Cliffs Notes on Sartre's No Exit and The Flies

by Jean-Paul Sartre

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background -- all to help you gain greater insight into great works you're bound to study for school or pleasure.In "CliffsNotes on Sartre's No Exit & The Flies, " you examine two well-known plays by Jean-Baptiste Sartre and discover how Sartre uses his work to put forth his philosophy of existentialism. Both plays were written during the Nazi occupation of France in WWII and deal with the central of theme of freedom, which is a hallmark of Sartre's existential philosophy.

In this study guide, you'll find Life of the Author, as well as detailed Summaries and Commentaries of both plays. You'll also find critical essays on the following topics: Sartrean existentialism: Principles and philosophies, existentialism before Sartre, an overview of existentialism, and Sartre's specific principles of existentialismSartre's political ideasSartre's dramatic formulaPlus suggested essay topics and a selected bibliography

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56 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1983

About the author

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology). His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, 'bad faith') and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture.