In
Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre introduces a concept
termed bad faith. In the following brief analysis of the term
the reader will view the origins and definitions of the term bad
faith, their relation to the existential, as well as the use of
bad faith in Sartre's other works. In total, the reader will
find a compelling reason why the term bad faith can be applied
to humans.
To
lie to one's self. To be a deceiver of the soul. To understand and
recognize and then to ignore. These are the traits that are
indicative of someone who is in bad faith. "We shall
willingly grant that bad faith is a lie to oneself, on
condition that we distinguish the lie to oneself from lying in
general." (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p. 87) Sartre
paints a literary picture in his work, Being and Nothingness,
that portrays exactly what is at stake for a person who acts
according to bad faith. According to Sartre the person who
acts in bad faith is essentially performing an act of
self-negation. While anyone is capable of telling a lie the person
who tells a lie must also be in possession of the truth. (Sartre,
Being and Nothingness p. 87). To be in bad faith that
person knows the truth of their beliefs, actions, etc, but refuses to
acknowledge these truths. The being that they have is therefore based
on negating this very being. This self-lying is different from the
lying that one might do to others. IN lying to others "The liar
intends to deceive and he does not hide this intention from
himself..." (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p. 88). In
order for a man to truly be in bad faith he must be in
possession of a truth and unwilling to recognize that truth. Once
informed of the idea of bad faith the reader should see how
bad faith is portrayed in other works by Sartre.
In
the play No Exit, Sartre is able to display the way that bad
faith would mold individuals into what they are. The one act play
in which bad faith becomes evident, No Exit is about
three people who have died and are now stuck in hell together. Hell
in this instance is a drawing room decorated in Second Empire Style.
The play was written in 1944 in France and could have been meant as a
commentary on the German occupation of Paris. The three people that
are kept in this drawing room are: a mother who cheated on her
husband and then threw her illegitimate daughter, new-born, off a
balcony, a man who joined the army but deserted before killing
anyone, and a lady who seduced her cousin's wife while she was living
with them. The room that they are stuck in has no mirrors, therefore
the people trapped there could not see themselves as they want to see
themselves but can only see themselves through the others in the
room. The lack of a mirror can be representative of the lack of
reflection on their actions that the people are capable of. The
reflections are not corporeal with out a mirror. Instead they are
forced to look inside themselves to understand who they are.
Estelle
is the one looking for a mirror. With her dependency on mirrors the
reader can clearly see the Narcissism inherent in her being. Because
she refuses to see herself as she really is and relies instead upon
her reflection in a mirror she is the character that is in bad
faith the most. She is torturing herself by refusing to know
herself as she is. With her torturing herself she inflicts torture on
the other occupants, namely Garcin. (Sartre, No Exit )
Garcin
is the cowardly soldier. He desperately wants reassurance that he is
in fact not a coward. His desire is for peace and quiet more than the
other characters. He had ambitions while alive to create a pacifist
newspaper but never does. He runs from his actions and then seeks to
rewrite them in his memory. (Sartre, No Exit )
Inez
wants to be with Garcin, sexually. She works as the mirror for
Estelle, to Estelle’s terror. When Inez describes what she sees in
Estelle, she makes Estelle afraid/terrorized. She is the only one in
the room who is able to see herself for what she is. She also
attempts to make Garcin see himself as what he is. At one point she
says, "So carry on, Mr. Garcin, and try to be honest with
yourself-- for once." (Sartre, No Exit p. 38) This is at
the point that she attempts to make Garcin realize that all the
justifications that he has fabricated for running away from the army
are just fabrications meant to enable him to live with his choices.
Inez believes that Garcin understands that he is a coward but denies
the truth to himself.
The
play revolves around the idea of bad faith. Estelle is the one
that is most clearly in bad faith. Garcin is much more
ambiguous. He comes across as very indecisive. Inez is the only one
who understands why she is placed int he drawing room. She is the
only one who does not have bad faith. She understands that her
person is defined by her actions. In her case she is defined by the
terrible actions that she willingly did. She is the one who attempts
to lead, unwittingly, the others to realize why there are in Hell.
Hell is other people. There are problems with this way of thinking.
In recognizing the negative forces that effect us one must also
suppose that these negatives assure the existence of positives. While
Garcin wants to focus solely on the negative he does so at the
expense of the positive. The negation implies the possibility of the
truth. (Sartre, No Exit )
The
act of being requires an affirmation of the self by the individual.
In addressing bad faith Sartre tries to identify why some
people see themselves differently than they actually are. By being
what you are and knowing what you are the individual is not living in
bad faith. But if the individual acknowledges that they are
being in one sense and deny that they are being in that one sense
then they are, in essence, living by negation. They refuse to live
positively and instead they live through denial. They deny who they
are and, by doing so, they deny that they are, in fact, being. They
are in a backwards fashion. (Sartre, No Exit )
It
is my belief that Sartre portrays the human condition in a convincing
fashion. In Being and Nothingness he portrays humanity as
existing in a sort of equilibrium. Humans are capable of realizing
who they are but shy away from doing so. Sartre uses the example of
the waiter who is not a waiter. The waiter knows that he is not
'being' a waiter but is rather being a person who is playing at being
a waiter. Sartre states that the waiter is merely a role in which the
person playing at waiter is. (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p.
102). The man, acting as a waiter, knows that through such actions he
is thereby given rights that pertain to such actions. (Sartre, Being
and Nothingness p. 102). "I am a waiter in the mode of being
what I am not" (Sartre, Being and Nothingness p.103). By
saying this Sartre is affirming that in the first degree he is a man
that has being and in the second degree is a man that chooses to act
as a waiter, but he is never in the mode of being a waiter.
Through
many different mediums Sartre assaults the way that most humans cope
with their choices. In his work Being and Nothingness he
describes in theoretical detail the way that many people suppress
their true being in favor of something that they would rather think
themselves being. In No Exit he supplies his reader with
visceral evidence of people engaging in the act of self-denial. This
evidence, coupled with his theory on being, drives the reader to be
moved into accepting his bad faith as a legitimate explanation
for understanding the self denial that humans visit upon themselves.
Bibliography
Sartre,
Jean. No exit, and three other plays.
Vintage International ed. New York: Vintage International, 1989.
Print.
Sartre,
Jean, and Hazel Estella Barnes. Being and nothingness.
New York [etc.: Washington Square Press, 1992. Print.
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