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Nausea (1938)

Nausea is a novel by French existentialist philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre that was first published in 1938. Although it was the author’s first novel and not meant as a philosophical tract, Nausea is remarkable for the degree to which it encapsulates many key tenets of Sartre’s mature existentialist philosophy that he would later explicate in his groundbreaking philosophical treatise Being and Nothingness (1944) and elsewhere. Today, Nausea endures as one of the most significant works of “philosophical fiction” produced in the 20th century.

No Exit (1944)

No Exit is a play by French existentialist philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre that was first performed in Paris in May 1944, just prior to the liberation of the city from German occupation in World War II. The drama, which is set in a room in hell, essentially serves as a backdrop for an exploration of Sartre’s philosophical themes—notably the objectifying gaze of the other, self-deception, bad faith, and issues surrounding human freedom and responsibility. Without question No Exit was influenced by the political realities of the time, and some have even argued that the setting in hell is a metaphor for the Nazi occupation of Paris.

Being and Nothingness (1944)

Sartre introduces Being and Nothingness, his single greatest articulation of his existentialist philosophy, as “an essay in phenomenological ontology.” Essentially, it is a study of the consciousness of being. Ontology means the study of being; phenomenological means of or relating to perceptual consciousness. The key concepts of Sartre’s vision of the world in Being and Nothingness are the being-in-itself and the being-for-itself.

Being and Nothingness is discussed in a single-section Summary & Analysis in the SparkNotes guide Selected Works of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946)

Toward the end of World War II, Sartre observed that no one seemed to be talking about the potential return of the French Jews deported by the Nazis. With Anti-Semite and Jew, Sartre sought to deconstruct the causes and effects of anti-Semitism in France. Anti-Semite and Jew is an extraordinarily important and ambitious work in Sartre’s oeuvre. It represents an attempt to incorporate existentialist psychoanalysis into the discussion of what had traditionally been viewed as a social, cultural problem. Anti-Semite and Jew is also notable as one of the first works in which the Sartre’s Marxism is evident, foreshadowing his later embracing of the Marxian class analysis.

Being and Nothingness is discussed in a single-section Summary & Analysis in the SparkNotes guide Selected Works of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960)

The Critique of Dialectical Reason is Sartre’s greatest attempt at synthesizing his existentialist philosophy with sociological analysis. In the work, his previous focus on human freedom and responsibility is placed within a corresponding analysis of the specific structures of domination that humanity confronted in 1960. In The Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre deconstructs the individual actions of capitalists and imperialists while dissecting the oppressive and suffocating institutions that uphold established political and economic structures. Although Sartre was certainly a Marxist, The Critique of Dialectical Reason details where his thought diverges from mainstream Marxism.

Critique of Dialectical Reason is discussed in a single-section Summary & Analysis in the SparkNotes guide Selected Works of Jean-Paul Sartre.

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