qu'est-ce que la littmrature?" p. i6318 S. de Beauvoir, "Litt~rature et m~taphysique", Les Temps Moderner, April 1946, p. ii6a. 4 "A propos de Le Bruit et la fureur:la temporality chez Faulkner", NRF, 1 June, 1939.

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JEANBRUNEAU himself through the devices used to present the realist or naturalist hero. Flaubert and Zola, Duhamel, Romains, Martin du Gard and Mauriac-all these describeonly hollow men, men who die in the mind of the author before they are born in the pages of the novel. In such a novel it matterslittlewhetherthe hero is presentedfromwithin or without,analyzed as an entityor studied in relation to his environment;his existenceis no longer a life,but a fate,oriented as it is by the omnipotentnovelist towarda logical and ineluctable end. Things happen in a certain order; when we recount them,we reverse the order. It seems as though we were beginning at the beginning'It was one fine fall evening in 1922. I was a notarypublic's clerk at Marommes'-and actually we have begun at the end.5 The author who does this sets himselftoo easy a task; his novel is then only an account,the storyof a lived, ratherthan a living life. But the Existentialistbelieves in freedom,in the unpredictability6 of men's actions; human life, for him, cannot, must not be degraded into automatism. A characterin a novel must vibrate with the same anxieties and "anguish" as the "man-in-the-world", must be, in the present tense, and not have been, in the past. Since the only novels we could write were novels of situation . . . we had to people oux books with half-lucid,half-obscureconsciousnesses, present creatureswhose realities resided in the muddled and contradictoryfabric of the judgmentsthat each creature made of all (including itself)and all of each . . . in short,we had to leave doubts, hesitations,and uncrystallizedmattereverywherein our work.7 The Existentialistcannot, then, accept either the sentimentalfinalismof the romantic,or the naturalist'sscientificdeterminism.The novel must no longer be a game (no matterhow serious) between authorsand characters.Life cannot be sliced up; it must pass whole into literature. But this has been one of the chief aims of the modern Americannovelist: to fill his books with life in its unmutilated,primitivecomplexityand even confusion. As Malraux says: "The essential characteristicof contemporary American writing is that it is the only literature whose writers are not intellectuals".8Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir found in this writingfirstof all a fundamentalemphasis on action. French and English novels seenmto tell storiesonly to analyze them and to explain their meaning. The basic unit of the Americannovel is the act, which for the Existentialistconstitutesthe unity of life. "We must plunge Things into action . . . ; the world and man are La Nausie (ed. NRF), p. 59. (an interviewwith Aury, Dominique, "Qu'est-ce que 1'existentialisme?" Sartre) Lettresfranvaises,24 Nov. 1945. 7 "Qu'est-ceque la litterature"V, Les Temps Modernes,June 1947,p. i6pi. 8 Horizon, January1945. 5 6

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Yale FrenchStudies revealedthroughenterprises".9 Analysisis not a valid meansof knowledge, as Bergsonhas alreadypointedout, nor is it a valid approachin literature. presented its characters to us synthetically. It made them [Americanliterature] performbeforeour eyes acts whichwere completein themselves, impossible to explain,actswhichit was necessary to graspcompletely, withall theobscure powersof our souls".'9For theExistentialists theheroesof The Sun AlsoRises, of Of Mice and Men, of God's Little Acre, of Light in August were just such

synthetic characters. Gide and Malrauxhad alreadyfeltthisyearning foraction, and thelatterhad evenpartlyabandonedanalysisfordescription, in La Condition humaineand L'Espbor.Instead of carefullypreparingeveryaction psychologically (as had Stendhaland the psychological novelists)or materially (as was thecase withBalzac and his tradition),Existentialist novelists choseto imitatethe rapidmultiplication of actionswhichDos Passoshad so effectively utilizedin his U.S.A. Camus'snovel L'Etrangeris the best exampleof this techniquein Frenchliterature. He [Raymond]dranka glassof wineand gotup. He pushedawaythe platesand thelittlebit of cold sausagethatwe had left.He carefully wiped offthe waxed table-cloth. He took a sheetof paper,ruledin squares,out of a drawerof his night-table." Camus'shero is shownto us just the wayotherhumanbeingsappear to us: by act afteract whichwe are leftto interpret. The secondfeatureof theAmerican novelwhichappealsto theExistentialist is the pure objectivity of the authortowardhis charactersand of the towardeach other.If humanlife is a stringof irrationaldeeds,it characters the followsthat the writercannotaffordto understandthem.Furthermore characters mustnot understandeach other."The heroesof Hemingwayand do not allow themselves to be dissected: Caldwellneverexplain themselves; theyact only.To analyzethemwouldbe to kill them".12This not onlymeans thatthe criticshouldnot attemptto treatthe heroin A Farewellto Armsor thewholeact of the familyin Tobacco Roa4 as he does Polyeucteor PhMdre; literarycreationis transformed by such an attitude.Sartreis convincedthat as mysterious and theonlywayto writea truenovelis to leave thecharacters mustgivewayto freedom. obscureas theyreallyare. Intellectual understanding In whatcategory Whatdo we knowaboutRoquentinor Marcelle,forinstance? thesemere can we put them?What do theyteachus? If Sartreis successful, shouldattainuniversality specimensof humanity by theirveryconcreteness. 9 Sartre,"Qu'est-ce que la littdrature"V, Les Temps Modernes,June 1947, p. 1640. 10 Sartre,"American Novelistsin French Eyes", op. cit., p. 117. 11 L'Etbanger,P. 49. 12 Sartre, "AmericanNovelistsin FrenchEyes",op. cit.,p. 117.

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JEANBRUNEAU Thirdly,Faulkner and Dos Passos have evolved new techniquesfordealing with one of the most importantproblemswith which the novelistis faced: that of representingtime. The habitual story was purely chronological,thus unfaithfulto the real nature of time for the individual. Moreover the writer could only centerhis storyon one characteror a group of characters,and could only describe the flowingof time throughtheseverynarrowchannels.Faulkner abandons chronological order in The Sound and the Fury, and Simone de Beauvoir uses his new, more sensitivemethod in her Le Sang des autres. Dos Passos attemptedto describe a whole epoch in his trilogyU.S.A. by using his "profile technique" which enables him to vary and multiply indefinitelythe charactersof his novels. It was after reading a book by Dos Passos that I thought for the firsttime of weaving a novel out of various simultaneouslives, with characterswho pass each other by withoutknowing one another and who all contribute to the atmosphere of a moment or a historical period.'8 Thus the classic concept of unity of action is destroyed.In Le Sursis Sartre depicts the birth of war in the lives of various people: Frenchmen,Czechs, workers,prime ministers,Mathieu, Brunet, Jacques, etc.-In one way Sartre has not gone as far as Dos Passos: he uses neither the "Camera eye" nor the newsreel, which contribute at least as much as the stories to creating the atmosphereof the period. But he does try to express the idea of group-con. ventionalitythroughthe individual characters,such as, for instance,the Autodidacte of La Nausee, the charactersof L'Enfance d'un chef or the couple Jacques and Odette: She [Odette] had learned very quickly to wear mourning veils with jaunty sadness,to gaze into people's eyes with a certain innocentwarorphan look."4 Furthermorein the beginning and in the end of Le Sursis,Sartrehas complicated Dos Passos's patternof storiesinto a patternof sentences: Chamberlain,Hitler and Schmittwere waiting for the war in silence, it was going to come in a moment. . . Mathieu was eating, Marcelle was eating, Daniel was eating . . . theyhad little instantaneoussouls full to the brimwith small gooey pleasures; in a moment,and it would come in, fully armed, feared by Pierre, accepted by Boris, desired by Daniel, war, the great war of Men Standing Erect, the mad war of the whites.15 It would not be difficultto find other resemblancesbetween American and Existentialistnovels. An emphasis on sex, for instance, dominates both 18

Sartre,"AmericanNovelistsin FrenchEyes",op. cit., p. p. 25.

14 Sartre,Le Sursis (ed. NRF), i5

115.

Ibid., p. 59.

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Yale FrenchStudies literatures.But this emphasis is a characteristicof the whole historyof the modern novel since the naturalisticperiod, and American and French writers alike have simply followed a more general trend. More strikingseems to be the tragic element which runs through the works of Faulkner, Hemingway, Dos Passos and throughthose of Sartre,Simone de Beauvoir and Camus. But the similaritythereis verysuperficial.In Faulkner'sworks,forinstance,tragedy is a consequence of fate: "man is a problem of impure properties carried tediouslyto an unvaryingend: the stalemate of dust and desire'6 Anguish comes fromthe realizationof helplessness,of hopelessness:man does not carry within himself the means of the solution of his life's problems. But this is obviously not true of Sartre's Existentialism,where anguish is linked with freedom."I am free, he thoughtsuddenly,and his joy immediatelychanged into an overpoweringanguish".'7 Sartre has criticizedFaulkner's "mutilation of time", the fact that "he has taken away from time its future,that is, the dimensionsof actions and freedom'8 Dos Passos goes even further,by suppressingthe present as well, thus making time "a dead and closed memory"'9 Existentialistthoughtbelieves in the existence,in differentforms,of the past, the present and the future,the last not less importantbecause it is unpredictable; Sartre'sconception of time differswidely fromthat of the American novelists. But if, as Sartresays,a technique is always the revelationof a metaphysics, how can Existentialistsborrow American devices, as they have done, without some danger of contradiction?We have seen the incompatibilityof Faulkner's and Dos Passos's conceptions of time with Sartre's own ideas. Does not their emphasis on action also clash with the Existentialist'sstresson situation?The technique of the continual unfolding of action after action is of little use to writerswho believe so stronglyin the importanceof the presentand the future. Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir want to describe situations: the Existentialist novel, therefore,will not tell a story; it will choose a particularlyimportant relationshipbetween a characterand the world,or society,or other characters, and develop all its possibilities.La Nausie, La Chambre,Le Mur, are worked on this pattern,as is Simone de Beauvoir's L'Invitee. The only evolution in the book will be provided by the growingconsciousnessof the hero. Progressive realizationof the human condition is the vital machineryof the Existentialist hero. As Sartre puts it at the end of L'Etre et le niant, "purifyingconsciousness" is the only way out of "viscosity".The metaphysicaldifferencebetween Faulkner, The Sound and the Fuiy. Sartre,Le Sursis,p. 276. 18 Sartre"A propos de Le Bruit et la fureur.La Temporalithchez William Faulkner." NRF, 1 July 1939, p. 148. 19 Ibid. 18

17

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JEAN BRUNEAU Orestes and the inhabitantsof Argos will be reflectedin the respectivetechniques used to describethem. As for the author's objectivity,it can only be partly retained by the Existentialistwriter.If the leading charactersare to grow more and more aware of their existence,theymust be lucid, they must know theirown minds. The chief interestof Les Chemins de la liberte'seems to be in the characterof Mathieu, whose situation is objectivelyvery much the same at the beginning of L'Age de raison and at the end of Le Sursis. True, he has come to understand what human life really is, but he can only expresshis growingknowledge throughself-analysis.Sartre is thus condemned to describing thoughtsrather than actions, to using the techniquesof the psychologicalnovel, including the monologue20,where he follows Flaubert, Proust, and Joyce much more than American novelists. In the end, the epoch described in Les Chemvinsde lea Ulebrtdis seen in two differentand entirelyseparate ways: throughthe "profile technique", to be sure, but also throughthe leading characters. A recognitionof the differencesbetween Existentialistthought and the philosophyof the Americanwriterscontributesgreatlyto explaining the somewhat incoherentaspect presented by some of the later novels of Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. They use in the same book devices which theyhave found in several writersattached to divergentphilosophies.L'Age de raison is on the whole a traditional,realistic and psychologicalnovel, and a verygood one at that; but Le Sursis combines this approach with devices borrowed from Dos Passos. The welding of the two is attempted in the last pages of the novel, of one which alternatelyrelate the Munich conferenceand the firstlove-affair a historical event of the main characters,Ivich. But the opposition between of world importanceand a moment of an individual life seems very artificial. So does the non-chronologicalstoryof Le Sang des autres. On the other hand, La Nausde, Le Mur, L'Etranger and L'Invitde, where only one technique (L'Etranger generally differingfrom the others mentioned here) is used throughoutthe novel, are more effectivefroman estheticpoint of view. It does not seem, therefore,that Existentialistwritershave solved the problem with which they were confrontedwhen they started to use literary expression for their philosophy. Their thought has many points in common with that of Americanwriters,but the differences appear as even greater.The traditionalnovel could not satisfySartreand Simone de Beauvoir; nor can the Americannovel. Camus seems to have sensed this,since his last novel, La Peste, owes nothing to Faulkner, Hemingway or Dos Passos. Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir are still tryingto evolve a technique of their own, which will arise 20 See the remarkable monologues of Mathieu, Daniel, Brunet in Les Cheminsde la libertd.

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Yale FrenchStudies naturally,as it should, out of theirown philosophy.Estheticallyspeaking,they have been more successfulwith the other medium they use: the stage. But Les Chemins de la libertd is not yet finished: the search for new novelistic devices is not over.

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ntimacy -1The opening section1of Sartre'sIntimite'is the richestof all in the dramatic, esthetic,and metaphysicalironies which lie at the center of the story and the situation it describes.It remindsus inevitablyof the dosing episode of Joyce'sUlysses,where Molly Bloom, "in the attitudeof Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent,big with seed," at rest in her bed, approximatingthe lotus-dream of the Great Sleeper Haveth Childers Everywhere,lets flow forth the vital rhythmsof the feminine principle. As Joyce's last becomes Sartre's first,the Earth Mother-sopranois metamorphosedinto a barren little flirti("Je ne peux pas avoir d'enfant,c'est constitutionnel"p. 95) who designs fabricsand would like to have time to paint. An attemptto name the genre of this firstsection flounders,finally,in the same ambiguity,for while Lulu's monologue at first appears to be a stasis (ust as the whole storyis really a situation,open at both ends, and with only a very arbitraryclimax) closer examination reveals an essentiallydramatic structure,the rhythm,to be exact, of the sex-act which does not take place between Lulu and her impotent husband, Henri. Again, IntimitS.,as a whole fallsneatlyinto fiveacts,with prologue and epilogue; only all actions, except the one critical one, take place off-stage.This device has over Lulu stand the double value of making Rirette and Henri's tug-of-war out, as the only action in the story,with a ritual clarityand significance,and 1 On one level Intimitdis a light,easystory, almostin the New Yorker neglectedthisaspectof the storyin an attempt genre.If I have voluntarily it, it is not withintentionto mystify to uncoverthe patternsunderlying or mislead,but simplybecausethisapproachseemsbest to showSartre'sextraordinarytalent for expressingthematicrichnessthroughbanal realityand detail.It would be impossibleto representthe richness seemingly indifferent of detail of this firstsection(whichresumesthe whole storyand therefore deservesmore carefulstudythan the otherepisodes)withoutgivinga comanalysisof it. I shall tryto tracethe central pletelyunreadableword-for-word themesof its structure, and ask my readerto rereadLulu's monologuewith thesecurrentsin mind,rejectingno possiblemeaningas too fantastic. The by thecentralsectionof Freud'sThe Interimagery of thepassageis informed pretation ofDreams("The DreamWork"),and thereaderwillfindit especially profitableto read pages 371-375in the ModernLibraryedition,The Basic

Writingsof Sigmund Freud, New York, 1938.

