Sarte

JEan-Paul Sartre was an existentialist philosopher. The questions of his philosophy

often come out in his readings. Existentialism questions why we exist.

Existentialists deny the existence of God. Existentialist writers such as Kafka and

Sartre often use prisons and solitary confinement to tell their stories. Often, neither

the reader nor the protagonist is aware of what crime has been committed.

Jean-Paul Sartre's "The Wall" reflects his philosophy and personal experiences.

He worked for the French resistance and was imprisoned by the Germans during

WWII. The story takes place during the Spanish Civil War in an old hospital being

used by the Spanish Fascist's to house prisoners. "The Wall" is told from a first

person, stream of consciousness point-of-view, and uses existentialist philosophy,

to illuminate the follies of totalitarian governments like Fascism, and Nazism.

Like most existentialist writers, Sartre chooses to tell the story of "The Wall" form

the first person stream-of-consciousness point-of-view. We get dialogue from other

characters, but the dialogue is filtered through the mind and thoughts of Pablo. The

terror in the story slowly unfolds from Pablo's mind. In the beginning, Sartre only

gives us a hint of terror. The reality of the situation has not yet set into Pablo's

mind:

They pushed us into a big white room and I began to blink because the light hurt

my eyes. Then I saw a table and four men behind the table, civilians, looking over

the papers. They had bunched another group of prisoners in the back and we had

to cross the whole room to join them. There were several I knew and some others

who must have been foreigners. The two in front of me were blond with round

skulls; they looked alike. I supposed they were French. The smaller one kept

hitching up his pants; nerves. (7)

The emphasis on the "round skull" foreshadows a scene that later brings terror into

greater effect. Tom tells Pablo while they are waiting to be executed, that they aim

for the eyes and head to disfigure your face. The emphasis on the perfect round

skulls in the first paragraph draws attention to faces and heads. "The smaller one

hitching up his nerves," tell us from the beginning that Pablo should be nervous

himself. Pablo knows he is in trouble at the beginning. He just does not realize the

amount yet.

Later, in the story, Pablo's terror grows in his mind. "I never thought about death

because I never had reason to, but now the reason was here and there was nothing

to do but think about it" (13). The terror increases as they wait for dawn and the

firing squad and Pablo begins to question what happens after death. "I thought of

bullets, I imagined their burning hail through my body. All that was beside the real

question; but I was calm: we had all night to understand" (14). Pablo is denying his

own fear. Existentialists do not believe in a Supreme Being, so what is there to be

afraid of? But his continual denial of the feeling of terror demonstrates he does

have some fears, "I felt myself crushed under an enormous weight. It was not the

thought of death, or fear; it was nameless. My cheeks burned and my head ached"

(15). Eventually, Pablo recognizes his terror, when he realizes, in spit of it being

quite cold, he is sweating profusely. The doctor who is sent to observe them is

chilled and it is the doctors stare that causes Pablo to think of how terrified he

actually is,

I saw my shirt was damp and sticking to my skin. I had been dripping for an hour

and hadn't felt it. But that swine of a Belgian hadn't missed a thing; he had seen

the drops rolling down my cheeks and thought: this is the manifestation of terror;

and he had felt normal and proud of being alive because he was cold. (17)

His terror manifests when he notices his trousers and buttocks are soaked and he

wonders if he pissed his pants like Tom. The terror Pablo and Tom try to question

their own existence, and to try to understand what happens after death, but the

terror they feel interferes with their thoughts. Pablo is the first to question his fate,

"All that was beside the real question; but I was calm: we had all night to

understand" (14). Later, Tom's fear manifests itself into paranoia and he starts

talking to himself:

You want to think something, you always have the impression that it's all right,

that you are going to understand then it slips, it escapes you and fades away. I tell

myself there will be nothing afterwards. But I don't understand what it means.

Sometimes I almost can . . . and then it fades away and I start thinking about the

pains again, bullets,

...