Sartrean existential authenticity seen in the main character of Kobo Abe`s The Woman in the Dunes - USD Repository
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SARTREAN EXISTENTIAL AUTHENTICITY SEEN IN THE
MAIN CHARACTER OF KOBO ABE’S THE WOMAN IN THE
DUNES
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By Damar Purnomo
Student number: 05 4214 026
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
2011
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MOTTO MAN IS WHAT HE MAKES OF HIMSELF, SARTRE
For my beloved father and mother
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, I would like to give my utmost gratitude to my parents for their financial and spiritual support. Without their support, this undergraduate thesis will never be accomplished. Although in encouraging me they often use hard words but somehow they work well for me. For my father, I would like to thank for always using satirical words in guiding me and for my mom, thanks a bunch for making me the luckiest son in this world. Next I would like to thank my sister Lisa for cheering me up, my brothers (Gun and Bayu) for the quality time that refresh me.
I would like to be thankful to my advisor, Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A. for guiding and supporting me during the process of this thesis. Without his patience in correcting my thesis, there would be many mistakes made. I am also grateful to him for teaching me how to be objective to my own writing though it is hard to me to do so. I also thank Elisa Dwi Wardani, S.S., M.Hum. as my reader.
Next, I would express my gratitude to Ian for the early discussion about Sartre. I also thank Mas Sugeng Utomo and Mas Teguh for their knowledge- sharing in early times in Sanata Dharma. I also want to express my gratitude to Gonsaldus Jusin, Doni Agung Setiawan, Audy Bramara, Indra Puspita Dewi, I also thank all people in Media Sastra especially in Performance Session for giving me another experience in appreciating literature and to create a performing art. I also thank people in Lens Club for the learning process, Library Nu for giving me many books, and Santosa for the Zabalawi. Last but not least, I would like to thank all the people that I can not mention one by one who directly or indirectly have contributed to the accomplishment of this thesis.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ........................................................................................ i
APPROVAL PAGE .................................................................................. ii
ACCPTANCE PAGE ............................................................................... iii
MOTTO PAGE ........................................................................................ iv
DEDICATION PAGE ............................................................................... v
Lembar Pernyataan Persetujuan Publikasi Karya Ilmiah ....................... vi
Statement of Work Originalityvii …… ........................................................
ACKNOLEDGEMENT ............................................................................ viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................... x
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................ xi
ABSTRAK ........................................................................................ xii
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION ...........................................................1 A.
4 Problem Formulation ......................................................................
B.
Objectives of the Study ...................................................................
5 C. Definition of Terms .........................................................................
5 CHAPTER II : THEORETICAL REVIEW ..........................................
6 A.
6 Review of related studies ................................................................
B.
7 Review of related theories ...............................................................
1.
7 Theories on Character and Characterization .............................
a.
7 Theory on Character ............................................................
b.
Theory on Characterization .................................................
8 2.
10 Sartrean Theory on Existentialism ............................................
a.
10 Theory on Bad Faith ............................................................
b.
11 Theory on Authenticity .......................................................
c.
14 Theory on Being For-itself ..................................................
d.
19 Theory on Freedom .............................................................
C.
22 Theoretical Framework ...................................................................
CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY .......................................................
24 A.
23 Object of the Study..........................................................................
B.
25 Approach of the Study ....................................................................
C.
26 Method of the Study ........................................................................
CHAPTER IV : ANALYSIS ....................................................................
29 A.
30 The Characterization of the Main Character ...................................
1.
30 Physical Characterization ..........................................................
2.
32 Non-Physical Characterization..................................................
B.
40 Jumpei’s Attitude toward Freedom .................................................
1.
41 The Past Life .............................................................................
2.
42 The Dunes .................................................................................
49
3. The Quicksand ..........................................................................
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50 A Device Called Hope ..............................................................
5.
52 The New Self.............................................................................
6.
53 The Untaken Chance .................................................................
C.
Jumpei’s Attitudes Toward Freedom Leads Him to the Existential Authenticity .............................................................
54 1.
55 Overcoming Bad Faith ..............................................................
2.
58 Embracement of Responsibility ................................................
3.
59 Respecting Others Freedom ......................................................
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ................................................................
61 SUMMARY ........................................................................................
64 BIBILOGRAPHY .....................................................................................
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ABSTRACT
Damar Purnomo. Sartrean Existential Authenticity Seen in the Main Character
of Kobo Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University. 2011.
