Language:
English
Year of publication:
1999
Titel der Quelle:
Historical Reflections - Réflexions Historiques
Angaben zur Quelle:
25,1 (1999) 33-59
Keywords:
Sartre, Jean-Paul,
;
Jews History 1800-2000
;
Antisemitism Philosophy
Abstract:
An earlier and shorter version of this article appeared in the "Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History" 23 (1997). Discusses two works of fiction relating to the Jews in France written by Sartre in the 1930s and shows, contrary to the accepted view, that his work was already political before World War II. In both "La Nausée" ("Nausea") and "L'Enfance d'un chef" ("The Childhood of a Leader"), the instability of identity of the protagonists Roquentin and Fleurier are stabilized through their respective images of "the Jew, " as is the path of their "engagement." Roquentin associates "the Jew" with the redemption, attainable via writing; Fleurier views "the Jew" as other or outsider and becomes an antisemite, first in worldview, then in action. These characters reflect "competing versions of how intellectuals and the [French] nation could respond to the crisis of the 1930s... for both Sartre and France, this response depended on differing representations of Jews and Judaism".
Note:
An earlier shorter version appeared in the "Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History" 23 (1997).
URL:
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