Download Jean-Paul Sarte - Harry Blenkinsopp Drama

Jean-Paul Sartre
Harry Blenkinsopp
Biographical Information
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Jean-Paul Sartre, was born in Paris in 1905 and died in 1980. He studied at École Normale Supérieure from
1924 to 1929. After the studies at École Normale Supérieure he then moved to Berlin in 1932. once he had
finished studying he began to teach where he taught at the Lycée Pasteur in Paris from 1937 to 1939.
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In 1939 Sartre was drafted into the French army, where he served as a meteorologist. He was captured by
German troops in 1940 in Padoux, and he spent nine months as a prisoner of war in Nancy and finally
in Stalag XII-D, Trier, where he wrote his first theatrical piece, Barionà, fils du tonnerre, a drama concerning
Christmas.
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Sartre is one of those writers for whom a determined philosophical position is the centre of their artistic
being.
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Sartre is perhaps best known as a playwright. In Les Mouches (The Flies), 1943, the young killer's committed
freedom is pitted against the powerless Jupiter, while in Huis Clos (No Exit), 1947, hell emerges as the
togetherness of people.
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Sartre has engaged extensively in literary criticism and has written studies on Baudelaire (1947) and Jean
Genet (1952). A biography of his childhood, Les Mots (The Words), appeared in 1964.
His Viewpoint on the Purpose of Theatre
• As Jean-Paul Sartre was a philosopher for the majority of his life before he discovered
theatre. He believed that the purpose of theatre was not so much as to ‘entertain’ as it was
to inform you.
• In many of his plays he used his philosophical ways of living to foreshadow certain events
that would occur in the piece of drama.
• To quote him from one of his books “Sartre on Theatre” …
• (He says of his own play No Exit) "what I wanted to express in the play was something
beyond what was simply dictated by the circumstances, and what I wanted to say was that
hell is other people. But `hell is other people' has always been misunderstood... I mean that
if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell.
Impact of Their Work
• Jean Sartre produced plays from early 1940s to late 1950s.
• The early stages of his work would have impacted the women who were at home during the
war. So the likes of No Exit and The Flies written in 1944 would have had a big impact on
women. Another play that would have impacted women would have been the ‘The
Respectable Prostitute’.
• In his later plays such as ‘The Devil and the Good Lord’ and ‘Dirty Hands’ would have been
seen by both male and females.
• ‘The Devil and the Good Lord’ would have had the biggest impact of all his playwrights.
This is because during a very religious time he discussed how each and everyone one of us
has a part of the devil inside them. He did this by showing various characters in his play
showing traits used by the devil.
People He Influenced
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Alain Badiou
Raymond Aron
Albert Camus
Michel Foucault
R.D. Laing
Txillardegi
Frantz Fanon
Simone de Beauvior
Che Guevara
My Opinion
• In my opinion I think that the theories that Jean-Paul Sartre used were
fascinating and complex. This is because he was one of the first playwrights
to combine philosophy and drama together.
• I also liked how he used the use of religion to impact people and make them
reassess their lives.