This research starts from Adamson and Freadman’s argument that for the last twenty years, literary criticisms have been less explicit in the ethics and it means the absence of the ethics. From this point, the writer chooses a Japanese novel entitled The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe and tries to find ethical value in it. Sartrean ethic is used in this research. The core of Sartrean ethic is authenticity. It says that human should apprehend and embrace freedom. The novel, The Woman in the Dunes tells about the experience of the main character named Nicky Jumpei who is frequently faced with things that are closely related with Sartrean existential authenticity. Jumpei is a school teacher that is characterized as a desperate man. He feels worthless with his condition as a teacher. In fact, he makes a metaphor about himself
“year after year students tumble along like the waters of a river, they flow away, and only the teacher is left behind, like some deeply buried rock at the bottom of the current
.” This study is based on three questions. First, how is the main character characterized? Second, how is Jumpei’s attitude toward freedom? Third, how does
Jumpei’s attitude toward freedom lead him to the existential authenticity? This study applies library research and moral philosophical approach. The library research includes the data from internet mainly in the form of web page, and portable document format and printed resources mainly in the form of books. Moral philosophical approach is applied to gain the ethical value on the selected novel. Throughout this two steps this research has been accomplish.
This study proves that there is the value of Sartrean ethical authenticity on the main character, Jumpei. First, Jumpei is not aware and embraces his freedom that makes him fall in bad faith. Thus, he becomes desperate and unable to take a decision because he is ambivalent.
This research also proves that the only thing that makes Jumpei recover himself is authenticity. In further stages, Jumpei starts to aware and embrace his freedom. As a result, he becomes stable both in term of his social life and himself. He is aware of his social role as shakaijin (the working member of the dunes society) is needed. By choosing to stay, he has already been respectful to others
’ freedom (villagers in the dunes). PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
ABSTRAK
Damar Purnomo. Sartrean Existential Authenticity Seen in the Main Character
of Kobo Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma. 2011.
Penelitian ini bermula dari perkataan Adamson dan Freadman yang menyebutkan bahwa dalam 20 tahun ke belakang, jarang ditemukan kritik sastra yang membahas tentang etika pada suatu karya sastra. Dari poin ini, penulis memilih sebuah novel jepang yang berjudul Perempuan di Gurun (The Woman in the Dunes) karya Kobo Abe dan mencoba menemukan nilai etika didalamnya. Etika yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah etika dari Sartre. Inti dari etika Sartre adalah keaslian (Authenticity) yang berisi bahwa manusia harus menyadari dan menerima kebebasannya. Novel Wanita di Gurun (The Woman in the Dunes) menceitakan pengalaman tokoh utamanya yang bernama Nicky Jumpei yang sering menghadapi hal-hal yang berhubungan dengan dengan etika keaslian (authenticity) ekistensialisme-nya Sartre. Jumpei adalah seorang guru yang ditokohkan sebagai orang yang putus asa. Dia merasa tidak berharga dengan keadaanya sebagai seorang guru. Kenyataannya, dia membuat sebuah metafora tentang dirinya
“tahun demi tahun, murid – murid gulung-gemulung seperti air di sungai, mereka mengalir dan hanya guru yang tertinggal ibarat sebuah batu yang terpendam sangat dalam di dasar arus.
” Kajian ini didasari dengan tiga pertanyaan yaitu :bagaimana karakter utama digambarkan, bagaimana perilaku tokoh utama dalam menghadapi kebebasan dan bagaimana perilaku tokoh utama dalam menghadapi kebebasan dapat menhantarkannya ke dalam keaslian (authenticity).
Kajian ini menerapkan penelitian pustaka dan pendekatan moral filosofis. Penelitian pustaka meliputi data-data dari internet yang berupa halaman web dan portable document format (PDF) dan sumber tercetak, yaitu buku-buku.
Pendekatan moral filosofis diterapkan untuk mendapatkan nilai-nilai etika Sartre dari novel yang dipilih. Melalui dua tahap tersebut, kajian ini bisa diselesaikan.
Kajian ini membuktikan bahwa ada nilai etika keaslian(ethic of authenticity) Sartre pada tokoh utama, Jumpei. Pertama, Jumpei tidak dapat menyadari dan mengakui kebebasannya yang menyebabkannya mengalami keyakinan buruk (bad faith/salah satu etika dari Sartre). Hal ini membuatnya putus asa dan tidak mampu mengambil keputusan dan teralienasi dari kehidupan sosial.
Kajian ini juga membuktikan bahwa satu-satunya hal yang dapat menyembuhkan Jumpei adalah keaslian (authenticity/etika utama dari sartre). Pada tahapan slanjutnya, Jumpei mulai menyadari dan mengakui kebebasannya. Oleh karena itu dia menjadi lebih stabil secara sosial dan pribadi. Kemudian, ia juga mulai menata ulang hubungan sosialnya dan kehidupan pribadinya. Jumpei juga menjadi sadar akan status sosialnya sebagai shakajin (anggota pekerja di masyarakat gurun) dibutuhkan oleh masyarakat gurun. Dengan memilih untuk tetap tinggal, dia telah menghormati kebebasan orang lain (masyarakat gurun). PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of Studies Literature and philosophy are two things that cannot be
separated.Christopher New in his book Philosophy of Literature said that literature is a discipline which poses its own characteristics philosophical questions (1999 : i). The specific philosophical question in literature brings its own ethical or moral philosophical values. Whether it is explicit or implicit, these values are the most important thing to dig deeper. For further reason, literary criticisms have been less explicit in the ethics on the last twenty years and it means “the absence of the ethics”. Most of them were political and concerned with issue like race, gender, class and sexuality (Adamson and Freadman1998:3).By finding these facts, the writer is encouraged to find ethical values on a selected literary work.
As one of the existentialist philosophers,Sartre has his own ethics. Although he neverwrote a full book of ethics, his ideas of ethical value are summed up in his lecture Existentialism is a Humanism and some of his essays.
The most famous of Sartrean ethics is the authenticity. It is the solution that Sartre offers toward humans. Sartre doesn’t believe in human nature. He only believes in human condition.A human condition is expressed in the tension between opposites that we live daily - we are both subjects and objects; we both shape our lives and we are subject to external forces; and our self-identities are both created by us and yet dependent upon others. The human condition is, in short, the lived
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Japanese novel is chosen in this research.Kobe Abe’s “The Woman in The Dunes”,a novel created after the Second World War that won the 1960 Yomimuri Prize. Moreover, the chosen novel is a post war literature which denouncing western existentialism. This novel was filmed by Tesighara Hiroshi in 1964. The film also won the special jury prize inCannes Film Festival. In fact, Japanese post war novels offer more existentialist theme. Yuji Matson in his research The Word
and The Image: Collaborations between Abe Kôbô and Teshigahara Hiroshisays
that Abe and Tesighara came toknow each other during the period following the Second World War through the avant-garde circles, which were a gathering place for artists disillusioned by the postwar ruinand social decay, looking to disavow the past and promote a new value system throughnew artistic modes of expression. Another writer and critic,HanadaKiyoterumaintained that in thenew postwar era in which thefoundation of the traditional value system was undermined,a new method of representationshould be devised to depict the changing world.(Matson, 2002:1). It means that Japanese writers and artists at that time experienced the hard times of ethical crisis especially because of the world war and they were trying to seek new ethics to face the changing world.
The reason why the writer of this research applied Western philosophy to the eastern novel is that the theme of the novel which isclosely related with Sartrean philosophy. The theme is mainly about the existence of man in the world with its complexness which interrelated between freedom and humanism. One of the critics that read The Woman in the Dunes, Nina Cornyetz, also found that the
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novel resembles with Sartre’s literary works, No Exit .In her book “The Ethics of Aesthetic in Japanese Cinema and Literature” she wrote:
It is worth noting that Abe Kobo, despite some au courant thematic elements, as a novelist has perhaps more affinities with the West than with his Japanese contemporaries . . . The ending [of Woman in the Dunes], in which the hero decides to stay in the sand dune with the woman, was clearly an existential parable, a Sartrean variation on “No Exit.” (2007 : 60) The main characterNikiJumpei experiences unpredictable things in his life.Jumpei is a school teacher who has a hobby as an entomologist. He feels bored with his routines. His boredom leads to the confusion inside himself. He confuses about the meaning of his life, the relationship to his friend and society.Afterwards, Jumpeidecides to conduct a three-day trip for collecting insect specimens as a runaway from his routines.
He chooses a Japan costal remote dune as his destination. However, seven years has passed by and he never comes back to his boarding house in town. His unpredictable experiences begin when he arrives in the dunes.He is imprisoned by the local people and forced to work unpaid in shoveling the sand. Jumpei is placed in a house located in the bottom of sand pit. He stays there with a woman.
Jumpeithinks that the woman is also a prisoner like him. It means that she is not free.Jumpei said to her: “But this means you exist only for the purpose of clearing the sand, doesn’t it?”(Abe, 1964:39).Jumpei then starts to question her again and again about her existence. He tries to show her about her determined condition. As Sartre stated in Existentialism is Humanism, “Existence precedes essence”. This means that man is the freedom itself and leads to the ethics that man responsible for his being free. The refusal of responsibility for Sartre
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isconsidered as a form of bad faith. In the mean time, the woman in whose house Jumpei lives seems doesn’t care about her being not free.