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Yale FrenchStudies of conferringupon the writtenword, the recit,all the dignitywhich it has in Racine (to whom Sartre alludes obliquely not only by this sleight-of-hand eliminationof scenes,but also in Lulu and Pierre's outing at Port-Royal.) This absence of action, then, is a drama, and it is Lulu who assumes the masculine hero-rble,jutting out clear and free against the massive, shadowy backgroundof her somnolenthusband, who imagineshimselfbound by countless tiny threads which reduce him to complete helplessness. ("le plaisir [de Lulu] de se sentir alerte aupr~s de cette chair molle et captive." p. 95) In a gesture of assertion Lulu proves that she is untrammeled and distinct by insertingher toe into a hole in the sheet and breaking her threads;with this same gesture she begins an extraordinaryrehearsal (with Lulu herselfin the male lead) of the same absent act of love. It is soon apparent, in fact, that Lulu's libido is not a happy one: what love she has for Henri is a gravitation to his soft, impotent non-masculinity;in a significantpassage she remembers herselfat a carnival shootingrubber arrowsat disk-liketargets. Lulu's marriedlife is somethingless than idyllic,since Henri, who admires Swiss mannersand is (ironicallyenough) "stiffas a post" in company,findsthat in fact,is an adjective he pathetically she is not distinguished-"distinguished", reserves for his Swiss brother-in-lawwho has produced five children. Lulu, overlookingthe equivocal nature of her instincts,has correctedthis romantic deficiencyin the conventional way; like Molly Bloom, though without her she has entertainedone lover afteranother.But her current prolificproficiency, gallant, Pierre, is possessivein the extreme,completelylacking in the gentle impotence that oddly characterizesHenri, of the bearlike aspect. He loves to stand behind Lulu and press against her. This representsthe last degree of brutalityand humiliationsince he sees her while she cannot see him; Lulu is an auto-erotic("le plaisir il n'y a que moi que sache me le donner" p. 97) who finds only horror in the physical reality of love, and in whose eyes to take the offensivein the anticipatoryaction of seeing is equivalent to subjugating and using another person. If she accompanies Pierre to his villa at Nice (as he is pressing her to do) it will be one long trauma, a continual climbing of the marble staircase while Pierre watches her frombehind. Even the physicallove that Pierrepretendsto have forher is unreal and meaningless, since he would not know her internalorgans fromanyone else's, if he were to see them in a jar; "starfishmust love each other better than we do" (p. 95) because they expose their stomachs to open view. Lulu, reflectingon what orificemight serve to display the human stomach,for the achievementof this Utopian sensuality,decides (with pathetic irony) that it could only be the Joyce's navel, the still point of the body, the receptacleof mother-nourishment, "umbrilla-parasoul."Lulu's reflectionson priests,her childhood desire to be a nun and flirtwith men, her visit with Pierre to Port-Royal,(the apogee of

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EDWARD MORRIS modern ascetic Christianity)constituteoblique referencesto the absolute of a matrix religion,now bankrupt,which in another age mighthave profferred Sartreconnects of repose. Now in this ironic image of fertilityand fulfillment, the maternitywhich Lulu can never know with her experience of sterilityand disgust in her relations with her lover ("c'est d~gofitant,pourquoi faut-ilque nous ayons des corps?" p. ioi) knockingdown the one idol which the toughest of modem writers(Hemingway,Faulkner, and Co., in particular), for all their iconoclasticcynicismwith regard to fixedvalues, have adored as the last, great Unmoved Mover.2 Frustratedat every turn, Lulu seeks to lull herself to sleep by thinking about the crimson-and-goldear of her friend Rirette, but quickly becomes irritatedwhen the aggressiveside of Rirette (her constantnagging at Lulu to leave Henri and go away with Pierre,her precise,nasal voice) obtrudes upon her reflection.She is disgusted at the idea of homosexual love with Rirette, who is just like Pierre in her eagernessto possessand dominate Lulu. Repulsed again, she reversesher field and fabricatesa charming fantasyin which she lives in purityand moonlightwith a delicate young boy, whom she loves as a sister loves a brother(again we catch Sartre amusing himself by inverting Molly Bloom, who, in her monologue, goes into raptures at the idea that Stephen, the young poet, may come to live at No. 7, Eccles Street,and that she may be able to seduce him). Finally she comes to rest in a scene where she imagines herself,free,untouched,and invisible,watchingRirette in the act of being seduced; this situation is the only possible erotic satisfactionfor Lulu, who lives, in the final, decadent stage of unengaged individualism,by the watchword"noli ne tangere." At the end of the section, worn and wrung by the terrorsof her erotic Odyssey,Lulu decides that if Henri would only take her in his arms and plead with him. with her, she would make the "sacrifice"(I) of stayinav -HtIf Sartre's Lulu-Molly seems a perverted and unearthy Cybele, we can understandhow elemental a soul-searchingher monologue has been only when we are exposed to the correspondingrhapsodies of Rirette (his Gerty MacDowell) whose little tragedyis interwovenwith and contrastedto Lulu's in the second part of Intimiti. Nausicaa meetingOdysseuson the Phaeacian strand gentleman," and Gerty MacDowell calling to "that handsome foreign-looking 2 Again Sartre findshis prophet and apologist before-the-letter in Freud, who in the essay called "The Most Prevalent Form of Degradation in Erotic Life" insists that the very nature of the sexual instinct precludes complete gratificationin sexual relations.

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Yale FrenchStudies Mr. Leopold Bloom, fromher Rock on Sandymountbeach, merge into Rirette calling to a waiter and making eyes at a Montparnasse Bohemian in the Dome. Sitting in this restaurantwhose lack of tone and style she deplores, ruminatingon the ideal man, with his odor of Cologne and English tobacco, and his gentlenesswhich comes fromsufferingsRirette keeps reaching towards static beatitude in contemplationof the face of her God-but irrational,irritatingLulu (already a half-hourlate forher pre-arrangedmeetingwith Rirette) keeps coming to her mind with an insistencewhich disturbsthe equilibrium of her reflections.Rirette's ideal is simply a more vulgar version of Henri's, a Utopia of "style" and "distinction;"but she detestsHenri because impotence Lulu must leave Henri for Pierre; she hasn't is a revolting,physicalaffliction.4 the rightto compromiseher happiness. "Le bonheur,le bonheur": it is a magic word for Rirette,its complete lack of meaning absorbs all her shopgirl'saspira, tions. The disturbing intrusion which has been prefiguredby the repeated appearance of Lulu in Rirette's musingsis realized; Lulu, again in masculine flat sea of Rirette's thought, r6le, comes thrustinginto the undifferentiated, into the restaurantwhere Rirette sits and whose name (Dame) is a plastic. objective of the feminine,maternal principle. Aliter, she arrives in a taxi, valise in hand, to announce that she has left Henri. She tells Rirette how, after a quarrel that morning,she locked Henri out on the balcony in his pyjamas (a complete triumphfor Lulu, since Henri, like a fishin an aquarium, is powerless to prevent all who wish from observinghim) and then left for good and all, tired of his domineeringattitude. Rirette is of course delighted, but at the same time wishes Lulu would tell the storymore comically,and would not be rude to the waiter. This mixture of irritationand pleasure p. 108) is the crux of the ironic ("ce que j'aime en elle, c'est sa vitalit5&," contrast Sartre establishes between Lulu and her foil Rirette; Rirette must and fit the unusual stop all action, compressthe real into two-dimensionality, into the patternsof normality,before she can understandor enjoy. Lulu, who flowswith the rhythmsof Nature itself,cannot be "contained" in this way. At the instantof Lulu's arrival Rirettemuses on "the bluebird, the bird of happiness, the rebellious bird of happiness" (p. 107) and a few seconds later she thinks"Lulu is charming,but she can be amazinglyfutile;she's a bird." In this seemingly gratuitous juxtaposition Rirette's unattainable ideal takes on a meaning: it is the realm of three-dimensional,fluid, "unfrozen" reality,the S"The storyof a haunting sorrowwas writtenon his face" thinksGerty of Bloom, Ulysses(Mod. Lib. ed.) p. 351. 4 Just as Ivich in Les Chemins de la libertd hates anythingwhich she thinksof as "physiological"in herselfor others;Rirette'ssubjectivedisgustwith the physical is ironic foil to Lulu's constitutionalsterilityand pathological androgyny.

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EDWARD MORRIS vitalworldwhichLulu, theMagna Mater,is, and whichRirettesimplycannot surround.In her openingmonologue,remembering Rirette'sremark,"You simplycan't staywithHenri,sinceyou don't love him,it would be a crime," Lulu thinkswithannoyance"To her everything is simpleand easy:you love or you don't love. But I'm not simple"(p. 98). The finalblow for poor Rirettecomeswhenshe excusesLulu's "nervousness" to the waiter,who,obviouslybewitched, repliesthathe findsLulu charming. That afternoon, as Lulu and Riretteshop for clothesfor Lulu's fugue, theymeetHenri in theboulevardMontparnasse and the climactic(and only) action takesplace: while Lulu, "molle commeun paquet de linge" triesto pursueher coursealong the sidewalk,Henri pulls on one arm,shouting"Tu es a moi" and Rirette,pullingin the otherdirection,managesto get Lulu into a taxi. Rirettehas triumphed; Lulu has been rippeduntimelyfromher nuptialcouchand willgo withPierre.In thismad dancethereal loseris Lulu; her vital forward-movement has been stopped; Henri has claimedher and pulled at her as a wife-possession-thing, Rirettehas used her as a merething forher own sentimental She retainsno moredignityor freedom satisfaction. thana bundle of laundry.It is too much: "I hate you,I hate Henri,I hate Pierre"she screamsat Rirette,"you're all torturing me" (p. 120). Rirette can onlyfeelcold and haughty, shockedas sheis by thevulgarity (theone great oversin) of thescene.She returnsto her room,wherelonelinessand self-pity of Lulu; afterall (anothergreat whelmher as she thinksof the ingratitude ironicstrokeof Sartre's)Lulu willknowhappinessat Nice,and will owe it all to Rirette. She breaks down completely,sobbing "A-Nice . soleil . . .

.

. a Nice, au

-III & IV"Pouah! Nuit noire."-thisdismalecho of Rirette's"au soleil" wrenches intotheboue5 us fromour tepidbathof "bonheur"intocold,dampblackness, whereLulu lies captive and defeatedafterher of the sordid hotel-room6 5 Marking Lul's final and complete humiliation, Sartre savors the assonance of "boue" and "tout" on pp. 127-128. Compare the last sentence of La Nausde: "Demain il pleuvra sur Bouville" (italics mine). to the nature of rooms, 6 Sartreseems to have an extraordinarysensitivity to put people in: in Le Mur, the rank cellar is a box of as containing-vessels unreal, or sur-real,inhuman atmosphere; in La Chambre, Pierre's room is a cage of insanity;for Paul Hilbert, in Erostrate,his room is a closed-offrefuge against "the others"; in L'Age de Raison, Mathieu's room is the center of his meaningless,unengaged liberty,and only becomes real when Brunet enters it.

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Yale FrenchStudies unsavorytrystwith Pierre. The word "passion" (which Sartre doesn't use but Rirette would) seems to attend ironically and etymologicallyat this second enchainmentof all Lulu's active liberty.Once again, it is too much, and Lulu flees from this black saloperie back to the maternal womb of her own room, where the warm red light of a neon sign filtersthroughthe blinds, back into the arms of Henri, who is no longer a domineering,impotenthusband, but a pure, tender companion (almost the young boy of her fantasies), a shelter against Pierre and Rirette and their plot to possess and control. But the visit offersLulu only very temporaryconsolation; broughtup short against Henri's indifferentand helpless passivity,she is forcedlto realize that once again she has been the buffetedvictim of an impulsive reaction of pure negation. She has rebounded to Henri as to a citadel of stability,only to see a miragedissolve before her very eyes. More miserable than before,she attemptsto explain to Henri (whose own chagrin proceeds from the blow to his respectabilityhe anticipatesand fromhis mistakenfeelingthat,while he is powerless,Lulu is a free agent) why she cannot stay with him: "C'est comme une fatalit6. . . c'est le flotqui vous emporte" (p. i r). Lulu's recourseto generalization(the classic refuge of mediocrityin the face of adversity)is the climax of Sartre's ironic equivoke with regard to the real motivationof Intimite.In one sense, this flot is Lulu's earthypermanence,the momentumof the spheres,what Rirette calls "vitalite"; but also (as it now appears clearlyfor the firsttime) it is the restless of a body at once attractedand repulsed frustration, the mad surface-gyration by many potential points of rest,the yearningwithoutobject prefiguredin the monologue at the beginningof the story.We have come to thinkof movement as the sanest and most fundamentalcharacteristicof Lulu; her sufferinghas with come at the points of forced inertia. Now the tragedyis re-interpreted, Lulu as "l'oiseau bleu, l'oiseau rebelle, l'oiseau futile." "Inquietum est cor meum, donec requiescat in te"; the tragedyof Lulu and of modern man is the progressiveevaporation, not only of God-as-te,but of all te, of all solidity outside the ego. Between the third section of IntimitS and the brief Epilogue in the Restaurant,event followsevent with the regularityof simple harmonicmotion: fleeingfromHenri as she has just fled fromPierre,Lulu returnsto the sordid Hotel du Th-edtre(whose name gives us a sly,Sartrian tip-offon the dramatic characterof the story). There Rirette comes to visit her, and Lulu, reacting once more (but this time to a weakeragent of repulsion than Pierre or Henri) 7 7 Rirette,of course, does not interpretLulu's abrupt change of mind in this way: she thinks the Texiers (friends of Henri's) have convinced Lulu that she must staywith her husband. For us the factthat Lulu uses the Texiers' visit as an excuse in her note to Pierre sufficesto invalidate this explanation.

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EDWARD MORRIS assumes her final position, elucidated in the tender note to Pierre which the dumbfoundedRirette (insistingto the bitter end "Je poss~de ma Lulu sur le bout du doigt," p. 131) reads in the D6me, the site of her sometimetriumph. "I'm not leaving, my darling Pierre; I'm stayingwith Henri . .. but we'll see each otheras oftenas in the past."BIn Ulysses,JoycepresentsMolly Bloom not only as Cybele, but as a parody of the faithfulwife,a Penelope who prefersto entertain not only Odysseus-Bloombut Antinous-Boylanas well, and many another "suitor." Sartre's parody of a parody has even more complexityand irony: Lulu, and not Henri, has been the wanderer,returning(again in the masculine r6le) to the faithfulspouse; and while Lulu, like Molly, keeps her lover because he is more manly than her husband, and her husband because he is more comfortablethan her lover,thiscomplex of relationshipsis meaningless in the pathological case of the androgynous Lulu who is constitutionally unable to enjoy the masculinityof her lover. Joyce resolves Bloom's undirected longings and fretfulperegrinationsin the deep, still rhythmsof Molly's near-dreamat the end of Ulysses; placing the ruminationsof Lulu at rest in her bed (relatively,the most conclusiveand reposed sectionof his story) at the beginningof Intinmit,Sartreproceeds throughsuccessivefrustratedagitationsto an end in fragiletension,anguishingin its lack of finality.9 In Existentialistterms,Lulu refusesher choice; she remains "astride" of a paradox in Baudelairian fashion. This unresolved tension, this attempt to profitfromtwo relationships,one of which has meaning only as a reaction to the other, is perhaps the only possible inconclusion of Intimitd.It is inconceivable that a Lulu would be able to integratefromwithin,to create a set of values out of the potentiallypositive nihilismwhich has been revealed to her (where convention. marriage. religion, and even sex are just so many old crutches now knocked out from under the uncertain personality), to rise her. Existentialismis verticallyout of this Hegelian situation which frustrates forheroes.

8 Note the Racinian characterof this second climax, this violent coup de thidtrewhich takes place offstage. 9 In thisconsummateestheticironyin an earlywork we findSartrein the destructivephase of his "revolutionin literature";taking an idea fromJoyce, the master of the literarytradition against which Existentialistsare in full rebellion,he parodies it (not without"complicity")in a drama withoutactions, a situation expressed in motion. At once fulfillingand destroyinga previous idea, breaking an old formopen at the seams, he prepares the way for "the new literature."

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The Making of a Leader For a discerningpublic that propagandais best whichobtrudesitself least.There mustbe art in the makingof it, and attractions externalto the propagandaaim, if it is to be effective. It is bestof all whenthe idea of its servingas a guide to social conducthas not even been in its author'smind. In the case we are about to examine,whatis uppermostis the desireto individualizean observedtrendin man's behavior,an instanceof the course A writerwho is alwaysstudying his fellowmen,earnestly of humanfrailty. here givesan extendedexamplein responseto his own and sympathetically, need to put acrosshis ideas in concreteform,for Jean-Paul commanding Sartreis above all a creativepublicist.The result,however,will standas a be called a good piece of propalessonin humanrelationsand maytherefore ganda. The longestof the fivesketchespresentedby Sartrein Le Mur, the last one, entitled"L'Enfanced'un chef,"is in the natureof a social document. Inasmuchas it tracestheearlylifeof a fictional hero,LucienFleurier,in the mannerof a case-history, it mightbe vulnerableto the samelogicthatbreaks down the Zola fallacy.Zola proclaimedthathe would take humanmaterial as he observedit-a passion,forexample,at workin a man'sheart-andfollow it throughlike a laboratory to of physiology project,usingthe findings explain whatshould come of it, thenreporthis results.The only thinghe overlookedwas thatthe originalsituation,and the stagesthathe mightnote in the passion'sgradualdevelopment, werevitiatedby the humblefactthat theywere not real but imaginary. The results(fromwhichhe aspiredto workout a pathologyforsocial evilswherebyto controlthemand eventually to wipe themout, like smallpoxor diphtheria)were therefore likewiseinvalid, howeverscientific mightbe his basic hypothesis and his methodof isolatinghis variablefactorfromhis constants. The "constants" mightbe real but the determining factorfrombeginningto end was not nature conditions, but his own mind.Thereforehis progressnotescould not be factsand his conclusionscould neverbe laws. Writershave by now prettywell outgrown this naive zeal, however,and are not oftenguiltyof Zola's fallacy.Sartre skirtsit by not claimingany basis of philosophicnecessity for the spiritual of Lucien. His storydoes not lose but gains by the undogmatic adventures

