ABSTRACT

Sartre’s committed literature may be understood as a way for him to fulfill the ethical goal that he had set for himself in the conclusion of Being and Nothingness. Even though he may have failed to successfully elaborate an ethical theory, it nevertheless remains that he considered the freedom of human beings to be the core value upon which ethics and politics should be grounded. His own commitment was an attempt to create favorable conditions for individual freedom to flourish. We have seen in the previous chapter that one such form of commitment was writing. Sartre considered that the writer could have an impact by unveiling the world to the reader through free dialogue, and making him responsible for it. The appeal to the reader is thus one way of promoting freedom. However, there was also another form of commitment for Sartre, one that is more direct and concrete: political action. Sartre examined many political movements and groups, and tried to position himself among them. In fact, for many people, Sartre was known only because of his political involvement and public standpoints.