Sartre’s autobiographical impulse predated Beauvoir’s influence, which merely encouraged it.

Evidence

We should observe that Sartre’s need to write an autobiography predated the writing of “Th e Childhood of a Leader,” as the writings from his youth show. Beauvoir’s early writings did not cause him to want to write about his past— at most, they encouraged him. More importantly, each writer had blocked out a general theme for their collection of stories. When Th ings of the Spirit Come First is at heart a critique of spiritualism: “Th rough the medium of individual characters and their aff airs I wanted to convey something that lay beyond them: the multitude of crimes, both small and great, which hid behind a veil of spiritual hocuspocus” (PL, 179; FA, 255). In Th e Wall, Sartre wanted to examine the philosophical problem of authentic existence: “Nobody wanted to look Existence in the face. Th e book shows fi ve small detours— sometimes tragic, sometimes comic—around the problem of authentic existence.” — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 515

Categorization

• XREF: Directly rebuts the hypothesis that Beauvoir’s memoirs triggered Sartre’s autobiographical turn — central to the influence-direction debate. — connects to: Sartre only considered generosity in ethics after Beauvoir’s influence — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 501

Broader Connections

• Sartre only considered generosity in ethics after Beauvoir’s influence #complicates (0.82) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 501