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MADELEINE SMITH approach.The readermayenjoy it as fiction, freefromthe oppressivesense of a thesis,and yet gain an appreciationof the deep-lying sourcespresent in a characterof intolerance.He will considerhow thistypicalmodernphenomenon,the stuffed-shirt bully,is probablynot just any man who has been but is morelikelythe provokedby hostileelementsaimingat his security, resultof a long evolutionwithinhimself,and may therefore be prevented. For Lucien Fleurieris our own contemporary. Althoughno dates are mentionedin "L'Enfanced'un chef,"at least none associatedwith the hero at a particularage, certainindicationspoint to 91o0 as approximately the have been twentyin 1930 and twenty yearof his birth.He would therefore fivein the heydayof Col. de la Roque. But the narrativeconcernsonly the of whatwill be formative yearsof Lucien and leaves him on the threshold as Sartrewouldsay, a safe,orthodox,Tory,adult existence,now "petrified," interest. He has had into a thoroughly predictablepatternand of no further a poor preparationfor the decisionswhichwill confronthim in his career as one of the elite.What withhis own clumsygropingforan egocentric good and the variousworthless or vicioushawksthatspothim as a likelyprey,we see thatit could hardlyhave been otherwise. His historyis told as a physiological thing,as we should expectfrom the authorof La Nausie. His emergingpersonality is altogetherbound up with.the historyof his bodilysensations.We learn how, in the randomexof his earlyyearshe delights,as childrenoftendo, in hurting perimenting creaturesthatwill react,thoughthereis no fun in hittinga treeand calling it names.For himself, however,he revelsin the oppositesensationsof being washed,caressed,tickled,and otherwisetouched,by women.Being told over and over in his earlychildhoodthat he looks more like a cute littlegirl than a boy,he startsto wonder,as any child does, about appearancesand reality,to doubt whetherhe exists,whetherhis parentsreallyare his own motherand father,whethertheyhave not exchangedclothingso as to seem each to be of the othersex. The firstpartof "The Makingof a Leader" is fullof engaginganecdotal touches,thatreveala child'smindin actionand strippedof anysentimentalizing."Fromthatday Lucienrealizedthathe did not love his mother.He did not feelguiltyabout it, but he was twiceas nice to her,becausehe had come to the conclusionthateverybody mustpretendall his life to love his parents, or else be a bad littleboy."Or considerthe nonchalanceof thisbit: "Lucien no longerbotheredabout God. At his firstcommunionthe curdsaid he was the mostvirtuousand pious littleboy in the wholecatechism-class." As he 'is passingthroughstagesof self-glorification-by tales-of walking in his sleep (quite imaginary),by a spell of masturbation, by joining the othersin jeeringat the peewee proportions of a classmateonly to be pro-

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Yale FrenchStudies foundryupset when the game turnson himselffor his "asparagus" build (the awareness of a differencebetween himself and the gang gives him serious uneasiness), by a brief career of peeping at keyholes-his father,who is a Captain of Industryin a small way, gives him a casual indoctrinationin the principles of being a "leader." He instills in Lucien a gentleman's scorn for thoroughthinking.When he falls behind in his studies at the lyoae, his father says: "Students who attend school on scholarshipsmake poor leaders: they have skipped an important part of life." The father shows him the proper shades of condescensionto be used toward employeesand the patronal ways of securing not only obedience but a distance-observing affectionfor the employer and his soil-rootedsocial group. This deep security,imbued with the sense of the solidarityof the land and the unmixed heritageof the French racial strainin him, becomes Lucien's original choice and the unrecognizedideal toward which his adolescent years will see him craving and groping. In his desire to know what he is, hNether he is, and above all where he belongs, this typical young French bourgeois, intelligentand mildly intellectual,is an easy mark for the zealots of various formsof baseness. He is saved from a romantic suicide and from his inner tormentsby his classmate Berliac, who has discovered Freud. "'Naturally, you too at one time desired to sleep with your mother. He wasn't asking, he was stating." Lucien findsit flatteringto be labelled a "sadico-anal." But this doesn't last long. Berliac leads to Bergere, an older and sophisticated man, who pleases Lucien by telling him he is a second Rimbaud. He succeeds in seducing the boy, but-whether it is the "moral wholesomeness"of his familystock assertingitself,or merely timidity-Lucien soon ditches Berg~re. After Freud and Rimbaud, the third prophet is Maurice Barrts. Another classmate, Lemordant, starts Lucien to reading Barrbs's Les Ddtacinds, and the denouement approaches. The heir to the Fleurier fortune sees that the answer to all his uncertaintieswill be in sinkinghis roots into the home-soil of France and sticking.Xenophobia, semitophobia,democratophobia are the natural and negative fruitsof this positive isolationism. This Action-Franfaisephase of Lucien's historyis of course developed at some length. A club-meetingscene, an incident of streetviolence, a couple of love-affairs, a sane friendshiprejected, all lend interestto this last part of the story. The component elements of the nationalist complex are cleverly analyzed. The author sees to it that some shred of reader-sympathy is left for his young protagonist.This is his creature; and besides, he has been showing Lucien to us as a victim,not as a villain. He has escaped the toils of Bergere and will have a normal sex life. He can affordto abandon the extremefanaticism of the anti-semitic,anti-republicanAction-Frangaise,although by shun-

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MADELEINE SMITH influenceon ning the lunaticfringehe will onlywield a moreauthoritative the side of injustice.Lucien'shumancravingto be a joinerand a conformer is emphasizedat the end. As he sinks into complacentadjustmentto his circulatingabout him no longer privilegedstate,the Jews and foreigners Thus irritatehim,but give him on the contrarya faintsexual satisfaction. his and setting for plausibility Sartrerevealsa subtlenessin his art,making blinds him purpose workon a plantefarabove the writerwhosedominating to live values. is in some respectsquite a like communism, Althoughanti-semitism, in France,thisnarradifferent problemin our countryfromits counterpart as well as French, appliesdearlyto Americansituations tivestudynevertheless urgesthat we all have to as it does, the human,fundamental emphasizing, fight,in our neighbors,in ourselves,and in our children.

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The Case for ttngaged"Literature In a groupof six articlesentitled"What is Literature?" whichappeared in theFrenchExistentialist review,Les Tempsmodernes, Jean-PaulSartrehas presentedhis theorythatthe novel shouldimplycorrective measuresforthe solutionof currentsocial and politicalproblems.The fundamental point to of thequestionof "engaged"literature is thatthe graspforan understanding onlyreal argument as to whether or not thenovelshouldact as an instrument of social action lies entirelyoutsidethe fieldof literatureitself.By this I meanthatthereis no necessity whatsoever thatanyof theliterary qualitiesof thenovel-eventhosedemandedby themostivory-towered of the"artforart's sake" esthetes-should be destroyedby a closercontactwith the realitiesof everyday existence.Those who cryout thatengagement "kills"literature are forgetting the factsof literary history. It shouldbe enoughto remindthem thatthenovelsof CharlesDickenscrusadedforsocialactionin theirtime. The argument reallyturnson thenatureof our conceptof theindividual's relationto reality,our attitudetowardlife in the world.Sartreis addressing himselfto thoseof us who believethatthegreatsocialand politicalquestions of our timeshouldbe the concernof everymemberof society.He writesas one sincerely convincedthatwe can no longeraffordto ignoresuchproblems but mustseek to meetthemface to face and contribute in whatever waywe can to theirsolution.One of the most movingpassagesin these articles as earlyas 1930, whenthe describeshow a fewbecameawareof thisnecessity worldpeace structure began to crumbleand it becameapparentto some that but in pre-war we werelivingnot in post-war years.Othersfoundit easierand pleasanterto existin falseisolationuntil catastrophe caughtthemup. Like CharlesBovary,who saw twenty yearsof marriedhappinessdissolveas he read that his wife'slettersfromher lovers,theyweresuddenlyand rudelyinformed twenty yearsof peace had reallybeen nothingless thana preludeto war. Those who attackengagedliterature todayare manifesting again thatold desireto retreatinto a privateshelland to ignoreeventswhichmaysomeday froma reach into theirlives. They are tryingvainlyto isolate themselves novelswhichare also cutofffrom realitywe all knowexists,and in demanding of sheerescapism.All novels,whatever social problemstheyask fora literature instruct us on life,but the unengagednovel tells else theymaydo, inevitably

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CHARLES G. WHITING sphereof realitywe us thatwe mayrelatethisknowledgeor not to whatever and howeverwe wish.Sartre'swholethesisis thatwe cannot choose,whenever meetrealityon our own terms.The SecondWorldWar becamea partof our liveswithoutour choosing.Thus the businessof the novelisttodayis to concernhimself withcontemporary socialand politicalproblemsbecausetheyare a partof therealitywhichis forcedon each one of us. And sincetheseproblems demandspecificand immediateaction,the novel mustrequirethatwe cope withthem,now,and in a certainway.The novel,whichalwayspresented thereaderwitha knowledgeof real life,is changingthe formof its presentation in orderto accordwitha truerconceptionof the relationbetweenthe individualand reality. I believe,however,that what preventsa realizationof the necessityof is the commonpracticeof approachingthe novel withsuch preengagement conceptionsas, "Literatureshouldnot be propagandaforaction",insteadof firstinquiring,"What is literature?" Justas the meaningof individualworks so will thewholeconceptof literature of art shiftsforsucceedinggenerations, to whatextentliteraitself.Once our objectiveis decided,we mayinvestigate tureis capable of fulfilling therequirements. The need forthe engagednovel mustbe understood beforewe considerits pitfalls. of engagement is displayed,theremustalso be a "policy" If the necessity If the is a novel of engagement. guide to action,theremustbe certainpredeterminedends towardwhichaction is directed.Sartre'sfinalobjectiveis Kantian: men are to be treatedas ends and not as means,and thisaim is in thedual objectiveof politicaland economicliberty, represented concretely of socialismand individualfreedom. a combination whichis profoundly is thusa literature moral,and the Engagedliterature of thisnew mostbrilliantpages in Sartre'sarticlesdescribethe development of good and evil.BeforetheSecondWorldWar thereweremany consciousness even intolerwho by-passedthe problemof ethics:"We toleratedeverything, ance." (T.m., June 1947, p. 1625). But the experience of tortureduring the occupationproduceda new awarenessof evil, and thosewho met it face to face in such an intenseformrealizedthatevil was not simplyto be excused decided to be fought.The one tortured or explainedbut thatit was something in and in the to himself would he whether yield evil, debasinghumanity did not evil and who reaffirmed in Those torturer. humanity yielddestroyed and in all men."Everything themselves conspiredto discouragethem:so many in them. signs around them,those faces leaning over them,that suffering triedto makethembelievethattheywereonlyinsects,thatman is everything and wood-liceand thattheywould rethe impossibledreamof cockroaches awaken as vermin like everyoneelse . . . They kept silent and man was born of theirsilence." (T.m., June 1947, p. 1628).

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Yale FrenchStudies But if theend of actionis absolute,Sartrewarnsthatthereis no absolute criterionfor judgingthe means to be employed.Modes of action mustbe to the realizationof a socialist selectedon the basis of theircontribution but thewritermustnot decideaccordingto dogma,in themanner democracy, objector.If menlive in a worldof violence,theymustmeet of a conscientious violencewithviolence,even thoughit marksa moralsetback.Sartrediscusses the questionof whetheror not one shouldlie to one's soldiersin wartime and decidesthat everyproblemmustbe analyzedand decided individually. formulawill disposeof the examinationof each particular "No ready-made case." (T.m., July 1947, p. 1og). The implicationsof such an approach are

The widestpossibleknowledgewill be requiredof thewriterin all enormous. fieldspertainingto the questionsdealt with in his novels,and the most studyof all detailsof anyindividualproblem. exhaustive for this policy thereare reasons But beyondthe ethical considerations whichare both purelyestheticand practical.If the writerdoes not make a of the problemhe will bullsincereexaminationand a sincerepresentation his estheticpleasure, the reader'sact of "creation", doze the reader,destroying of anyreal action.The thepossibility his desireto read the noveland finally, writerwho uses thenovel to recitethe litanyor thepartyline can hope only attitude.Literaturethen to be read by thosewithan identicalpreconceived loses its meaningas an independentappeal to actionand is reducedto the role of an accessoryto the communion.It is for thisreasonand formany othersthat the writercannot ally himselfwith the CommunistParty,and is Sartremakesthe point quite explicit."The policyof StalinistCommunism incompatiblein France with the honestexerciseof the literaryprofession." (T.m., July 1947, p. 87) . If the novel has an end in specificreal action,it mustbe consciously thataction.In thisrespect,Sartrcproaddressedto a publicwho can perform poses a dual functionfor the novel. It will act both as a mirrorfor the oppressorand as a guide and inspirationforthoseoppressed.Unfortunately, however,at the verymomentwhenthe engagednovel is cominginto its own On the one hand the French in France,a public is virtuallynon-existent. the iron curtainof the French class by the from working writeris separated is in sucha stateot Party,whileon theotherhand thebourgeoisie Communist decay that the novelistcan do nothingmore than hastenits demise.Sartre and the lowermiddledass as the only immediately mentionsschoolteachers the possibleuse of such massmedia as the availablepublic,and investigates proletariat, theradioand thecinemaforspeakingto theimprisoned newspaper, makingit dear, however,that the eventualobjectiveis to reach the public solelythroughthe novel. completesthe outlineof whatSartreexpectsliteraThis briefdescription

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G. WHITING CHARRLES can tureto be in our time,and it is possiblenow to ask whetherliterature suggested by the fulfilltheserequirements. An objectionwhichis immediately will be necessity of addressing the novel to a specificpublic is thatliterature vulgarized-lowered to the level of its readers,'and that the criterionof the as a stimulantto action.Sartreexplicitly good novel will be its effectiveness excuses of the novel, althoughhe unfortunately opposes any vulgarization in Vercors'Le Silence de la Mer because it satisfied faultycharacterization Whatis important. whatthepublicwantedand becausethenovelwas effective. decidethatit was a good novel.Just however, is thatSartredoes not therefore is outsideof literature, as the questionof engagement so is the questionof end value entirely within.Sartreby no meansrequiresthatthepurelyliterary of the novelshouldbe sacrificed to the end-in-action. As I have alreadysugend is essentialto theengagednovel. gested,he believesthatthepurelyliterary It is anotherproblem,of course,whetheran attituderequiringan end-inactionwill destroythe novel'sliteraryqualities.Such fearsare causedlargely theory whichSartrehas explicitby thepropagandamethodsof Marxistliterary currentsocial problemscontainsinevily denounced.Everynovel presenting an end-in-action. The minimizing of this tablyan attitude-andby implication, in the faceof injusticeand represents attitudeis productiveof complacency to existingconditions-the a completesurrender messageof a literadespairing But nothingcompelsthewriterto sacrifice his attitureof pure "naturalism". and whenthe characters tudewhenhe approacheshis problemwithsincerity of his novelare createdas humanbeingsand not as mechanicalmouthpieces for a social blueprint.If the reader is convincedthat he is not being bludgeonedor betrayed,the purelyliteraryqualitiesof the novel will not And the existenceof a consciousattitude be endangered by an end-in-action. to popularnotion, of optimism. makestheengagednovela literature Contrary of despair.The veryraiscn d'@tre do not preparea literature theExistentialists and expectation of change.As to the lies in thepossibility of engagedliterature to a specificpublic,Sartremakesit clearthatthe questionof "writing-down" levelof his seekto lifttheintellectual novelistas socialleadermustconstantly he must themwithsomething readers.While presenting theycan understand, for an expansionof theirhorizon.An at the same time offeropportunity obvioussolutionof this problemis T. S. Eliot's well-known suggestionfor levelsof interest.The least educatedappreciate dramaexistingon different are aware of characterization, only the plot while thosemore sophisticated and otherrefinements. structure, is thebeliefthatthesocial A secondmajorobjectionto engagedliterature elementwill "date" the novel.Such fearsare not diminished by Sartre'spronouncementthat Le Silence de la Mer was "effective"only in i941. Nobody

would have read it in i94o and everyonehad lost interestin it by 1942.