From this point, the writer thinks that using the philosophical point of view to analyze the novel is the right thing. In this case, the writer uses Existentialism that is proposed by Jean Paul Sartre. Freedom itself is authentic when accepted and becomes inauthentic if rejected. Sartre’s opinion Authentic existence is understood here as an affirmation of human freedom in which we each take responsibility for our actions and for the situation. As Sartre himself frequently acknowledges, this means that freedom is situated and never exists independent of a situation. To refuse or flee one's freedom in relation to the situation is inauthentic or sometimes Sartre calls it as bad faith.
In this research, the writer will use Sartrean Authentic Existence to unveil the problem of bad faith that lies in the novel. By positioning the main character as the example of the human that experiences situated freedom, the writer will analyze his being engaged to the reality in the novel and his attitude toward freedom and as well as his taking choice in his experience of life in the novel. Finally, by taking this point of view, the writer hopes that this research will find ethical messages in the chosen novel and try to put Sartrean ethics in practice.
A. Problem Formulations
1. How is themain character (Jumpei) characterized?
2. How is Jumpei’s attitude toward freedom described in the story?
3. How does Jumpei’s attitude toward freedom lead him to the existential authenticity?
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B. Objectives of the Study
The main objective of the study is to find the existential authenticity in the main character of the novel of Kobe Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes. This objective will be done by firstly describing the character of Jumpei. By describing the character, the value of existentialism will be revealed. Then his attitude toward freedom is described. Finally, by regarding the first and second objectives, the situation that leads the Sartre’s existential authenticity will be answered.
C. Definition of Terms
1. Bad faith Bad faith is the term for the man that denies himself and who accepts the spirit of seriousness as the basis of his life. Any form of denying freedom is also called Bad Faith (Gould and Truitt 1973:126-127)
2. Freedom In Sartrean terms, Freedom is the nothingness which is always existing on humans and which makes human able to make a choice. It forces humans to make their own essence. (Gould and Truitt 1973:104)
3. Authenticity Authenticity is the conversion in which consciousnessembraces freedom as its primary value by which human existence will reclaim its freedom and recover itself.(Tate 1995:41) PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies There are researches conducted to analyze this work. Most of the
researches are focused in the main character of the novel and Jumpei in this case are always connected to the existential issue. Michelle Bailat-Jones in his research says that the main Character NikiJumpei faces an extraordinarily difficult question.
Not only does Niki slowly come to understand that the village has no intention of letting him out, but he must also come to grip with the reality that no one from his former life will ever come looking for him. He will vanish forever, without a trace. And so he must wonder whether his disappearance will actually ever matter and whether his life before coming to the dunes held any real meaning. ( http://asianliterature.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_of_the_woman_in_
the_dunes)
The focus in Jones research is only about the decision that Jumpei will make. However, it is true that he is also questioning about the essence of his former existence. The writer assumes that Jumpei experiences the quest of authenticity this because while he is in the dunes, he accidentally transcends himself from real world (his former life). He becomes aware of his new mode of being in the world that is so different from the former one. In this case his character started to shift. His reaction toward the condition in the novel portrays his character shifting. And it indicates his quest of authenticity
7 Allen Mozek in his research argues that : The entire novel is engaged with approaching modes of independence and of self-actualized identity, just don’t expect an arrival or revelation. Consider the reality of the novel – the sliding of more sand always counteracts the characters’ shoveling of the sand, and the opportunity to escape the circumstances of the novel is followed by the decision that “there was no particular need to hurry about escaping.” There is no break from the reality of life – even an excursion into the fantastic is only a confirmation of banality. The absurdity of the novel has a Kafkaesque relation to the everyday quite distinct from a more Dadaist disjunctive whim. ( http://imforthebirds.blogspot.com/2008/09/woman-in-dunes.html )
Mozak research is more detail compared with the first research. He also analyzes the main character (Jumpei) in order to reveal the essence absurdity that he proposes in his research. However, it is not that simple and it is not absurd. In the novel, Jumpei deals with many experiences that lead him to authenticity. It means to accept and trying not to escape freedom. Jumpei is able to face that he is free. He is free from morale, society even god. By accepting freedom he lives his life. However it is true that Jumpei is engaged with approaching modes of independence and of self-actualized identity
Abram’s Glossary of Literary Term defines characters as “the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the readers as being endowed with particular moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by inferences from what the persons say and their distinctive ways of saying it—the
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B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories on Character and Characterization
a. Theory on Character
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dialogue—and from what they do—the action”(Abrams,1981:20). Abram divides character, following Foster, into flat and round character. Flat characters are those “built around a single idea or quality” and without much individualization. Thus, they can even be described in one sentence. Round characters are complex in temperament and motivation. Thus, they can hardly be described and they might surprise the reader.
b. Theory onCharacterization
There are nine ways of describing the characters according to M.J. Murphy (1972: 161-173). The nine ways will be shed in the paragraphs below.
