Composed in two parts,
THE WORDS constitutes the assessment of Jean Paul Sartre. It is an autobiographical account gathering the
first years of childhood to adolescence. The main
character, the narrator and the
author are one person as in the definition of Philippe Lejeune in the
autobiographical Pact. However, it is necessary to underline a characteristic in
THE WORDS . The author is called Jean Paul Sartre while the
child in question is called Poulou. It is thus necessary to make a distinction between
adult Sartre and Sartre child.
By reading
The Words , we include/understand for which reason adult Sartre and Sartre child are different. Indeed, adult Sartre makes the criticism of his childhood. Poulou is a sick child. He is neurotic
while adult Sartre is cured. Poulou plays a part constantly. He plays the writer, the actor or the erudite monkey.The child wants always to be like,he lives through the others. He is what the others want him
to be. We find throughout book the satriennes ideas
existence precedes essence and the hell is the others.The child exists through the different others and is lost wanting to like. We learn, in addition that Poulou does not have a "sur-moi"
mening a father, an authority. He thus enjoys
a total freedom - Freedom which is accentuated by the
fact that he lives with his mother at his grand parents and he considers his mother as a sister -. The child seeks to like at all costs. He wants to be at the center of the world. He invents a life. It is the skew of the comedy that adult Sartre will become writer. In fact, adult Sartre will refuse the Nobel Prize of literature in 1964. By this gesture, does it ends his comedy? Is it possible. Beyond the self-criticism, Sartre denounces the middle-class.
Would this author with the marked communist ideas try to show that if he is no longer sick at
the time when he writes the words is because he broke with the middle-class? Possible also. What is certain, is that
THE WORDS is not an innocent work. In fact, as Sartre stated, the literature is engaged or is not. Finally in the WORDS, Jean Paul Sartre releases himself from Poulou