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Yale FrenchStudies if a novelhas good qualitiesapartfromits concernwitha parNevertheless, will re-acquirethe knowledgenecessaryfor ticularsocial problem,posterity as endeavorsin the field of historicalcriticismmost concomprehension, Far fromdetractingfromthe novel, the additionof clusivelydemonstrate. to its enrichment. As an extremecontrast, anotherdimensionwill contribute Gide's L'Immoralistemightbe comparedto RobertPenn Warren'sAll the interestonly,while Warren King's Men. Gide's "novel" has a psychological with social content achievesanotherdimensionby combiningpsychological betterthanGide's,for This is not to suggestthatWarren'snovel is therefore densityis but one criterionof comparison,but it does implythat if the individualwriteris capable of dealingwiththe social dimension,his novels will be thericherforit. Lookingnow at the problemof the engagednovelfromanotherpointof of view,one mayask whetherthe novelformis appropriateas an instrument writerto confine socialaction.Would it not be betterforthesocially-conscious his efforts to the essay,the radio,or the cinema?Unlessthenovelhas certain qualifyingit for social purposes,the whole concept characteristics eminently of engagedliterature has littlejustification. answerto thequestion The simplest is thatthe novelformfurnishes yetanotherapproachto the social consciousThe nessof thepublic,but thereis a secondreasonwhichis moreconvincing. readerof the novelsubmitsto the book beforehim,abandoninghis worldly existenceto assumea vicariousone whilehe reads.He livestheproblemwhich positionwith he himselfhelpsto create,placinghimselfin a mostsympathetic relationto what the writerwishesto say. To make the point crudely,the he is in a mostreceptivemoodnovelistcatchesthe readeroff-guard-when and this is why the novel is so genuinelyqualifiedfor dealingwithsocial problems. But if the novelis so appropriateforsuchends,can the novelistbe conall social problems? Is there sideredqualified?Can he adequatelyunderstand thathe will engagehimselfon thewrongside?The objection not a possibility is preferableto the is essentially negative,implyingthat completeinactivity that social of mistakenaction,and also undemocratic, suggesting possibility problemsare to be discussedonlyby experts.But it does emphasizeonce again thattheengagednovelrequiresgreatertalent whathas alreadybeen suggested, of thenovelistthanhas everbeen necessary before. and widerknowledge engagednovel is possible,will it actually Finally,even if the successful servea socialpurpose,will it movethereaderto real action?Againtheobjeccontroverted since it is historically by tion is essentially negative,particularly in the social life such novelsas thoseof Dickens,whichcausedrepercussions of theirtime.Sartrehimselfhas an answerfor thisobjection."And if they and thatwe are ratherpuerile tell us thatwe thinkourselvesprettyimportant

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CHARLESG. WHITING in hopingto changethe courseof the world,we will answerthatwe don't suffer fromany illusions,but thatcertainthingsmustbe said,evenif onlyto save facein theeyesof our sons,and thenthatwe haven'tthemad ambition to influencethe State Department, but that-a littleless crazy-ofactingon theopinionsof our fellow-citizens." (T.m.,July1947,p. 'mln-

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SartresView of CartesianLiberty In both Descartes and Sartre,human libertyis admittedwithoutquestion. In neitherof them is there really any discussionof determinism."Libertatem arbitrii esse per se notam", says Descartes (Principia I, 39), the libertyol the will is known per se: it is an immediate notion, the validity of which cannot be questioned. Determinismhaving won a few adherents since Descartes, Sartre feels compelled to present a few deterministarguments;however he succeeds in brushingthem aside rapidly and disdainfully(PEtre et le neant, p. 562 sqq.), since he had not lent them any too impressivepower in the beginning.Moreover, to cite only one instance of his bold intellectual dash, the philosopher who wipes out in a few lines (Ibid., p. 539) the existenceof the unconscious cannot be botheredwith a thoroughdiscussionof the scientificevidence tending to disprovehuman liberty.But since in both Descartes and Sartre,liberty occupies a central and paramount position, and since both philosophies are completelyunthinkable if libertyis denied or questioned, we will not start a debate on that most difficult question. Metaphysiciansmust be granteda free hand if the game is to be played. Let us not quibble about it. In any case, our purpose in this shortarticle is not to discuss the realityof liberty.It is more modestand limited; let us defineit: Sartrepresentedin 1946 a series of textsof Descarteson liberty(Ed. Traits, Geneve-Paris): a few pages fromthe Principia, the Meditations,the Discaurse, the Passions, and excerpts fromlettersto Father Mesland and to Elizabeth. The choice is not complete, for a good understandingof the question, and adebut on the whole sufficient quate for the general public. To that series, Sartre added an important Introductionin which he discussed Descartes's views on the liberties of man and God. This text is not extremelylong, (fortysmall pages), but it is immenselyrevealing, not of Descartes, let us hasten to say, but of the way Sartre's mind works, and of some peculiarities of his dialectics. Such is the question we propose to examine here. The point is not to findout whetheror not Sartreis a faithfulhistorianof ideas: he would doubtlessscorn that humble merit,and his many talentswould to some extentgive him the rightto do so; moreover,he could assuredlybecome such an historianif he cared to, so great is his mental agility,and so rapid his power of assimilation.But in that short

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JEANBOORSCH preface Sartrecan be clearlyseen as torn between divergingtendencies:on the one hand he is tryingto findin Descartes an ancestorof Existentialism,and he annexes him with a brazenness compared to which the frequent Catholic annexations of authors foreignto them fade into insignificance;on the other hand, the power of historical truth remains too great to allow such a transfigurationand Sartre thereforehonestlyrecedes after such incursion; finally, blocked by historicaltruthhe suddenlymakes a dramaticcomeback thanksto a bold psychologicalinterpretationin which he grantshimselfall premiseswhich seeminglyshould have been, and had been, discarded by him in view of the interveningevidence. The whole clever dialectic is as neat an exhibition of intellectuallegerdemainas can be found,and is clearlyvisible here against the solid backgroundof the structureof Cartesian doctrine.It would be extremely illuminatingto find a way to dissect the other works of Sartre with such a concrete method, from L'Enfance d'un chef, for instance, to Les Jeux sont faits,throughMarts sans sdpultureand La Putain respectueuseor Les Chemins de la liberte: a method,which would as clearlyas in the case of this Introduction to Descartes show Sartre grantinghimselfwith the firstdeal much more than he is entitledto by his fixedpremises,then receding,returning,attacking, finallyshufflingthe cards with a dexterous hand too fast for the eye of the ordinaryreader, and thus making the point without being called. Let us call him at least on this Introductionto Cartesian liberty. It is evident from the start that the primitive intuition of liberty,the personal and fundamentalexperience of liberty,is differentin both philosophers. Sartresees in libertythe primordialcondition of action. "The act is the expressionof liberty" (L'Etre et le neant, p. 513). "I am an existingbeing who learns his libertythroughhis acts" (P. 514). Similar formulasare innumerable in Sartre and all converge to prove that Sartre possessesso to speak a poetic (creative) intuition of libertywhich discovers and asserts itself through the appearance of somethingnew into a world which neither called for it nor refused it, through productivity,through creation. Descartes, on the other hand, startsfrom the contemplationof the infinityof his will: "God gave us a will which has no limits.It is principallyon account of that unlimited will that it can be said that he created us in his image." Descartes repeats the idea several times, usually adding that although our will is infinite,God's will remains incomparablygreater than ours. It is from the contemplationof the infinityof our will that we have derived the ideas of infinityof space, number, and time. On all these questions about infinity,Descartes' attitude can thus be summarizedbriefly:finitudeis incomprehensibleto man's mind since some quantity of space, number or time can always be added to the quantity conceived: but it mightjust the same be preferableto talk of indefinite,instead of infinite,because there might not be any infinitein the eyes of God. How.

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Yale FrenchStudies ever that may be, it is clear that the notion of libertyis derived for Descartes fromthe contemplationof the mind and fromthe discoveryin it of an infinite power of determination.The analysis could be pushed further,but need not be for our purpose: the intuitionsof libertyin Descartes and in Sartre have different origins.Sartre is perfectlyaware of this: he proclaimsthat Descartes's intuition originatesin the experience of autonomy of thought (Introduction., p. 12). But the term autonomy,of course, is extremelyambiguous. It might mean that Descartes dives into an isolated contemplationof his own thought to emergewith the main intuitionsof his own existence,his liberty,the existence of God, and so on; in that sense, the expressioncorrespondsto the factsof the doctrine and is completelyacceptable. But let us beware: by an easy shiftin the meaning, it might be made to representa thoughtwhich would have an independent,autonomous creative power in regard to the truth (conceptions entirely inacceptable in the Cartesian system,as we shall see). And sure enough, Sartre will not fail to shiftthe meanings deftlyand to intimate that Descartes's intuitionof his own libertyis really that same creativelibertythat Sartre himself experiences (Introduction,p. 51). So with a remarkableskill (although possibly unconscious), throughthe juggling of the word autonomy, the acquiescence of the reader is being prepared from the start for a posthumous underwritingof Sartrian Existentialismby Descartes. But let us proceed with Sartre'sIntroduction.Having surreptitiously lent to Descartes his own theoryof the autonomy of thought,with all the creative seeds it implies, Sartre cannot fail to discover incipient discrepanciesin the Cartesian system."So we find in Descartes,under the guise of a unitarian doctrine, two rather differenttheories of liberty,depending upon whether he considersthis power of understandingand judging which is his, or whetherhe simplywants to save the autonomy of man in the face of the rigoroussystem of ideas" (Introduction,p. i5). Sartre's hidden thought (which reveals itself clearly only on page 39) is this: Descartes's liberty,when autonomous,is only negative, being reduced solely to the power of refusingconfused thoughts; when positive, it is no longer autonomous,being compelled to adhere to the cogent power of clear and distinctthoughts.There would be a certain element of truthin that analysis,except that: (i) the notion of autonomywhich acts as the disruptive agent has been introduced by Sartre himself; and that, (2) Descarteswould say that libertyis the greatestwhen it adheres to the cogent power of clear and distinctthoughts.In fact Descartes says so in a text reproduced by Sartre himself:"If I always knew clearlywhat is Truth and what is Good, I would never have to bother to deliberate what judgment and what choice I ought to make; and thus I would be entirelyfree . . . " (p. 73). The root of the differencebetween Sartre and Descartes lies of course here as everywherein the fact that Descartes believes in God-createdessences: thus the

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JEAN BOORSCH taskof man'smindis to discovertheseessencesand to givethemhis adhesion, whichis theonlyconceivable freedom forhim;whileSartredeniestheexistence of preestablished essences. Moreaboutthesedifferences later.It willbe sufficient forthe timebeing to have seen at workthe disruptive influence of a notion surreptitiously introducedinto a system,with connotations and implications whichwould be totallyforeignto it. The historicalsense of Sartreis here badlyat fault. That historicalsenseseemsto go astrayfurther and almostto run amok whenwe suddenlysee Sartreapplyingto Descartesa host of formulas which usuallydescribethepurestExistentialism: "Truthis a humanthingsinceI must assertit forit to exist.Beforemyjudgment, whichis an adhesionof mywill and freeengagement of mybeing,thereexistsnothingbut neutraland floating ideas which are neither true nor false. So man is the being through which truth appears into the world . . . " (Introduction,pp. 16-17). It would be

extremely interesting to findout on what textsof DescartesSartreis relying to justifythisaudaciousannexation,but he is, understandably, silenton that point.This is regrettable: it wouldhave been illuminating to see beforeone's own eyesDescartesassumethemaskof Heidegger. As a matterof fact,Sartrehimselfis not slow in recedingfromthatpositionwhichappearstoo glaringly untenable:"In Kant thehumanmindconstitutestruth;in Descartesit onlydiscoversit, sinceGod has fixedonce and for all the relationswhichthe essencesmaintainbetweenthemselves"(Introduction,p. 25). We are here reachingthe cruxof the matter:thereis reallyno commongroundbetweena philosophy whichpostulatesessencesas Descartes's and a that whichdeclares essenceis ontologically does, philosophy posteriorto existence.The advantageaccruedto Sartrethroughthe imperiouslogicof his positionis here particularly obvious: since essencesare posteriorto liberty, (libertyitselfhas no essence, l'Etre et le neant, p. 513), there can evidently

and oughtto be no conflictbetweenthe two; whileDescartesis confronted, be bothered, fixedessences accordingto Sartre,by the problemof reconciling and libertyof the will. We have alreadyindicatedthatDescartesin factsees no problemthere,sinceforhim the maximumof libertyconsistspreciselyin givinga total adhesionto truthonce perceived:Descartesneverlived under he modestly the impressionof having createdthe axioms of mathematics; he was onlydiscovering thoughtGod had done that;as forhimself, Descartes, well since he writesin the passage theseaxioms.Sartreknowsit perfectly quotedabove: "In Descartes, thehumanmindonlydiscovers thetruth."It is all a sheerplay themoresurprising thento see Sartreinsistjust thesamethrough on words,on "the constructivity thatwe findat the sourceof theDiscourse"', and add: "For,afterall, theMethodis invented... Betterstill,each rule of theMethod (exceptthefirst one) is a maximof actionand invention"(Intro-

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Yale FrenchStudies duction,p. 23). We grantthatpoint,but fortworatherimportant remarks. The firstone concernsthe restriction made by Sartre:"each rule of the Method(exceptthefirstone) . . . " The restriction oughtto be all-embracing sincethefirstrule (to receiveonlyclearand distinctthoughts) is the onlyocne whichhas any metaphysical importance. The otherthree(analysis,synthesis, are onlypracticaltoolsto bringsomeorderamongtheconcepts enumeration) discovered by intuitionthroughthe firstrule. And so-secondremark-weare witnessing here again a barelyperceptibleshiftin meaning:the rulesof the methoddo definein a certainsensea techniqueof invention, butonlytowarda discovery of the orderexistingin Nature,and incidentally towarda human, industrial, medical,and moralmastery of thatsamenature;but surelynot as a is leadingus to infer.Here again,Descartes creationof thatorder,as Sarmre wouldhave thoughtthatGod had a definite priority. But all this was for Sartreonly an unimportant rearguardaction: he realizesverywell thata constructivity of the mindwhichcollideswithfixed and not of anyreal essencescan play in metaphysics a partonlyof discovery So we see him suddenlyshiftthe weightof his attackand curconstruction. Let us look more iouslytryto captureDescartesin the nets of negativity. precisely intothedetailsof thisoffensive: it is through nothingness, saysSartre, thatman supposedlycommenting Descartes,and as dealingwithnothingness escapesGod. (p. 33) "Since theorderof the truthexistsoutsideof me, that it is refusal" whichis goingto defineme as autonomy is not creativeinvention, us note in this clear-cut of creative (p. 34). (Let passing repudiation invention.) "It is by refusinguntil we cannotrefuseany longerthatwe are free.So, methodicaldoubt becomesthe verytypeof the freeact" (p. 34). "But in the momentwhenhe reachesthatone called independence. . . againstGod man catcheshimselfas a sheernothing(un pur ndant): confronting himself, thereremainsonlya simple thebeingwhichis put whollybetweenparentheses, withoutperson.And it no,withoutbody,withoutmemory, withoutknowledge, is the translucent refusalof everything whichreachesitselfin the Cogito. . X NobodybeforeDescarteshas emphasizedthe connectionbetweenlibertyand fromthatmagnificent negativity" (p. 36). We havequotedgenerously passage. Its meaningis perfectly clear,and need notbe commented upon.Thereis only it is thatit does nothold waterfor one minuteimperfection in theargument: a second.Anyonecan see that,withthewholebeingput betweenparentheses, thereremainsonlynot a simpleno, but a yes: Cogito;and thatin theCogito it is not "the translucent refusalof everything whichreachesitself"but the flamboyant assertion of one thing:Ego cogito,.ergo sumsiveexists. (Discourse, stimulatin text). Aside fromthatsmall flaw,the argumentis undoubtedly lating. thatDescartes"has not pushed Sartrehimselfis not slow to acknowledge

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JEAN BOORSCH to the end his theoryof negativity."We would say he has not even startedit. Sartre now goes so far as to quote Descartes: "Truth consists in being and fAlsityin non-beingonly." He could have quoted many more similar passages, all showing that Cartesian philosophyis not particularlycenteredon nothing. ness, which is certainlyno secret. And the key to Descartes's "shortcomings" on that point is finally given us: "In a word, Descartes failed to conceive negativityas productive." (p. 39) Granted. But, then, why enlist Descartes among the philosophersof negativity,and what is the meaning of sentences like the ones quoted above which supposedlyexpressDescartes'sthought:"It is throughhis nothingnessthat man escapes God . Man catches himselfas a sheer nothing"? Accordingto Sartre,Descartes has been kept by the prejudices of his time from developing his liberty into what it ought to be: Sartrian liberty.And inquiring furtherinto the limitation of human libertyin the Cartesian doctrine, Sartre comes forthwith his most amazing idea yet. He startswith the premise: "Descartes warns us that God's libertyis not more entire than man's libertyand that one is after the image of the other" (p. 44). We could stop Sartre right there: Descartes does not warn us that God's libertyis not more entire than our own. He says exactly the opposite: God's will does not appear to me any greater than mine, if I consider it formallyand preciselyin itself, "although it is incomparablygreaterin God than in myself,eitheron account of the knowledge and power, which, joined to it, make it firmerand more or on account of its object, as it extends infinitelyto more things" efficacious, (Fourth Meditation, excerptgiven by Sartre,p. 72). But let us again close our eyes to that small inaccuracyon Sartre'spart, and proceed. From that premise, Sartre jumps to this remarkable conclusion: "If Descartes conceived divine libertyas quite similar to his own, it is thereforeabout his own liberty,as he Would have conceived it, were it not for the shacklesof Catholicismand dogmatism,that he is talkingwhen he describesGod's liberty.We are witnessingan evident phenomenon of sublimation and of transposition" (p. 44). Since the phenomenon is so evident, it probably is not worth discussingit. Let us be satisfiedto contemplatethe results.Descartes had given God the greatestconceivable powers. His God is freeabove necessity,above the axioms, above even, for instance,the principle of contradiction,above Good; He freelycreated the world and its laws; the essences which define truth and goodness have been freelycreated by Him. In Him, will and power are the same thingbecause He is indivisibleunityas well as unlimitedamplitude ... This impressivearrayof powers is not going to intimidateSartre,who goes boldly forward:Descartes has dearly seen that libertyand creation were one and the same thing; that libertyis the foundation of Truth and Good. But unfortunatelyhe has been compelled by his time to shiftto God the preroga-

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Yale FrenchStudies tivesof man.Now at last (withExistentialism), man recuperates "thatcreative libertythatDescarteshas bestowedupon God, and at last beginsto dawn the truthwhichis an essentialbasisof humanism:man is thebeingwhoseappearance makesa worldexist.But we will not reproachDescartesforhavinggiven to God whatproperlybelongsto us" (p. 51). We mustimitateSartre'smagon thislast point.But,somehow, nanimity thesuspicionremainsthat,possibly it is Sartrewhois givingto manwhatproperly belongsto God.

