Sartre’s freedom obsession intensified under Nazi occupation

Evidence

Freedom was the great subject of Sartre’s philosophy, above all — and this is no accident — during the period when France was not free. It is central to almost everything he wrote then: The Flies (the play that was in rehearsal when he met Camus), the Roads of Freedom novels, his many essays and lectures, and above all his masterwork Being and Nothingness, which he developed from his years of note-taking and published in June 1943. It seems extraordinary that a 665-page tome mainly about freedom could come out in the midst of an oppressive regime without raising an eyebrow among the censors, but that was what happened. Perhaps the title put them off closer inspection. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 493

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: why the Vichy censors let a 665-page philosophy of freedom through in 1943 — literary regulation paradoxes.
• CANDY: Delightful ironic detail that Nazi censors likely skimmed past a book about freedom because of its intimidating title.
• XREF: connects to: Sartre wrote The Flies as a freedom allegory for occupied France — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 510; The war drove Sartre from individualist freedom toward Marxist social determinism — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 525; Sartre made freedom and personal responsibility the burden of his resistance allegory — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 511

Broader Connections

• Sartre made freedom and personal responsibility the burden of his resistance allegory #exemplifies (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 511