Jean-Paul Sartre: His Beginnings

Jean-Paul Sartre: His Beginnings

Jean-Paul Sartre was perhaps the most famous philosopher of his time, discussing topics relevant to the epoch he lived in. He was a man who was aware of the problems that existed among society and disapproved them. Even though he lost sight on one eye, his philosophical vision was quite more powerful. The experiences he lived made him discern and decrypt how society was divided. His existentialistic approach to things caused many to think more conscious about their actions and not blame them on other factors but themselves. He was a magnificent student who at early years of age developed some impressive theories about existence. Reading was also his passion; he would forget all that surrounded him and read unconsciously for hours. At one point in college, he read more than 300 books in one year; all from different topics and authors. As a teacher, he was fascinating; making classes very interesting and asking his students questions about the topic they were discussing about. He disliked the authoritarian role teachers had against students; so instead of seeing his students as inferiors, he saw them as almost classmates. He shared his life with the woman he would never marry but had what they called a, “morganatic marriage relationship.” (Hayman 77) She replaced the love of his mom that he had lost at one point of his life due to the imposition women suffered from, back then.

Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris, France on June 21 of 1905. He was the only child of Jean-Baptiste Sartre and his wife, Anne-Marie nÐ"©e Schweitzer. Anne-Marie was the only surviving daughter and youngest child of Charles Schweitzer, a language arts teacher from Alsace. Sartre’s maternal grandfather (Charles) was the brother of Louis Schweitzer and whose son was Albert Schweitzer, a famous Bach scholar, musician, theologian, and Christian missionary who also won a Nobel Prize. On the other hand, Jean Baptiste was a naval engineer. His father, Sartre’s paternal grandfather, was a country doctor from PÐ"©rigord. After finding out that his father-in-law: far from being wealthy, was ruined; never again said a word to his wife for nearly 40 years. On September 17 of 1906, just when Jean-Paul was about 15 months old, his father caught a fever and died in Indochina. According to Sartre, this was the start of his new freedom but the star of her suffering. He says, “The death of Jean Baptiste was the big event of my life: it sent my mother back to her chains and gave me freedom.” (Sartre, The Words 18) Shortly after Jean-Baptiste’s death, Jean-Paul and his mother moved back with his grandparents. They first moved to Meudon, where Sartre’s grandfather was a teacher, and then, in 1911 to Paris because Charles (Sartre’s grandfather) was forced to retire. In Paris, Charles opened up an institute for foreign students that needed help in French. Sartre’s grandfather encouraged him to read and write but at the same time Sartre was getting annoyed by his authoritarianism. The first school Sartre attended was LycÐ"©e Montaigne at the age eight. With his grandfathers recommendation he was put in an advance class for his age, but unfortunately Sartre was not ready for such a responsibility so his grandfather, disappointed, put him in tutoring. When he was nine, the Germans declared war and along with that many of his favorite novels were taken away because the publishers were Germans. From 1915 to 1923 he went LycÐ"©e Henri IV. There he would develop everlasting friendship with Paul Nizan.

When Jean-Paul Sartre was 18 years old, in 1923, he published his first writing called L’Ange du morbide which in English is The Angel of Morbidity. It was a short story that reflected his obsessed world, and told about an adventure that a mediocre small town teacher had with a tubercular woman. A few months later, Sartre wrote a novel about a real case of one of his professors at the lycÐ"©e (high school) in La Rochelle. According to Sartre, his professor (nicknamed Jesus the Owl) was a poor, second rate teacher whose students mocked him and finally committed suicide. The name of the novel was; Jesus la Choutte, professeur de province, which in English is Jesus the Owl, Small-Town Schoolteacher. Besides his professor’s case, Sartre also writes satirically about the shabby surroundings of Small-Town teachers, which was one of his favorite topics. At that time Sartre admired Francis Carco, which he got the style for the title from, but this did not mean Sartre’s would write in a similar way as Carco. Jesus the Owl was written in an already developed scholarly style. There were only four installments of Jesus the Owl; which were the only remaining fragments of the youthful novel whose manuscript was lost. This novel along with Angel of Morbidity, are a few of the traces of many adolescent writings Jean-Paul created. Even though Sartre was not very convinced of studying philosophy at the beginning of his academic career, one of his professors from the lycÐ"©e (high school) whom he got along well with, led him into the study of philosophy. With that motivation, “he discovered with delight that philosophy was both a body of truth and away toward truth,” and chose to study philosophy more deeply. (Savage Brosman 5)

In 1924, Jean-Paul along with Paul Nizan, Raymond Aron, Daniel Lagache, among others; pass the entrance exam to the Ecole normale supÐ"©rieure, the most famous of all French institutes of higher education for the study of literature and philosophy and “where standards are higher at the universities.” (Hayman 47) Its main function was to prepare students for the competitive examination known as the AgrÐ"©gation, “the essential step in any successful teaching career in France.” (Thody 10) It was like a post degree the earned with which they could benefit from higher pay and shorter hours of work then their less well-qualified colleagues. From then and on, Sartre took courses in philosophy and psychology. At the Ecole normale supÐ"©rieure the surrounding condition were poor that their first reaction was quite shocking: “вЂ?The conditions of life at the Ecole violate the most elementary hygienic norms. The dormitory [was] practical never aired or swept. Dust grows under the beds, impregnates [their] clothes, saturates the air [they] breathe… The food is acceptable, but the service isn’t: the plates and forks are poorly washed and caked with dark sedimentвЂ"a marvelous vehicle for germs.’ ” (Cohen-Solal 58) With all the unsatisfactory