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Sartre'sTheory of the Emotions For those who are interestedin the philosophic basis of Existentialismas distinct from its literaryand journalistic expressions,and are shy of setting out on the seven hundred finelyprintedpages of L'Etre et le Nean-t,thereis an introductionof a sort in a psychologicalessay of Sartre published in 1939 in the Actualites Industrielles et Scientifiques(no. 838). In the Esquisse dwne Thiorie des Emotions Sartreis chieflytryingto show how psychologicalinterpretationsof the emotionscan be betteredby resortingto the methodsof Husserl and Heidegger: he describes it as "an experiment in phenomenological psychology."But this "experiment,"thoughrestrictedin scope, has some important implicationsfor a general theoryof consciousnessand of man. Sartre's position is summarizedin a paragraph toward the close of the essay: in two differentways. The Thus consciousnessmay "be-in-the-world" world may appear to it as a complex formedof instrumentsin such a way that if a determinedeffectis to be produced, it will be necessary to act on the determinedelementsof the complex. In this case, each instrumentrefersto other instrumentsand to the totalityof instruments,and there is no absolute action nor radical change which can be immediatelyintroducedinto this world. One particularinstrument must be modifiedby means of another which refersin turn to other and so on to infinity.-Butthe world may also appear to instruments, consciousnessas a non-instrumentaltotality,or as being modifiable without intermediaryand in great quantities. In this case, classes of the world will act immediatelyon consciousness;theyare presentto it withoutdistance (for example, the face which frightensus throughthe window: it acts on us without instruments, and does not require the opening of a window,the leaping of a man into the room or his walking on the floor.) Reciprocallyconsciousnessaims at combattingthese dangers or at modifyingthese objects without distance and without instrumentsby absolute and massive modificationsof the world. This aspect of the world is entirelycoherent,it is the magic world. We will call emotion the sudden plunge of consciousnessinto magic. Or, if you prefer,there is emotion when the world of instrumentsvanishes suddenly and the magic world takes its place. It is false, then, to see in emotion a fleetingdisorder of the organism and of the mind which would disturb psychic life from without. It is, on the contrary,the returnof consciousnessto the magic attitude,one of the great attitudes

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Yale FrenchStudies that are essential to it, with the appearance of the correlativeworld, the magic world. Emotion is not an accident,it is a formof existence of consciousness,one of the ways in which it knows (in Heidegger's sense of "Verstehen") its "Being-in-the-world." Though the monographis in large part a "technical" psychologicaltreatise, this descriptionobviously outruns the scope of traditional psychologicalconcepts: it illustratesSartre'saim of building a "phenomenological psychology," which examines essential structuresof human consciousnessin their essential structure,instead of collecting scattered and thereforenon-essential"facts." "Facts" are always, according to Sartre, many, disconnected, and fragmentary: they will never add up to a unified conception of human nature. Moreover, "facts" are non-significant:they are merely there: whereas human existence is significative-everystructure in the human psyche essentiallyinvolves, and, in particular, means somethingabout the whole of consciousness.Or again, "facts" of psychologyare apprehended by the psy. chologistas if he were himselfquite outside their scope-whereas the essential peculiarityof human consciousnessis that it signifiesitself;there is no science of human nature to which the humanityof the scientisthimselfis irrelevant. For this will-of-the-wisp of statisticalobjectivity,then, Sartre would substitute a more complex and difficult, but also more unifiedaccount of human naturelike that of Heidegger in Sein und Zeit. In such a contextemotion,forexample, appears to be not an accident of human nature superadded to an account of sensation, locomotion, etc., as it is for the classical psychologist,but as thc passage quoted indicates,an essential functionof consciousness,a basic way in which it grasps, i.e. "comprehends" its world. And psychologyin general becomes, in this interpretation,the consequence of, not the prelude to what Sartre calls an "anthropology",a phenomenologicalaccount of the "essence of man." This may look like the veryopposite of Existentialism,which assertsthat man has no single essence, that every man creates himselfout of his unique situation. But the contradictionis presumablyonly a verbal one. Of course the fact that a man has no single essence is an essentialaspect of man's natureand it is just as possible to discover this essential uniqueness in individual human beings as it is to discoverthe essentialsameness (for us at least) of the membersof some other classes, like seashells or cabbages. Moreover, the particular concepts in termsof which Sartre here describes have far-reaching man-in-his-world implications,for instance,for the traditional philosophical problem of the relation of "reason" and the "passions." of the world in which Accordingto Sartre,an emotion is a transformation consciousnessmoves suddenly from the technical to the magical apprehension of its world. So, for example, in the patients described by Janet, hysteriaor

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MARJORIEGRENE faintingwas a way of banishing the fearfulobject from consciousnesswhen it could not be got rid of in any other way: the world, too difficultto be subject to alterationby techniques,had to be changed,magically,by consciousthat cannot be overness itself.Similarly,anger is a way of evading difficulties come by the roads open on an instrumentallevel. Now, as Sartre says, the joy of a lover whose mistresshas just assured him of her love is a kind of possession by incantation, overcomingmagically in one bound all the small external actions that remain for him to accomplish.In all these cases it is an "incantation", using the body, that transformsthe world. In other cases it is the world itselfthat suddenlyappears as magic withoutour active agency.That is so, for example, when one is suddenlyhorrifiedby the appearance of a face at the window: one is startledout of a routine technicalhandling of a situation into the immediateconfrontationwith somethingunknown and unexplainedthe familiar world of action gives way to the strange one of fright.But in either kind of "transformation"it is the sudden shock of a descent (chute) fromtechnique to magic that constitutesan emotion. Now, obviously, this distinction between the technical and the magicai puts the whole problem of the relation between thought and emotion in a radically new light. For one thing, according to Sartre, both action-which externalizesthe technical manipulation of means and ends in reasoning-and level of consciousness:He says emotion operate principallyon a non-reflective earlier in the same essay: The subject attemptingto solve a practicalproblem is exteriorized in the world. He grasps the world at ea-chinstant,in the course of all his actions. If he fails in his attempts,if he becomes angry,his irritation itself is still another mode in which the world appears to him. And it is not necessaryfor the subject,between the unsuccessfulaction and his anger, to returninto himselfand intercalatea reflectiveconsciousness.There can be an unbrokentransitionfromthe non-reflective consciousness consciousness"acted world" (action) to the non-reflective "hateful world" (anger). The second is a transformationof the first . . . We tend too much to the belief that action is a constanttransition to the reflective,from the world to ourselves. from the non-reflective In thisprocess,we would become aware of the problem (non-reflection -consciousness of the world), then of ourselvesin the role of having the problem to solve (reflection); starting from this reflection,we would conceive an action to the extent that it should be held by us (reflection)and we would redescendnext into the world to carryout the (non-reflective)action, at this point consideringonly the acted all the partial setbacksrequiring object. Then, all the new difficulties, a retighteningof our adaption would direct us back to the reflective level. From this, a constantback-and-forth play that would constitute action. Now, it is certainthat we can reflecton our actions. But an opera-

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Yale FrenchStudies tion performedon the universeis more often than not carried through without the subject leaving the non-reflective plane. For example, at this moment,I am writingbut I am not consciousof writing.Shall we say that habit has caused me to be unconscious of the movements made by my hand in writingthe letters?This would be absurd. Perhaps I have the habit of writing,but not at all that of writingcertain words in a certain order. In a general way, one should mistrustexplanations by Habit. In reality,the act of writingis not at all unconscious,it is an immediatecreation of my consciousness.Only it is not consciousof itself.Writingis becomingactivelyaware of the words as they are born under my pen. Not of words as they are written by me: I apprehend intuitivelythe words in so far as they have the structuralquality of coming ex nihilo and yet of not being creators of themselves,but of being passively created. At the very moment when I trace one, I do not pay isolated attention to each one of the strokesformedby my hand: I am in a special condition of waiting, creativewaiting,I am waitingfor the word-which I know in advanceto borrowmy hand as it writesand the strokesthat it traces in order to be broughtinto being. (pp. 30-31). If this is sound, the Aristotelian account of deliberation, in which reason weighs instrumentsto an end set by desire, is incorrectand irrelevant.Nor in the light of the distinctionbetween the two types of non-reflective consciousness, technique and magic, does the Humian-pragmaticaccount, in termsof impulses succeeding one another, fare much better. For the handling of instrumentsin situations calling for technical masteryis in this view a totally differentmatter from the magical Verstehenwhich characterizesthe emotions -and in fact all direct apprehension of one consciousnessby another. The differenceis clear in the example of the face at the window: in instrumental termsthe face is so many paces away, the other side of the windowpane, etc.; emotionally,it is there, immediately,present without space to the horrified consciousness.It would be equally absurd, if this theoryis right,to ask reason to "control" the emotions and to interpretlogic as a kind of faded impulsesequence. The latter alternative neglects the genuine differenceof the two modes of apprehension; the formerfails to recognizethe constitutivecharacter of the emotions.Sartredefinesemotion as the sudden collapse of consciousness from technique to magic-or he describes it as a kind of diminution of consciousness.That would make one think the technical the normal, the other a kind of falling offfromit. Yet in L'Etre et le Neant Sartre makes it clear that the individual becomes the project that he is essentiallythroughhis relation to other individuals, with whom, in Sartre's view, he enters into conflict. If, then, the relation of one individual to another is fundamentally magical, non-technical,the instrumentalsort of Verstehenwould seem to be, though sometimeson a higher or more reflectivelevel of consciousness,less

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MARJORIEGRENE basic to the peculiar characterof each individual life. It would seem even to operate principallyin the intersticesof le monde magique. The revolutionarycharacter of this conception appears if one looks at what is in a very real sense the philosophic systemof the modern European tradition: the grand expression of the supremacy of reason, i.e. the Ethics of Spinoza. Despite the obvious differencebetween instrumentsand efficient causes, there is a strange resemblance, in a way, between Sarure's technical world with its indefiniteseries of instrumentalcausation and Spinoza's system of mediate finitemodes linked in an infiniteseries of mechanical causes. And in each case this apprehension within an infiniteseries of organized cause and effectrelations is supplemented by a more direct understandingof and throughwholes. But how differentin all its human and metaphysicalimplications is Sartre's mass-movementof magical understandingfrom the unification of Spinoza's world in the third kind of knowledge. It is a principle entirelyat variance with reason and formal cause that, in Sartre'saccount, supplements the world of utensils. Yet it is, perhaps, a principle of more direct and ample human significance,for us at least, than the reason that found its most perfectedphilosophic expression in the Ethics. On the other hand, there is always the suspicion, with Sartre's theories, that theyare a bit too apt-or at least too clever, in a flashyway, to be quite true. In this case at least, as Sartrehimselfsays,there is the necessityof trying to apply this definitionof emotion to the analysis of other examples. In particular,for example, there is the question of how what Sartre apparentlycalls sentimentsare related to emotions: that is, long-time,continuous emotional attitudeswhich appear to sustain the world rather than transformit.

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Sartre'sTheatre Although Sartre's role in the modern theater has been that of an innovator,his plays are not absolutelynovel in theirformand purpose; theirroots extend back as far as the French classical stage. Other techniques and ideas have been added to somewhattraditional gleaned frommore recentplaywrights material, but not slavishly,for Sartre has adapted from the past only those elementsof dramatic art which best serve his new type of theater.The extent of Sartre'sinnovation as well as his specificattitudetowardtheaterin our time are best revealed in the four workswhich he has writtenfor the French stage and which have enjoyed considerablesuccessat home and, more or less,abroad. The Flies (Les Mouches) is undoubtedly Sartre's richest and best constructedplay. The plot, with several modifications,is taken from Euripides's trilogyconcerningthe protagonistOrestes who kills Clytemnestra,his mother, and her husband Aegisthus in order to avenge the murder of his father Agamemnon. The new elements, however, are of fundamental importance. Upon his arrival in his native Argos,Orestesfindsthe people hopelesslybowed under the weight of a supposed guilt (they feel responsible for Agamemnon's death), a condition continuallyfosteredin them by Aegisthus throughterrifyingceremoniescenteredabout the returnof the shades of the dead to torment the living. Orestesis driven to murderthe royal couple partlythroughElectra's persuasion,partlyas a matterof selfishretribution,but mainly because of his desire to free his people fromtheir spiritual bondage. In this way Sartre lifts Orestes's crime froma theme of completelypersonal vengeance to one of universal redressand atonement for the wrong done to the people of Argos by Aegisthus,Clytemnestra,and Zeus. After committinghis crime, Orestes becomes a free individual, subject to the laws of neither men nor gods. With this new freedomever foremostin his mind, he is able to leave Argos and to take upon himselfthe physicalembodimentof his people's remorse,the cluster of flies that have been plaguing the city and the persistentharryingof the Furies. Thus he leaves his people once more in possession of their human of the dignity.The visual impact of this play is intensifiedby the carryings-on hystericalmobs and by the appearance of personifiedsuperstitions,such as the Furies. The characters are traditional: the vengeful, but high-minded Orestes,his bewildered sister Electra, the jealous and parasitic Zeus, afraid of

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WALTER LEAVITT man's aspiration to freedom,and finally the scheming pair, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.As in most of Sartre's plays the charactersare sketched just enough to allow them to carryalong the main idea of the play. They are but living figures,each embodyinga single idea, whose main purpose is to portray a specifichuman situation. Moreover they do not evolve as characters;any seeming developmentis merelythe appearance, gradual or sudden, of a latent possibilityalready deep within them. The dialogue is extremelymodern,swift and at times vulgar. This does not, however, merely create repugnance, but ratherheightensthe apalling situation of the story.The central theme in this play, whichdiscussesthe overthrowof unjust tyrantsin order to restorefreedom and dignityto the oppressed, was undoubtedly suggestedby French political conditionsunder the recent German occupation. In spite of the fact that other ideas of less importancelie scatteredthroughoutthe dialogue-freedom,choice, etc.-the play sounds a strongnote of resistance,and is in this sense a "thesis" play. Although it is tied to a specifichistorical situation, the play merits a worthyposition in its genre, i. e. among all plays which seeikby theirexample to improve the human lot. If The Flies is Sartre's best play in its richnessof color, in its intensity and nobilityof purpose, Morts sans sipulture (The Unburied Dead) is his most play. The plot is quite simple: fivemembersof the French Resistance terrifying of the P6tain suffermental and physical tortureat the hands of three officers regime. The scenes alternate between the attic, where the psychologicalreactions of the prisonersare minutelyanalysed,and the classroomdownstairswhere these same men are worked over by the miliciens.Although the charactersare not keenly delineated, each one does possess a definiteindividuality:Canoris has been captured before and stands up well under torture; Sorbier breaks down completelyand finallycommits suicide in order to escape; Henri is a mixtureof both Canoris and Sorbier, not strongenough to withstandtorture and yet not yieldingcompletely.Lucie is the strongestcharacterand resistsher tormentorsthroughoutthe play, although the fear of death humblesher finally; Francois,a boy, is so thoroughlyfrightenedthat he is killed by his companions as a precautionarymeasure; and Jean, the typical Resistance leader who sees a purpose to his companions' sacrifice,is brought in by the dramatistonly to who exhibit varyprovide the hope of escape for the others.The threeofficers, ing degrees of sadism, are but rapidly sketched.This play, like the following one, No Exit (Huis-Clos) is more Sartrean than The Flies inasmuch as it confrontsthe charactersand the audience with a Heideggerian Grenzsituation (limit-situation)wherein man's mind is forced to its most serious choices. The Unburied Dead attemptsto present such a situation by haunting certain personswith the spectreof torture,and to analyze carefullytheirthoughtsand emotions.Not only are the resultsof theirchoicesshown clearly,but the author

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Yale FrenchStudies suggeststhat man's willfuldecisionsmay be overthrownin a supposed moment of triumphby forcesstrongerthan the man himself.This ironic twistat the fall of the curtain adds a new dimension to the play. No Exit contains practicallyno plot and no action. It is rathera specific situation which is in itself the complete-motivationof the characters.Three people, a coward,a Lesbian, and a nymphomaniacmurderesshave been assigned a Second Empire drawing room in Hell for their punishment.Since thereare no mirrorsin this room and the presence of the other two persons is sharply felt by each one, the charactersbecome, almost involuntarily,a mirrorof the actions and thoughtsof each other. Therein lies the conflict,for each has told the other his crimesand each taunts the other about them.Finally theyrealize what Hell really is-the staresand the mockeryof other people. They sit down, the same situation begins all over, and the audience realizes that it is to continue forever.Characterizationscarcely exists because every person is merely the prototypeof himself.The charactersserve only as sounding boards for a minute breakdownof what thoughts,actions and emotionsmightbe under the stressof such a situation.The dialogue is rapid and nervous,and much is left to the imagination.The vocabularyis drawn generallyfromeverydaylife, and mirrorsthe formerearthlystatus of each character.No Exit takes much of its piquancy from the fact that the characterscan be either living or dead. The only thingthat is importantis that thesepeople are in a situationwhere there are others-Hell means, ultimately,the impossibilityof indifference. Sartre'sleast effectiveplay is The RespectfulProstitute(La Putain respectueuse), which falls short of the strictstandards of dramatic art so evident in the plays discussed above. The plot centers about the conflictbetween the Whites and the Negroes in the South of the United States: A Negro is falsely accused of attackinga white prostitute(a Yankee). The real culprit is a local white man of high social standing. The Negro pleads with the prostituteto divulge the true story,but she hesitates;meanwhileshe hides him in her bathroom. A visit by Senator Clarke, the culprit's uncle, to the prostitute'sapartment ends in his persuading her to prosecute the innocent Negro so as to protectotherWhite Women and to save the "more valuable" White Man from imprisonment.The girl acquiesces when she is promised the loving protection not only of the politicianbut also of his sister,who standsforAmericanmotherhood. The curtain falls on this scene of false hope for the girl and the cruel hopelessnessof the Negro's situation. The shortcomingsof this play stem fromthe fact that Sartre is describing circumstanceswith which he is evidentlynot intimatelyfamiliar.Nor is this the play's only weakness. Although his charactersdo make a choice-in the Sartrean manner-they do so unconvincinglyand their choices are visibly directed by the playwright.Perhaps if Sartre had added a freshpoint of view,

