Existentialism in Sartre's "The Respectful Prostitute," "No Exit," and "Dirty Hands"

        Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most prolific philosophers and play writes of the 20th century. Although he did focus greatly on fictional literature, his main focus was on his philosophy. Sartre was an existentialist, a term with ambiguous meaning. In Sartre's context, this meant a wide range of things about his philosophy. However, most relevant to these plays is Sartre's idea that individuals possess a great freedom of action, and that as a result conscious subjects are the creators of all meaning. This idea is portrayed in The Respectful Prostitute, No Exit, and Dirty Hands, and upon further examination can be seen in previous blog posts.
        All three plays mentioned above connect back to a strong existentialist theme. No Exit, Sartre's most famous play, carries strong ideas relating to freedom of action and consciousness. According to Sartre, one is bound by their own subjectivity, as "a consciousness cannot conceive of a consciousness other than itself" (Sartre, Transcendence of the Ego). Conscience beings are constantly creating ideas and thoughts, and thus others can never reduce another consciousness as an object to be thought of, as an object is something which has objective properties. This idea is very confusing, but is made clear in No Exit. The characters are conscious beings, and thus attempt to conceive of themselves. They react violently to the consciousness of others being ascribed to them. This connects clearly to the symbol of the mirror. Estelle desires to conceive of herself, and she can't stand to be conceived of by another. This idea leads Sartre to conclude his play with Garcin saying "hell is-other people!" (Sartre, 26). Hell in No Exit is an arena in which all characters define each other. This heated stare downs destroy the characters. For Sartre, this issue of other consciousnesses occurs in all human interactions. The judgement of others is always forced upon humans in the judgement of themselves.
        This same idea is clear in Dirty Hands and The Respectful Prostitute. In both plays, the characters make decisions for themselves which are heavily influenced by others. In Dirty Hands, Hugo is bounded by the judgments of others. He cannot kill Hoederer until he is no longer concerned with the opinions of others. The same idea holds true of The Respectful Prostitute. Lizzie is heavily influenced by those around her, and is oppressive partially as a result of those around her. Lizzie is engaged in what Sartre would call "bad faith," in that she doesn't think for herself and recognize that as a conscious subject she has the ability to make her own choices.
        Picking up on these ideas can be difficult, but using some ideas presented by literary scholars can aid in uncovering meaning. Thomas C. Foster, author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, heavily influenced my reading of these plays. In Foster's book, he argues that "it's all political." This aided my reading of The Respectful Prostitute, as I was on the lookout for extending political meanings. I also reread important parts of the text, a strategy advocated by Vladimir Nabokov and  Flannery O'Connor. In order to pick up on symbols, I focused on the ways in which symbols acquire meaning, a strategy advocated for by Laurence Perrine. Once I noticed something which I thought was a symbol, I looked back to the text to figure out the development of the symbol and to check all of the instances in which the symbol was used. Admittedly, I did violate one of Nabokov's core principle's of major readers. I came into the text expecting certain philosophical ideas and notions to be expressed. I have knowledge of Sartre's work, which biased my interpretation of symbols. For instance, it is clear that the mirror is a symbol within No Exit, but I needed to think back to Sartre's ideas on subjectivity in order to fully understand the symbol.
        Overall, I felt that reading the plays was a good experience, and I would thus recommend these texts to most individuals, especially those interested in philosophy. Sartre is a master of literature, and does a great job with symbolism and expressing his philosophical ideas. Plays are also a valuable experience for all readers. Instead of a narrator telling the story, one must simply interpret the actions which are supposed to be performed. This provides the reader a unique challenge as they must interpret stage actions solely through text. However, there are a few weaknesses in Sartre's fiction writing. One of the biggest issues is his method of argument making. Particularly in The Respectful Prostitute, Sartre is far too obvious when using his symbols. As mentioned in previous posts, a character imitating the voice of uncle Sam directly tells a woman to wrongfully accuse a black man. As such, there is less nuance and subtlety to Sartre's argument. Sartre is blatantly arguing that the US government is racist, a message which could assuredly be expressed in a number of other ways. Instead of using a play as a way of expressing something which can only be told using character development in a story, Sartre seeks to exemplify arguments that can easily be made logically. None the less, these books provide a unique literary experience and relate heavily to issues of existential meaning, a recurring theme in literature.