Novelist,
essayist, playwright, and founder of a new school of thought
which would become known as Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre
was born in Paris on June 21, 1905. After graduating from the
Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1929 with a doctorate in philosophy,
he served in the French Army from 1929-31. He then served as
schoolmaster for several years at Le Havre, Lyon, and Paris.
He published his first novel, Nausea, in 1938, and a year
later, a volume of short stories entitled The Wall. His
literary career, however, was put on hold in 1939 when the French
Army was mobilized. He was taken prisoner in June of 1940 and
imprisoned in Staleg XIID near Trier. After nine months in the
German prison camp, Sartre managed to escape and made his way
to Paris where he joined the French Underground.
Somehow, in spite of the German occupation, Sartre managed
not only to write another book, but to get two plays produced
in the occupied capital. In 1943, Charles Dullin produced Sartre's
first play, Les Mouches or The Flies, at the Théâtre
de la Cité. In The Flies, Sartre uses the classic
Oresteian myth as a vehicle for his existential philosophy. The
play revolves around the return of Orestes to his homeland, Argos,
several years after the murder of his father at the hands of
his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegistheus. Rejecting the
sense of guilt which the murderers have forced upon the people
of Argos and established as the state religion, Orestes avenges
his fathers death and liberates his homeland. Sartre's political
message was clear: do not hesitate to kill not only Germans but
also French collaborators if this is the only means of liberating
France.
A year later, a company using the once famous Théâtre
du Vieux-Columbier produced his second play, a one-act entitled
No Exit which tells the story of a demoniacal lesbian,
a spoiled society woman, and a cowardly journalist who find themselves
trapped in Hell. They are held captive in a single chamber in
which they must eternally torment one another with the awareness
of their delusions and their failures as human beings. In the
end, they come to the realization that "There's no need
for red-hot pokers. Hell is--other people!"
Sartre's other plays include The Respectful Prostitute
(1946), Dirty Hands (1948), The Devil and the Good
Lord (1951), and The Condemned of Altona (1959). In
addition to plays, his works include important philosophical
works and novels. His awards include the New York Drama Critics
Circle Award (1947), Grand Novel Prize (1950), and the Omegna
Prize (1960). In 1964, Sartre declined the Nobel Prize for Literature.
He died in Paris on April 15, 1980.
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