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WALTER LEAVITT or even had he made the characters'choices seem more in keeping with their real selves, this play mightbe qualified to stand more firmlyamong his other threedramas. In an article in Theater Arts (June 1946) entitled Forgers of Myths, Sartre published a "manifestoof aims" for France's younger playwrights.By comparing the ideas put forth there with the plays discussed above, we can now undertake the formulationof some of the fundamental principles of Sartre's theater.These plays are concerned more with certain situations than with any characterstudy,because, for Sartre,man is defined as a free being, who chooses his own identificationwhen confrontedwith the necessitiesof a "limit" situation. The people in these plays are distinct from one another, not as types,but as rightmay conflictwith right.In thisrespectSartre'stheater derives fromthe Cornelian traditionwhich shows will at the verycore of passion. There is also a return to the Greek conceptions of tragedy,where a passion was always the assertionof a right.The studyof the conflictof characters,then, is replaced by the presentationof the conflictof rights,a definite separation from the realistic theater of the recent past. Since characterstudy has been set aside, this theaterspeaks to the masses in termsof their most general preoccupations,"dispelling their anxieties in the formof mythswhich anyone can understand and feel deeply," myths which reach all the disparate elementsin the audience. Because these mythsproject for the audience an enlarged and enhanced picture of its own sufferings, the action of the plays is at an estheticdistance from the spectators.The play is a sort of religious "rite," speaking to the spectatorsof themselves"with a constant reserve of will increase the distancebetween mannerwhich,far frombreeding familiarity, play and audience." This is accomplished mainly by the choice of strange situations-a plague of "flies" in Ancient Greece; a torturechamber in enemy occupied territory;a Second Empire drawing room in Hell; and a prostitute's room in the South. Sartre's theater is separated from other theatersby this very technique of distance. His plays are shortand violent,centered in general on a conflictof rights,writtenin a sparse, extremelytense style,like and yet unlike everydayspeech, with but few people thrustinto a situationwhere they must make a choice. It is the result of this choice which determinesthe main themeor thesisof the play, and the finaloutcome is always left in doubt until the verylast moment. Jean-Paul Sartre's theater originates in a noble tradition which he has enhanced with new and startlingideas. Regardless of the direction or concentrationof Sartre'sfuturewritings,he has already left in his wake four very considerableplays for the contemporarystage.

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Simonede Beauvoir: Ethicsand Art Simone de Beauvoir brings to her novels a richness of meaning and a subtletyof intellectwhich we may assign,at least in part, to her trainingas a professorof philosophy.Her threenovels, L'Invitee (1943), Le Sang des autres (1945), and Tous les hommes sont mortels(1946) togetherwith her recent philosophic work,Pour une morale de l'ambiguite, (1g47) reveal that she has devoted much of her thinkingto the ethical implications of Existentialism. Indeed her philosophical work representsthe firstattempton the part of any member of the post-warFrench group to formulateExistentialistethics or to suggestwhat direction it will take. According to Mme de Beauvoir's analysis two contrastingattitudes resume the in Pour une morale de l'ambiguWtS, erroneous ethical conceptions of the majorityof people. There is firstof all what she calls the "infantilemorality"of the man who accepts authorityand receives his values ready-made.On the other hand there is the ethics of the to "adventurer"-of the Don Juans and the Cortezeswho are totallyindifferent the contentof theiractions and to the existenceof others.To one who would avoid these equally irresponsibleapproaches only a method can be given; there can be no easy rules, no formulas,and no comfortingabsolutes externally imposed. The rules must come from within, for liberty is the source of all ethical values. Such individualismdoes not lead to anarchy,Mine de Beauvoir holds, because man findshis law in this veryfreedom;his libertyis dependent upon the libertyof others for its own existence.Furthermore,such libertyis far frombeing a solipsism,because the individual is definedonly by his relation to the world and to other individuals. An authentic morality,then, will be one which takes into account the dual aspect of a man's existenceas an individual and as a social being. In the novels of Jean-Paul Sartre,we may note in passing, it is the individual who receives the chief emphasis-Antoine Roquentin, for example, who is concerned with realizing the nature of his existence, or Mathieu, who obstinatelypursueshis personal liberty;and althoughthe individual encounters obstacles to his liberty,it is still on himselfas an individual that the attention is focused. But in the novels of Simone de Beauvoir, the focus is kept chiefly upon a conflictof free beings and the problemswhich theyencounteras they struggleto achieve an authenticco-existence.The problem raised in L'Invitie

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GWENDOLYN BAYS is how cne can preserve his uniqueness as an individual while participating in collective relationships.The paradoxical nature of man's existence consists in his solitude,separation,and need forsuch independence fromotherson the one hand, and, on the otherhand, in his relation to othersby which alone his actions have meaning.Man findsin othersthe justificationforhis own existence. In Le Sang des autres the problem is whetheran individual has the right to involve anyone in a conflictor cause which may or may not succeed and which may cost the one involved his life. Or as Jean Blomart puts it: "Does one have a rightto pay with the blood of others?" Hegel attemptsto resolve the paradox by assertingthat just as the passing momentis preservedin the developmentof time and the briefduration of the individual in the life of humanity,so the single being findshimselfagain in the collectivityat the heart of which he has been lost. The errorof this solution, accordingto Mme de Beauvoir, consistsin the fact that humanityor man as an abstractionhas little meaning. Far fromthe rarifiedair of the Hegelian Idea, men continue to face these antinomieseveryday in the claims of society upon their personal libertiesor in the infringementof their personal liberties upon that of other persons.A valid formulationof ethicswill take into account this quotidian ambiguityof human existence.By an ethics of ambiguityMme de Beauvoir does not mean one of confusion or one which has no meaning, but an ethics in which the meaning is never fixed and which recognizesthat everysituation is different: An ethics of ambiguity will be an ethics which refuses to deny a priori that separated existences can at the same time be joined among themselves,that theirindividual libertiescan forgelaws which are valid for all. Althoughsuch a relativistictheoryof morals is as old as Protagoras,it is nevertheless true that it largely agrees with the descriptionsof the universe given by Einstein and Minkowski. L'Invitde is prefacedwith the followingquotation fromHegel's Phenomenology of Mind: "Each consciousnesspursues the death of another." In its context the quotation has two implications: one is that whereas the presence of another person implies that he may rob one of somethingwhich has great value, that he is a continual threatto one's existence,his presence also carries with it the possibilityof greatlyenrichingone's existence. In other words if there were nothing to lose, there would also be nothing to gain. The second implication is that human consciousnessof another consciousnessinvolves the reduction of the "conceived" one from existant becoming to static being. In other words,in understandingmy friend'smind I must first"freeze" it, encompass it, and in this sense kill it. In the novel L'Invitie, Francoise and Pierre, who have built a successfullife togetherby their collaboration in the theater

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Yale FrenchStudies and whom Pierre describesas having "one life,one work,and one love," decide to help Xaviere, a young girl fromRouen, to establish herselfindependently in Paris. They take her into theirhousehold and assume financialresponsibility for her in the hope of enrichingher existence and of making the morose girl happy. Although XaviUre is not completelyunappreciativeof their efforts, she neverthelessresentstheir intrusionupon her individualityand their attempts to effectchanges in her-changes which involve a level of maturityfor which Xavi&e is not yet prepared. Thus unconsciouslyduring the firsthalf of the novel Fransoise and Pierre pursue symbolicallythe death of Xaviere. At length they discover that friendshipwith Xaviere is almost impossible because she remains locked within herself and refuses to contribute in any way to the friendship.AlthoughPierre says of her: "One cannot live withXavi&e, only beside her," he neverthelessis stronglyattractedby her brusque, almost savage charm.Francoise,suffering all the anguish which a woman naturallywould under the circumstances, discussesthe matterwithPierre,who declares thathis love for her is above and apart fromhis feeling for Xavi~re, but that he will stop seeing Xavi~re if Fransoise requests him to do so. The decision is difficultfor Fransoise because she knows that even if Pierre made the sacrifice,his feeling for Xavibre would still persist,and it is really not sacrificethat she desires of Pierre. Such a rationalisticapproach to her problem on the part of Fransoise is not an artificialone; it is, on the contrary,entirelyin keeping with her personality.She is the independent woman who would prefernot to have a man at all than to have him against his will. This is an attitude which is also expressed in Pour une morale de l'ambiguiti: To love authenticallyis to love in one's otherness (altiriti) and in that libertyby which the lover may escape. Love is thereforea renouncing of all possession,of all confusion; one renounces being in order that this being which one is not may be. Fransoise decides that the renunciation of her claims as an individual upon Pierre will in no way take the passive formof resignation,but that she will continue friendlyrelations with both him and Xavi~re in the trio arrangement which theyhad all agreed to at the beginning. At length it is Xaviere who by her selfishnessand vindictivenessdestroysnot only her own relationship' with Pierre but also with Gerbert,Pierre's young friend who had also been attractedto her. When Gerbertconfesseshis love to Fransoise toward the end of the book we witnessin her very triumphthe heroine's ironic downfall: by her adoption of Xavi&e she had pursued the younger girl's death, and her generous acceptance of Xavibre's competition had itself been a strategyof containment.Fransoise, seeing that the situation has reached an impasse and that to the extent to which she has gained, Xavibre has lost, and vice versa, believes that one of them must be eliminated. Her firstthoughtis of herself,

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GWENDOLYN BAYS but she knows that Xavidre does not love either Pierre or Gerbert and would only make them both miserable. Remaining consistentto her motivations,she turnson the gas jet in the room where Xavidre is sleeping. In conclusionMme de Beauvoir says of Fransoise: "No one could condemn her, no one absolve her. Her act belonged only to herself . . . She had finally chosen. She had chosen herself."

Mme de Beauvoir's most successfulnovel is unquestionablyLe Sang des autres. In fact it does not seem an exaggeration to say that if the skillful blending of content and formis our artisticcriterion,this novel has not yet been equalled by Sartre or Camus. By sustained emotional intensityand by various techniques,such as substitutingan intuitivefor a chronologicalorder and gliding from the firstto the third person, Mme de Beauvoir consistently achieves the combined effectshe is seeking: the fixeddrama of a crucial situation as it reflectsback and recreates its past and, simultaneously,the poetic fluidityof that past as it develops forwardinto our consciousness.The novel is beautifullyordered,and the reader does not feel as he oftendoes in L'Invitec that many scenes could just as well have been omitted. Le Sang des autres, which is prefacedwith a quotation fromDostoievsky:"Each man is responsible for everythingbefore everyone," treats in alternatelyconcrete and abstract terms the question of responsibility.To those critics who would attack her ethical ideas on the grounds that since she is atheistic,questions of rightand wrong can have no meaning for her, or, as one of Dostoievsky'scharactersin The Possessed says: "If God does not exist, then everythingis permitted," Mme de Beauvoir replies that if God does not exist, then a heavier responsibility than ever falls upon man. A God could pardon or expiate, whereas without God every act is irreparable in its consequences. Freedom of choice involves responsibilitybecause man not only chooses for himself,but in a larger sense he chooses for everyoneelse as well. The refusal to choose is also a choice as Jean Blomart in Le Sang des autres discovers.Seated at the bedside of his fiancee Hl1ene Bertrand,who has been fatallyinjured on a dangerous mission for the Resistance and who will die before morning,Jean Blomart, leader of the Resistance group, relives the moments of their past together. Before dawn he has to decide whetheror not he will continue his underground activitiesin spite of German reprisalson innocentFrench hostages.The anguish of the situation is increased because the chances of failure are very great. Blomart says: "Perhaps you are dying for nothing. For nothing the yellow notices and the doors which open and close and the cracking of bullets at dawn . . . For nothing . . . All these crimes,for nothing . . . Only your death is sure and this night." As the events of his past return to him he realizes that in each of his

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Yale FrenchStudies personal decisions someone was hurt. First it was his motherwhen he refused to take his father'splace as head of a large printingbusiness and joined the Communist Party. It was under his influence that the young poet Jacques Landreu had joined the Party and in the course of their activitieswas killed. Later, when Jean discovered that the communistswere about to push France into war, he withdrewfromthe Party.His friendsMasson and P6rier criticized him, saying that although he wanted the defeat of Hitler he was unwilling to pay the price. Blumartreplied: "It is easy to pay with the blood of others.' Yet he came to realize later that in spite of his refusalhe had become involved in the conflict,and that he had not saved lives but had only caused more to be lost. Blomart carried this new realization over into action by organizinga local Resistance group.

The completelyalive and delightfulHdelne Bertrand adds much to the artisticmerit of the novel; she is Mme de Beauvoir's most human creation: a strong-willed,high-spiritedgirl who becomes bored with her unimaginative fianc6Paul P6rier and refusesto marryhim: "I am useful to your happiness," she says, "but you do not feel a need for me." H6lene seems particularlyalive to the reader because of the fact that he sees her develop froman egocentric adolescent into a woman capable of accepting responsibilityand finallyof inspiringthe love of Jean Blomart. Blomart said that what he noticed firstabout HOkne was her "bold taste for sincerity",and he had noticed this precisely because it was a trait common to them both. He had left home, and H6lene had leftPaul; both had been willing to sever ties of long standingbecause they felt the compelling necessityfor a more authentic existence. When HOlene tells Jean that she is in love with him, he sends her home because he considers her to be merelya bored adolescent who wants to be amused. The resultso( this refusalhave far-reachingand disastrouseffectsupon them both. Hel*ne is; one of the best examples of an Existentialistheroine who "creates her essence she evolves into the sort by her existence",and, aftermuch personal suffering, of person capable of inspiringBlomart'slove. "It is indeed thiswhich is moving about love," he says, "that it is we who create its truth." Mine de Beauvoir's last novel, Tous les hommes sont martels, is a disappointment. Her theme, contained in the title, scarcely needs over three hundred and fiftypages of proof. It is the storyof Fosca, an Italian nobleman of the thirteenthcentury,who drinks an elixir which makes him immortal. In the year 1944 he meets a young actress,R4gine, who falls in love with him and whom, aftera briefliaison, he leaves. Before his departurehe tells her the storyof his life throughthe centuries.Long before Fosca reaches the French Revolution the reader begins to feel that the weight of the centuries is too much forhim to bear. Fosca's reactionsto his existenceare verymuch what one would expect. He has lost all desire to struggle,all desire to love or be loved;

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GWENDOLYNBAYS he cannot interesthimselfin writingplays or novels as Rdgine hopes he will, because to him all storiesare the same-they are all accountsof the same gamethe game of existence."His days had only one color; the color of indifference." So complete was this indifferencethat many who did not know his storyoften compared him to a dead man. From the immortalpoint of view of this living dead man all the strugglesof historyare futile,but he can never persuade any of his friendsof thispreciselybecause of the temporalnature of theirexistence. Such a man is the only sortwho can avoid becoming"engaged" in conflict,and his position is clearly not an enviable one. The "summumbonum" as Mme de Beauvoir conceives it seems to be the achievementof an authentic existence,but this authentic existence differsfor every man. For her characters,libertyis not a pursuit but a state of being, whichin the case of Xavikre is denied and in the case of Francoise is accepted; it is not an abstraction,but is realized by the individual only as he participates with othersin the affairsof theircommon existence.To the question "What is the purpose of existence?"she would answerthat nothingis decided in advance; it is we who give meaning to a cause or create our purposes. Therefoireit is man who gives meaning to the universe by his freedomof choice; he makes himselfand his universe as well. As Pierre said in L'Invitee: "What a man is and what he does are one." Evil is not a matterof an errorof judgment as we findit in Plato and Spinoza, but the result of a pervertedwill as we find it in Christian thought. It is because evil and failure have meaning, because 'terrestrialdamnation" is a real possibility,that their opposites-wisdom,joy, and, victory-have meaning. There is no "solution" to these ethical problems which can correspondwith the nature of existence,for the paradox itselfis at the heart of the problem! Man's libertyis an "engaged liberty",his separation fromothersa linked separation; his creativityinvolves negativityor the possibility of escape into "mauvaise foi"; man is foreverprojecting,yet never completelyachievinghis projects.Since the nature of existenceis ambiguousa valid ethicsmust be an "ethics of ambiguity".The chief meritof Mme de Beauvoir's ethics is that it is in agreementwith the descriptionsof the universegiven by the most advanced scientificthought. As knowledge advances, corresponding to be found revisionsmust be made in our ethical concepts.The chiefdifficulty cultivatedsense here is the fact that many people do not possess a sufficiently of social responsibilityfor such an ethics. But perhaps we have here a hint of what the prevailingethical thoughtof the next centurywill be. In an article entitled La Littdrature et la m!taphysique (Les Temps Modernes, April, i946) Mme de Beauvoir issues an important challenge to the ideal of art for art's sake, which she finds no longer applicable to our culture; it is as impossible,in our time,to separate the philosophyor the values of the criticor novelistfromhis novel or criticismas it is to separate mind and

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Yale FrenchStudies body, It is no longer a question of whetherphilosophywill enter the novel, but which philosophyand what ideas. The philosophicalnovelist,accordingto Mme de Beauvoir, has a dual responsibility:to confrontthe "commonality"with abstractionsof the key concerns of the human condition; and to intensify, dramatize,and "sell" his ideas with all the novelisticdevices at his command. Mime de Beauvoir adds that the novel should be for reader and novelist "a living discovery,an authentic adventure,and it is this authenticitywhiichdistinguishesa great work fromone which is merelyclever." In her novels and in her philosophic works Simone de Beauvoi- has proved herselfto be one of the most capable writersof the post-warFrench group. Her worksare evidence of the fact that she herselfattains the objectives of her own prescription,that is, in her novels she has given metaphysicalconcepts a sensuous form,and also has interpretedor made abstractthe concrete in an effortto help the reader analyze more -dearlyhis own problems.

