Humanistic Implications in Sartre’s Literary Works

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), a well-known French writer, philosopher and Social activist, successfully integrated his Philosophy of existentialism into literary writing. In all his novels, plays, prose and critical essays, Sartre established”human”as its point of departure and standpoint, and constantly probed into the value of human existence, bringing to the world precious mental nourishment. This paper, in combination with Sartre’s literary works, philosophical thoughts and Social activities, is aimed at gaining an overall understanding of Sartre’s thoughts, literature and the deep culture behind them. This paper consists of three parts: introduction, text and conclusion. The introduction gives a brief review and summary of the research on Sartre both at home and abroad and elaborates on the research ideas, goals, methods and values. The main text is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter, Sartre’s autobiographical novel Words was studied to analyze the prototype of Sartre as a writer and philosopher and the connotation of his humanistic thinking combining the then Social and cultural environment. Chapter two focuses on Nausea which serves as a manifesto of Sartre’s early thought of humanism, and elaborates on the prelude to his thinking of human freedom–hatred, a clear understanding and revelation of the objective world, which sows the seeds of free choice. Chapter three explains in theory the causes and reflections of Sartre’s humanism evolution combing with the social background through a study on his first successful play The Flies which gives an account of a lonely free man getting out of”hatred”and choosing to pursue the realization of self-value. Chapter four studies the perfection of Sartre’s ideas from”absolute freedom”to”relative freedom”and their reflection in drama writing through analyzing the thematic implications and appreciating the artistic features of the drama The Devil and the Good Lord. The humanistic spirit and humanitarian concern reflected in Sartre’s literary thoughts stimulate modern people to re-focus on human being itself, which has great value and far-reaching significance for the individual person and the society made up of individuals.