Essay About Jean-Paul Sartre And First Person Stream

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JEan-Paul Sartre was an existentialist philosopher. The questions of his philosophy
often come out in his readings. Existentialism questions why we exist.
Existentialists deny the existence of God. Existentialist writers such as Kafka and
Sartre often use prisons and solitary confinement to tell their stories. Often, neither
the reader nor the protagonist is aware of what crime has been committed.
Jean-Paul Sartres “The Wall” reflects his philosophy and personal experiences.
He worked for the French resistance and was imprisoned by the Germans during
WWII. The story takes place during the Spanish Civil War in an old hospital being
used by the Spanish Fascists to house prisoners. “The Wall” is told from a first
person, stream of consciousness point-of-view, and uses existentialist philosophy,
to illuminate the follies of totalitarian governments like Fascism, and Nazism.
Like most existentialist writers, Sartre chooses to tell the story of “The Wall” form
the first person stream-of-consciousness point-of-view. We get dialogue from other
characters, but the dialogue is filtered through the mind and thoughts of Pablo. The
terror in the story slowly unfolds from Pablos mind. In the beginning, Sartre only
gives us a hint of terror. The reality of the situation has not yet set into Pablos
mind:
They pushed us into a big white room and I began to blink because the light hurt
my eyes. Then I saw a table and four men behind the table, civilians, looking over
the papers. They had bunched another group of prisoners in the back and we had
to cross the whole room to join them. There were several I knew and some others
who must have been foreigners. The two in front of me were blond with round
skulls; they looked alike. I supposed they were French. The smaller one kept
hitching up his pants; nerves. (7)
The emphasis on the “round skull” foreshadows a scene that later brings terror into
greater effect. Tom tells Pablo while they are waiting to be executed, that they aim
for the eyes and head to disfigure your face. The emphasis on the perfect round
skulls in the first paragraph draws attention to faces and heads. “The smaller one
hitching up his nerves,” tell us from the beginning that Pablo should be nervous
himself. Pablo knows he is in trouble at the beginning. He just does not realize the
amount yet.
Later, in the story, Pablos terror grows in his mind. “I never thought about death
because I never had reason to, but now the reason was here and there was nothing
to do but think about it” (13). The terror increases as they wait for dawn and the
firing squad and Pablo begins to question what happens after death. “I thought of
bullets, I imagined their burning hail through my body. All that was beside the real
question; but I was calm: we had all night to understand” (14). Pablo is denying his
own fear. Existentialists do not believe in a Supreme Being, so what is there to be
afraid of? But his continual denial of the feeling of terror demonstrates he does
have some fears, “I felt myself crushed under an enormous weight. It was not the
thought of death, or fear; it was nameless. My cheeks burned and my head ached”
(15). Eventually, Pablo recognizes his terror, when he realizes, in spit of it being
quite cold, he is sweating profusely. The doctor who is sent to observe them is
chilled and it is the doctors stare that causes Pablo to think of how terrified he
actually is,
I saw my shirt was damp and sticking to my skin. I had been dripping for an hour
and hadnt felt it. But that swine of a Belgian hadnt missed a thing; he had seen
the drops rolling down my cheeks and thought: this is the manifestation of terror;
and he had felt normal and proud of being alive because he was cold. (17)
His terror manifests when he notices his trousers and buttocks are soaked and he
wonders if he pissed his pants like Tom. The terror Pablo and Tom try to question
their own existence, and to try to understand what happens after death, but the
terror they feel interferes with their thoughts. Pablo is the first to question his fate,
“All that was beside the real question; but I was calm: we had all night to
understand” (14). Later, Toms fear manifests itself into paranoia and he starts
talking to himself:
You want to think something, you always have the impression that its all right,
that you are going to understand then it slips, it escapes you and fades away. I tell
myself there will be nothing afterwards. But I dont understand what it means.
Sometimes I almost can . . . and then it fades away and I start thinking about the
pains again, bullets,