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Ethicand Poetry in theWorkof Camus if therelationIn a worldwhereall is Malentendu,it wouldbe surprising AlbertCamus shipsbetweena writerand his publicwerefreefromconfusion. a poet is commonly regardedas a realisticnovelist.He is, on the contrary, under the influence is a tourde forceperformed of and moralist.L'Etrainger notablytheJamesCam of The Postman Kafkaand certainAmericannovelists, styleCamus AlwaysRings Twice,but even in thistriumphof the impersonal thewholetale whichrunsunderneath the lyricism does not succeedin stifling to burstout freeat last in the finalpages.La Peste,in whichone recognizes manyof the devicesof L'Etrangerand the same passivehumor,seemsto me presagedby Noces. nonetheless to take its positionin the lyricaldevelopment A thoroughgoing doeslittlein anyofhisworksbut attempt Romantic,Cam-us to elucidatehis own destiny.What interests us in his ideas is above all their to himself. When he speaksof Don Juan, withreference dramaticsignificance think.And whether whenhe evokesCaligula,it is of Camusthatwe inevitably he takesChamfort the prefacewhichhe has writtenfor for"intercessor"-in an editionof theMaxims,wherehe makesthemoralista heroto his own taste of Algeriaor in the cemeteries -whetherhe pursueshis romanticmeditations of Tuscany,it is alwaysupon Camus that the interrogation the monasteries AlbertCamus bears,it is his own anguish,revoltand joy whichfindexpression. of whoseideasone examines is not one of thosewriters thenatureand patterns coldly.He is one of thoseof whomwe study-willstudy,rather,information withdeath,of is lackingas yet-thelife.We cannotspeakof thatpreoccupation withoutthinkingof that "jalousie du bonheur"whichpervadeshis writings the diseasewhichovertookthewriterin his youth.The heroicfigureof Albert Camusbulkslargerthanthe frameof his work.Camushimselfis undoubtedly themostperfectexampleof that"absurdhero"whomhe endeavorsto portray. The workof sucha writerhewsclose to theline of his personaldevelopment;the youthfromwhichthe worksprings,the youthfulessays,assumea The whole of Barr!s is to be foundin Un hommetibre. large importance. I believethatall thatCamushas producedup to thistimeis latentin his first book of essays,publishedin Algeria,Noces. "A man liveswitha fewfamiliar ideas,"saysCamus,"twoor three... It takesten yearsto have an idea truly one's ownan idea whichcan be talkedabout."

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Yale FrenchStudies We must seize the thoughtof Albert Camus where it was born, on a beach burnt by the sun of Africa. #

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It would not have been necessaryto read this sentence in Noces, "There are places in which the spiritlanguishesand dies," to recognizein this sumptuous prose the influenceof Barr&s.This romanticism,this irony,this obsession with death and la volupte were already evident in the Barr6s of the Culte du moi. Here too we must give ourselves over to the magic of the word, let the "puissances des sentiments"have their way. Do we not detect in these rich cadences the particular shudder which runs the whole length of Du sang and of Amori et Dolori Sacrum? Indifferenceand insensitivitycan crystallizea countenance into the mineral grandeurof a landscape. As certain Spanish peasants come to resemble the olive trees of their own land, so the faces of Giotto, freed of those shadows which reveal the soul, resemble Tuscany itself in its essentialand distinctivequality: theplay of passion at theexpense of motion,the mixtureof asceticismand voluptuousness,the resonance common to earth and man, in which man like the earth achieves realitysomewherebetween miseryand love. There are, after all, few truthsof which the heart is sure. And I yielded to this truthone evening as shadows began to drown in a vast mute sadness the vines and olives of the Florentine countryside.Sadness in that countryis never more than a commentary upon beauty.And in the trainwhichvanished across the evening I felt somethingreleased within me. Can I doubt today that, with all its appearance of sadness, this was, nevertheless, happiness? Nor can we help thinking of Barrbs's greatest successor, Montherlant-the Montherlantof Aux fontaines du d~sir, moralist "de l'alternance." In Camus and Montherlantwe find the same taste for certain violent images of Renaissance Italy (the Stendhalian epigraph of the book); the same concern with a splendidly pagan attitude; the same thirstafter happiness; down to the same mannerismsof style.Above all, we findthe same desire to exhaust nature in all its manifestations.Camus speaks somewhereof that "oscillation which carries certain men from asceticism to pleasure, from austerity to a profusion of pleasures." That is exactly the definitionof Montherlant's"alternance." This quantitativemethod-for enlarging the capacities of the emotions by the play of contradiction and alternance-will be used by the philosopher of the Mythe de Sisyphe in his effortto triumphover the absurd by making it live. The traveler of Noces was already aware that "everythingthat exalts life increasesat the same time its absurdity"-and so this multiplied life which he offersis in fact nothing other than that bloom of heroism which is also the floweringof the absurd. Camus will remain faithfulto the passionate evangel absorbed as an adolescent on the sunbeaten shore.

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MICHEL MOHRT A Mediterranean evangel

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Barres, Gide, men of the north, came to it

only later, after a difficultinitiation. Camus was born in the state of grace. Racing along those beaches he learned that "hors du soleil, des baisers et des parfums"everythingis pointless.Such is the convictionof Rambert, the journalist of La Peste, whose ideas Camus is far fromdisavowing. This theme of happiness is expressed with a felicitousregularityin the works of Camus by the image of sea-bathing.In almost all his books we find a lyrical description of swimmingin the sea. It is of Mediterranean shores that Martha of Le Malentendu dreams when she longs to escape from her prison of mountains and overshadowed earth, her Europe in which she has lost life and color. Camus loves to contrastthe melancholyof the north with the wild health of the Midi. This is how Meursault describes Paris, for his mistress:"It's dirty. There are pigeons and dark courtyards.The people have white faces." Before the exuberance of nature in these Mediterraneancountriesone question does not arise, that of the future life. A complete philosophy is expressed in the burning sensation of the instant. There is no eternity"save for the curve of days." "The world is fine,and beyond it no salvation." We see how a code is born, at once fromindifference(to whateveris not presentsensation) and from revolt (against everythingthat obstructsenjoyment). The supremeevil is death and all that bringsus closer to it-old age and disease. I do not know whether Albert Camus had already looked upon the face of death at the time when he wrote Noces, but the pages of that book are thoroughlyimbued with the physical horrorof death. We find the writerformulatinghis ironies in cemeteries and recording the macabre witticismsof Algerian embalmers.This is a foretasteof the fine verve which he will demonstratelater in his attacks on the ridiculous and hateful aspects of death in human society. Consider the burial of Meursault's old mother,in L'Etranger (I said a moment ago that in all of Camus' books there is a plunge in the sea: there is also a buriall) Remember the nightmarishdescription of the destructionof plague-stricken bodies in La Peste, the journey of the little suburban tramwayloaded with stinkingcorpses to the crematoryoven, while a few fanatics,hidden behind rocks and in defianceof the law, throwderisoryflowersupon the convoy. No reconciliationwith death is possible. The only courageous attitude is that of revolt. This revolt with which Camus will associate the idea of complicitywhich he wishes to establishas the foundationof his code (Remarques sur la R.Jvolte) is proclaimed as early as Noces: "to live is to refuseto resign oneself." "All my horrorof dying findsits expressionin my jalousie de vivre. I am jealous of those who will live and for whom flowersand desires for women will have their full fleshlymeaning." Revolt against physical ills, against death, but also temptationto say yea to the world, to take one's ease in this comradelycreation: here are the two

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Yale FrenchStudies complementaryreactions of a single body of thought,face to face with the absurdityof existence. "Florence!" exclaimed the traveler. "One of the few places in Europe where I have perceived that at the heart of my revolt lay an act of consent." In the extreme depth of his pessimismhe discovers an optimism,born of that great complicitywhich binds men to the world. "How shall we consecratethat accord between love and revolt?"One feels keenly that there, for Camus, lies the great problem. La Peste is an attempt,not always convincing, to ratifythis accord. The sainthood to which Tarrou aspires is preciselythat privileged state in which love and revolt are reconciled. Sainthood and complicityare one. The remotestsentimentsare reconciled in the great whole. ". . . At a certain temperatureof existence,soul and blood live in peace amid theircontradictions,as indifferent to dutyas to faith."Crime and charity,revoltand acceptance,wrathand love are fused,neutralizeone another in a single transcendantunity which has the very visage of indifference(the great Es igual of the Spaniards, which Montherlant is fond of citing). This complicitywhich Camus will proclaim must be understoodas extending to all nature, to animals, to seasons, to elements. ("The wind fashioned me to the image of the burning nudity which enclosed me.") The complicityof Meursault with the early afternoonsun will be the cause of the murder. It is the complicityof Caligula with nature, the moon, with the poetry and absurdity of the world which will make of him a mad and criminaltyrant.I am convinced that the profound meaning of the night bathing by which Tarrou and Rieux seal their friendshipis that of a deep accord with the respirationof the earth itself-beyondunhappiness and beyond death. The extreme sensitivityof Albert Camus to the aspects of the external world, to colors,odors, to the familiarsounds of the city,this sensitivitywhich has given us so many admirable pages in his novels, is the evidence of that vast inclusiveness,of the "resonance common to earth and to man, by which man like the earth achieves realitysomewherebetween miseryand love." But what name shall we give to that "common resonance,"that "complicity,"if not the name of poetry?The true foundation of the code of Albert Camus is poetic. (We should mention here the "murderouspower" of poetryas Caligula feels it.) It is futile to maintain, as George Bataille has done, that this code is in flagrant contradiction with itself. There is no "degradation" of the moralityof revolt into "ordinarymorality"simplybecause an attemptis made to reconcile revolt and love. Poetry finds its substance in this antinomy.The code of revolt posits in itselfthe possibilityof an acceptance, and at this limit, the limit which is the frontierof poetry,one thingcancels out the other. The world of poetry is a world of purity. No understandingwith the gods, with society,no temporizationwith miseryand death corrupt it. A world

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MICHFL MOHRT of suicides, of innocent criminals, of revolutionarysaints. Chamfort,who pushes his revolt to the point of destroyinghimself,is a "pur." Caligula, who pursues even to madness his absurd ideal, is a "pur." What is this state of purity?"To be pure," we read in Noces, "is to rediscoverthat countryof the heart where the kinship of all thingsin the world is revealed, where deeds of blood become one with the violent pulsations of the two o'clock sun." (The justificationof the crime in L'Etranger.) This heart's countryis the strange domain where a Saint-Justand a Rimbaud are bound in the same complicity. It is the chosen place of a secret society of criminals,of -condemnedmen, of poets, where a Meursault and a Tarrou join company with a Stavrogin.The heroes that people this novelist'sworld of Camus are clearly "possessed,"and the "understanding"which Rieux shows for all the "insulted and injured" makes him a saint of the gospel according to Dostoyevsky.The kinship with Dostoyevskyextends, further,to the form of Camus's novel. La Peste is, like The Possessed, an honest and thoroughchronicleof "events which took place in our town." The disparitybetween the horror and grandeur of events and the "mediocrity"-literary mediocrity,very well assumed-of the narratorgives rise to the strangenessand the sortof passive humorcommon to the two novels. There is in Camus an occasionally sentimentalevangelism which the humor and impersonalityof the technique do not always succeed in mrasking. #

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It has been said that La Peste is an allegorical novel. We should say, rather,that all the worksof Camus are bathed in allegory,the natural atmosphere of poetry.God has been exiled froman absurd universe,to be replaced by a multitudeof gods and heroes bearing such names as Wind, Sea, Plague, the Condemned, Don Juan. All of Camus's charactersare "brightwith myth."Has it been observed that the author announces, from one book to another, his subjects? The theme of Le Malentendu is in L'Etranger: Meursault in prison findsa bit of newspaper in which he reads the news item which will make the subject of the play. In La Peste there is an allusion to the murderof an Arab by a business employeeat two o'clock in the afternoon.And this is more than mere ingenuity.I see here the will of the author to raise to the loftinessof the myththose fables which he relates. The mythcan be retold, reinterpreted in various ways; but the myth itself remains immortal.Meursault, Martha, Tarrou are characterson the order of Sisyphus.This is no townshipcompetition, but an Olympian rivalry.The city of Oran in La Peste becomes a fabulous citysuspended halfwaybetween the real and the imaginary.(I verynearly said that the Venice and the Combrayof Proust are thus suspended; the world of Proust is also impregnatedwith allegory.) It is the realism of detail, the humor, which bear up this kind of universe and bring offthe mise en place. And we can foresee the breadth which the imaginativeworld of Camus may

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Yale FrenchStudies attain when this capacity for representingmythsis placed at the service of psychology. * *~ ~ An ethics engendered by an aesthetics,the code of Albert Camus remains that of an E1ite.The heroes in whom this code takes on fleshand blood are all possessed by an "inhuman lyricism,"as Cherea says speaking of Caligula. The poetic modes in which their revolt findsutteranceare themselvesexceptional. In the word "complicity"itself,which Camus prefersto "solidarity,"thereis a proud suggestionof choice, of election. The accomplicesare the elect, the naysayers,the slayersand the slain. The little band grouped around the physician Rieux is a sort of knighthoodvowed, like all knighthoods,to heroism and death. This is a code valid for the timesof Resistance-or, rather,a code which postulates an eternal Resistance. Tarrou dies opportunely.But we should like to know what would have become of him, what would have become of Rieux in an Oran rid of the plague. A certain kind of "purity,"pushed to its furthest logical development,is no longer defensible. Witness Rimbaud. Witness thf whole developmentof poetry. (Translated by Warren Ramsey)

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Camusand theNovelofthe ",Absurd The Strangerby Camus is a book which can easily bafflethe reader. Is it a novel of ideas, does it contain a thesis,and what has the author set out to prove? Should it be judged as a psychologicalstudyof a pathological case, or is this case merelya symbolbehind which are hidden larger meanings?Is it a "philosophical" novel, and it so, does Camus propose any solutions,or are his theoriesonly negative and destructive?All these questions somehow arise even before it is possible to assess the artisticvalue of the book; and because these questions arise so early, the reader, taken by surprise,remains suspicious. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his Explication de l'Etranger,assumes that Camus's novel is not a "roman A thkse,"that it tends to prove nothingat all, and that Camus, in writingit, has attemptedonly to set forthhis theoryof the "novel of the absurd." One does not quite see what subtle distinctionSartre makes between a "thesis" and a "theory." Moreover, after having stated that The Strangercalls to mind various other works "which lay claim to intrinsicvalue withoutproving anything,"Sartre immediatelyhastens to explain the meaning of the verytitle of the book by referenceto a passage in the Mythe de Sisyphe which Camus wrote several months after the publication of The Stranger: In a Universe suddenly deprived of illusions and enlightenment,man " feels himselfa stranger.This exile is without remedysince he is deprived of memoriesof a lost countryor of hope for a promised land." Sartre is thus quite willing to admit the theoreticalaspect of the characterof Meursault,who is the "stranger"in this book. Now Meursault, in spite of his crime,is reall) not a criminal;for,accordingto the explanation given in the Mythe de Sisyphe. he is neithermoral nor immoral-but simplyabsurd. Sartre evidentlyconsiders Camus's essay as the key to his novel. However, Sartreexplains, thereis a great differencebetween the essay and the novel: the Mythe de Sisyphe states the "notion" of the absurd, whereas The Strangergives us the "feeling" of it. This distinctionbetween "notion" and "feeling" may seem no less subtle than the one between "theory" and "thesis." For it is evident that a novel is not an essay, and that by a "roman A these" we mean a literarywork in which the author, throughhis charactersand moral situations,expresseshis theories or beliefs. And although a "notion" is usually stated explicitly,while a "feeling" is merelysuggested,it is hard to see why a thesismay not be contained in a

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Yale FrenchStudies -feeling"just as it can in a "notion." Sartre'sapproachseemsinconsistent, content since,in spiteof his earlyassertionconcerningthe lack of theoretical his Explicationis devotedalmostentirelyto a dose studyof in The Stranger, the "notion"of the absurd. Sartre'sremarksare keen and challenging,as usual. "The absurd,"he somepeople have of "is a conditionas well as the lucid consciousness writes, this condition."This notion of the absurdor irrationalaspectof life arises fromvariouscauses,all of whichresultfromthe divorcebetweenman and the universe.For,indeed,nothingis intrinsiallyabsurd:""To be sure,neitherman nor the universe,if taken separately,is absurd; but since it is the essential the absurdbecomesone and thesame with natureof man to exist-in-the-world, then,is man facingtheworld,man realizthehumancondition."The stranger, ing the gap betweenthe eternalnature of the universeand his own finite nature,and perceivinghow much his worriesare out of proportionwith the Even worse,man is not only a strangerfacingthe futility of all his efforts. world,but a strangeralso in relation to himself.That is what Sartrecalls the divorcebetweenthe physicaland the spiritualnatureof man. Sometimes the stranger sees himselfin a mirror,but does not recognizehis own features. Such a realizationof the absurdityof man's fateinevitablyleads to rebellion. is permitted. If God does not exist,if nothingmakessense,theneverything All scalesof value disappear.All experiencesbecome equivalentand are to To smokea cigaretteor to kill a man, to desire be measuredquantitatively. a womanor to gobble a meal, amountto the same thing.All theseactions have thesamevalue or lack of it, forall are equallydevoidof real significance. No character Here, then,is the theoreticalaspect of Meursaul:s.-character. rt Existentialist biefs: could in fact be more in contradictionwith Meursaultfeelshis loneliness,but does not even attemptto finda meaning for his life. He accepts conditionsas theyare, and showsnot the faintest by his own Late,but desireto changethem.He knowshimselfoverwhelmed i the past nor in the he does nothingto liberatehimselfHe lives,nither his very "present"is nothingbut an eternalvoid. future,and consequently Nothinghas meaning,therebeing no aim. Sartrehas pointed out with admirableipsighthow Camus succeedsin connectingliks between exthis divorce.Camus suppresses suggesting periences.Imaginea large windowbehindwhichindividualstalkand gesticulate. Their gesturesand facial expressionsare meaninglesst us. The effect would be as grotesqueas an opera scene to a deaf man. The consciousness of Meursaultis preciselythis "window"which Camus uses to filterall exwe see what writesSartre,is trulytransparent: periences.This consciousness, to thingsand opaque it sees. "But it has been made so as to be transparent passive: he recordsall events, to meanings."The "stranger"is thusperfectly

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VICTOR BROMBERT but he neverreacts.The eventsof the externalworldas well as the events of his personallife have no meaningto Meursault.He does not perceive this impressionby writingmostof the causal links.And Camus intensifies the dialoguesin an indirectstyle,as well as by the somewhatartificial but effective use throughout thebook of thepresentperfecttense,which,as Sartre all the pointsout, "bringsout the lonelinessof each moment"by presenting successionof voids withoutconnection. eventsas an interminable #

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These remarksby Sartreare on the whole valuable and pertinent. And does not answer,and even seemsto avoid, yet the Explicationde PEtranger the mostimportant questionconcerning any literarywork,namely,its value as a workof art. One cannothelp findingSartre'scriticalmethodsomewhat he firstdrawssupport disputable.In his attemptto "explain" The Stranger, an from essayby Camus in order to establishwhat the authorwantedto express,and, havingpreviouslyassertedthat this novel is not a "romanA the "feeling"of a these,"proceedsto show us how Camus communicates theory,the "notion"of whichhe has statedsomewhere else. This methodis disputablebecause it is neitherlogical nor trulycritical.The readeris not supposedto have read the Mythede Sisyphe.The criticalessaysof a writer can and shouldbe used as a meansto throwfurther lighton his works,but theyoughtnot to serveas a starting point.A literarywork"explains"itself: it is both the communicating It vehicleand the thingto be communicated. the notionof the absurdbe also carriedover into seemsimpossible-unless the realmof criticism-to understandwhat the authorwantedto say before realizinghow he has said it. to detectserious In considering thispreliminary aspect,it is not difficult the style,and the tone of the novel. After weaknessesin the composition, the veryfirstfew pages, it becomesapparentthat-whatever the symbolic that meaningsmay be-the characterof Meursaultmust be takenseriously, is, at facevalue, and thatthe authoraims at a certain"realism."Meursault, the stranger, is a weak and passiveindividual.He is even,one mightadd, contoo passiveto be convincing. He is afraidof the worldand supremely sciousof the futility of his own existence.He is also under the impression that the worldjudges him,althoughhe does not quite know forwhat.He suffers froma persecutioncomplex.He is afraidof responsibilities and of takingdecisions.He is apathetic,taciturn,somewhatslow-witted. This, then, is Meursault,a man who disconcerts ratherthan exasperatesus. But one feelsalso-especiallyas the book progresses-that thereis a consciousattempt to make the readerthink.Now to stimulatethought, silenceand apathyare not sufficient; ideas are also needed.However,since the storyis told by the stranger himself, Camusnow and thenhas to breatheintoMeursault'snostrils

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Yale FrenchStudies the life of his own mind. This inevitablycreates a certain tension, and the feeling in the reader that there is in the book something artificial,overly conscious, and calculated. At times Meursault expresses himself too well; at other times he is simply too stupid. In order to re-establishthe desired lack of balance, Camus frequentlyshows us a Meursault who is so much a "stranger" to his own situation that one might be tempted to wonder (if the idea were not so grotesque) whetherthe pitiful hero of this storywas not really a dry wit in disguise. Summoned to appear before the police magistrateafter having killed an Arab for no apparent motive, Meursault claims not to need a lawyer: I answeredthat I thoughtmy case was verysimple. He smiled,saying: "That's an opinion. Yet, there is the law. If you do not choose a lawyer,we shall designate one." I thoughtit was veryconvenient that the law took care of these details. I told him so. He approved, saying that the law was well made. This is only one example, but one could point to many others.In particular, all the trivial remarkswhich make up a good portion of the book: he said yes,he said no, he washed his hands, he smoked a cigarette,he looked through the window, he smoked another cigarette,he was hungry-all this not only is tedious,but also too obviouslycalculated. It is the novel that ends up being absurd. But even worse: Meursault, from time to time, awakens without any apparent reason from his lethargy,and reacts. His mind reacts; he thinks. But he thinks like Camus: And were those speeches really different, afterall? The lawyerraised his arms and pleaded guilty,but with extenuatingcircumstances.The public prosecutorstretchedout his hands and proclaimed me guilty, but withoutextenuatingcircumstances. or again: I understoodthen that a man who had lived but one day could easily live a hundred years in a prison. He would have enough memories not to be bored. This is not the same man who ill the firstpart of the book could say: "I answered that I had not thought about it, but that it was interesting,"or: "I said yes, but that in fact I did not care," or again: "I said yes, so as not to have to talk any more." Occasionally, Camus cannot hold out against his own romantic temperament, and then the attempt at artisticdiscipline breaks down. We are surprised when Meursault, who otherwiseexpresseshimselfvery unimaginatively in short and lifelesssentences,suddenly seems impelled by a burst of lyricism quite incompatiblewith his character:

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VICTOR BROMBERT Among the rows of cypressthat led up to the hills near the sky,this reddish and green earth, these sparse and well-delineatedhouses, I understood Mother. Evening, in this.country,must have been like a melancholyrespite. or again, when he is led back to prison: . . . I found myselfin my cell again, as if the familiarpaths drawn in the summerskies could lead to prisonsas well as to innocentslumber. And even Sartre'sremarkthat Meursault does not perceive the causal links of experience-which is true on the whole-is contradictedwhen Camus momentarilyforgetsto have the "stranger"play his assigned role: . . . the local movies let out a stream of spectatorsinto the street. Among this crowd, the young men displayed gesturesthat were more determinedthan usual, and I thought that they had seen some adventurefilm. Quite a penetratingobservationfor a "stranger" There is no need to multiply the examples. But what is the cause of all these weaknesses?Basically, the characterof Meursault is acceptable, thoughof meager interest.And so far as Camus presentsMeursault as he had conceived him,he remainsacceptable. But Camus also has "ideas" concerningthis curious personage; and he has "ideas" about what he is supposed to represent.And here the difficulty begins: in order to express these ideas, Camus has to use Meursault as a mouthpiece.The "stranger"becomes his own interpreteras well as the interpreterof Camus's ideas. Moreover,since Meursault is the narrator, Camus has to strain the tone and use an idiom which is not Meursault's own. Hence Meursault,who is already at a loss to expresshis own thoughts(or lack of thoughts), finds an incongruousmode of expression forced upon him in order to expressideas properlythe author's.One has the impressionthatneither Camus nor Meursault is quite sincere.Perhaps Camus should have writtenthis book in the third person, which might have eliminated some of the more obvious difficulties.It remains problematic,however, whether such a device would have improved the book as a whole. To write a "novel of the absurd" with the preoccupationsof a moralistis perhaps too ambitious an enterprise, requiring a fusion of thoughtand feeling which Camus apparently has not attained. This is not to deny Camus's moral and intellectualsincerity,as well as the considerable skill displayed in the writingof the book. These qualities, in themselvesto secure the integrityof The however,do not appear sufficient Strangeras a work of art.

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Camus'sLa Peste Time and again in the exploration of "la condition humaine," men have turned to Pascal's descriptionof the "Misbre de i'homme sans Dieu" as the true exposition of man's fate in nature and in society.Accordingto this point of view, man's state is in realityso unbearable that he cannot face the present, but ratherhe must reminisceinto the past or dream into the future.The fact that man existsalways in the presenthas led him to identifypresent time with evil, whereas the past or futurehas always provided at least the imaginative possibilityof escape. We have a tension occurringin man's nature, then, between a real existencein the present,on the one hand, and, on the otherhand, an imagined, abstractexistence in either the past or future.For many people before and afterPascal the only answer to this dilemma of tensionhas been to find some absolute, usually God, which exists outside of time, and which guaranteesto man some futurepossibilityof existingoutside of time.To borrow T. S. Eliot's symbol for the problem, man must reach the still point of this turningwheel-world,or he must face the eventualityof being thrownoffby centrifugalforce. The identificationof the present with evil as a sensed fact in man's nature became the core of Pascal's proposed apology of Christianity. During the Enlightenment,Voltaire emerged as the greatestopponent of Pascal because he realized the danger that the latter'sanswer contained for the rationalist, who could not account for metaphysical time at all. Although Voltaire had at firstaccepted that present evil is necessaryto futuregood, he could no longer retain this optimistic attitude after the disaster at Lisbon. He re-examinedman's miseryin his novel Candide, where he emphasized the futilityof this tendencyof man to abstractexistence into an ideal. If we may change his garden into the termsof our own borrowedsymbol,Voltaire's reply of the wheel by plunginginto was that man must remain on the circumference action and ignoring time as much as possible. The adhesive of man's reason and energywill keep him on the wheel until death, when nature triumphsand the individual is flunginto the void. Not even the promise of a futuregood can be held out to man; all he can do is to defyto the utmostthispresentevil. The answers of Voltaire and Pascal have remained with us as the two alternative attitudes toward existent evil. That is to say, there is a religious answer which escapes into an absolute, and there is the rationalist answer which attemptsto ignore time completely.Man, because he cannot bear too

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GEORGE JAGGER much reality,must turn to a mythwhose value lies in a futuregood, or else sacrificethe meaning of his existence.There has alwaysexisted a thirdposition in addition to the tw( already mentioned. It is symbolizedby the fate of Sisyphusas he continuallyrolls the marble block up the hill only to have it roll down again when he has reached the summit,whereupon he must begin all over again. Because time exists whetherhe wants it to or not, the rationalist suffersthe punishmentof Sisyphus. To begin a discussion of Albert Camus's The Plague by talking about Pascal and Voltaire may be instructive,I believe, because the novel deals essentiallywith man's fate as Pascal saw it, and as Voltaire faced it. Camus's novel is the storyof an epidemic plague which sweeps throughthe ordinary city of Oran and of the collectiveeffectof the plague on the city'sinhabitants. Althoughthis realisticlevel is maintained throughoutthe book, it soon becomes apparent that there is a parallel exposition of the tensional problem of facing a terrible present while man's nature prompts him to flee into the past or future.The Voltairian point of view is presented almost immediatelyby the author when, in answer to the plague, Rieux, Camus's chief character,proclaims, "L'essentiel est de bien faire son metier." The pattern of this struggle is conceiveddramaticallyby Camus, for,while he shows the developmentof an evil so great that a whole society,as a society,is forced to face its terrifying present, he chooses a natural evil which man can combat. The evil of the plague is not such that the individual can only die defyingthe gods, but rather it is one which all men can fightwith whatever means they have at their disposal. The whole situationceases therebyto be the developmentof a natural evil such as the earthquake at Lisbon and becomes a situationwith wide social implications.Camus demonstrateshis power as a writerby placing this drama at the heart of an essentiallydescriptivenovel. Although Bernard Rieux, the Doctor as Protagonist,offershis response to the problem of existence on the edge of the wheel when he states that the essential thing is to do one's job as well as possible,other people are not willing to face the issue so simplyand tragically.Lovers, separated by the stricken city'sexile fromthe rest of the world, take refuge in the past of remembered love. The individualiststryto escape into the futureby fleeingthe city. The Ghristiansare urged by the Jesuit Paneloux to adopt the saintly attitude of accepting this plague as punishment for sin, and to pray to God for their redemption. The Christians must make the ultimate, severe choice between passive acceptance of evil and denial of God. The plague marchesinexorably on, however,until almost everyoneis forced to abandon his previous position in order to fightthe plague. Rambert, the individualist; Tarrou, the saintly outcast; Cottard, the man who has used the plague as a scapegoat for his

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Yale FrenchStudies personal guilt; Grand, the quixotic hero of "lart pour l'art"; even Father Paneloux, the Christian, all come finally to join the emergencysanitation squad which has been organized to do battle with the pest. The scourge continues in ever increasing violence until all human values, all time values become meaningless,and man's degradation is completed in the denial of the sacred burial rites which had given dignityto death. Although men have lost consciousnessof time in the fight,nature has not, and as time passes away so does the plague, leaving the city to rejoice and forgetthat beneath the flow of daily life "the bacillus of the plague is waiting patientlyin cellars, trunks, and handkerchiefs. . . for the day when the plague shall again awaken its rats and send them forthto die in the happy city." It is possible, I think,to see even in this dessicatedrecapitulationof the novel that Camus has sensed the heroic in the Voltairian position. Yet in two of the most moving and central scenes of the book, he has also seen the absurdity of Rieux's attitude, which death always defeats. In one of these scenes Rieux confesses that, although he had perhaps become a doctor by accident, the fightagainst death has become an absolute against which he has perpetuallyto struggle.He says, ". . . since the order of the world is ruled by death, it is perhaps better for God that we don't believe in Him, but that we strugglewith all our mightagainst death." Tarrou, to whom Rieux is speaking,replies that he can understand,but that Rieux's victorieswill always be conditional. Rieux answers,"Yes, I know, but that's not a reason to stop fighting,"even though the presence of death is an unending defeat ("une interminable d&faite"). And when Tarrou asks, "Who has taughtyou all this,Doctor?" the replycomes immediately:"Misery." In spite of Rieux's heroic attempt to stay on the wheel, the absurdityof his position becomes more and more apparent as Camus records the progress of the plague. After his quick realization of the significanceof the disaster, Rieux plunges deeply into his work.Althoughat firsthe had kept his awareness of the passing of time, this awarenesssoon leaves him, and with it all sense of until the combat becomes a purelyphysical the nature of the evil he is fighting, one. Gone are the passages of moralizing,the discussionsof natural evil. Gone are the analyses of the lovers separated fromtheir loved ones. All that is left is the lancing of the sores and the tossingof the dead into the lime pits, and the smell of death over the city. In the second of these two scenes between Tarrou and Rieux, Tarrou too confesseshis great preoccupation with death, particularlythe death of those condemned by society.He reveals that he has spent all his life fightingagainst a societywhich he believes to be founded on the institutionof capital punishment. He also says that for a person such as himself,who is strivingfor saint-

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GEORGE JAGGER hood although he doesn't believe in God, only death can give him meaning as a human being. At the same time, death is for him the same ineluctable defeatwhich has confrontedRieux as he battled the plague. Thus Camus, by showing that man is finallyflung from the wheel into the nothingness,rendersman's efforts to cling to the wheel as completelyabsurd as his effortsto jump to the still point of the world. The only thing possible for man to do is to accept the complete absurdityof his existence (Pascal preferredthe word "misery") and to fightagainst the ever present evil of that existenceby stressingthe importanceof becomingratherthan being. The finalmeaning of the novel may perhaps be summed up in Camus's quotation from Oberrnnn at the beginning of the fourth "Lettre A un ami allemand": "L'homme est p~rissable. II se peut; mais perissons en resistant,et si le nbant nous est rdserv6,ne faisonspas que ce soit une justice."

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