The first way is by analyzing the character’s personal description. In this way the writer characterizes the character by seeing a character from his physical appearance like his build, his face, his skin, his eyes, his hair or his clothes.
The second is by analyzing from other character point of view or character as seen by another. A character can be analyzed through another character’s sight and opinions to describe the character that the writer wants to expose.
Next, a character can be characterized by character’s speech. The readers can have an opinion about the character by paying attention on the character’s speech. The readers can also see the conversation in which the character is involved; the way he or she gives his or her opinion may also show the personality of the character.
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The next is by considering the characters’ past life; the readers are made known some important clues to get to know about the character. It can be described by the author’s direct comment, through the character’s thoughts, through the character’s conversation, or through the medium of another person.
Fifthly, a character could be analyzed from conversation of others; the readers can get to know a character through the conversations of other people and the things they say about him.
Sixthly, by perceiving the character’s reactions to various situations and events, an author shows his character’s tendency, and this tendency gives the readers a clue about the character’s personality.
Seventhly, a character can be characterized by the author’s direct comment and description on the character. In this way there is no medium the author used to characterize the character. The author directly describes the character and also gives comment on the character.
Eighthly, the thought of the character can be used to characterize the character. The author shows the character’s personality by letting the readers understand the deepest thought of the character in a novel.
The last is the author characterizes the character by describing the character’s mannerisms, habits, or idiosyncrasies. The author shows the personalities of the character by stating the character’s gestures and habits, so that it can help the readers to get closer to the character personalities.
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2. Sartrean Theories on Existentialism
2.1.Bad Faith
Bad faith is one of Sartre’s virtue ethics. He explains it in his two books “Being and Nothingness” and “Anti Semite and Jew”. On Being and Nothingness Sartre explains bad faith in the section entitled “Ethical Implications”. Actually ontology cannot formulate ethical precept (Sartre,1957:795). He also claims that bad faith is a descriptive term not prescriptive term. It means that his ethics is an implication of his ontology.
T Storm Heter (2006) in his book entitled “Sartre’s Ethics of Engagement” draws two types of bad faith from Sartre’s ontological book “Being and Nothingness” and “Anti Semite and Jew. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre describes the first type of bad faith as the denial of one's subjectivity. Sartre's often-quoted examples are the flirting woman who refuses the implications of her flirtation and the waiter who tries to identify completely with his role. The relevant features of this type of bad faith are as follows. First example, I restrict the implications of my actions (and others' actions) to the present, refusing to accept that my acts signify something about the future. Second, I attribute to myself (and others) character traits that cause actions. Thus, action becomes disarmed, dead and inert. Finally, I attempt to identify wholly with a social role that I occupy, or a character trait that others see in me. Only social roles that imprison a man in what he is invite bad faith. A grocer is not wholly a grocer', presumably because he is also a father, citizen, mountaineer and so on.
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The second type of bad faith is the denial of one's objectivity. Sartre’s controversial example is the homosexual who refuses to identify as homosexual.
The relevant features are as follows. First, one denies that one's past actions express any coherence. Each act is seen as a 'difference' and 'exception. Second, in examining one's past actions one 'refuses to draw from them the conclusions which they impose. Namely, one refuses to accept even weak character judgments that accurately describe one's conduct. The homosexual, while recognizing his homosexual inclination refuses with all his strength to consider himself a homosexual.
Moreover, in Anti-Semite and Jew, Sartre gives two more type of bad faith (bad faith from the Jew side and the anti-Semite side). First, there is the bad faith of the anti-Semite. The anti-Semite misrecognizes his own freedom by denying his subjectivity. By seeing himself innately superior to Jews, the anti-Semite attributes to himself a fixed, unchanging essence. Second, there is the bad faith of the inauthentic Jew. Sartre claims that Jews are in bad faith either if they evade their Judaism or if they internalize negative stereotypes. (Heter, 2006:65-68)
2.2.Authenticity
Authenticity is the chief of moral virtue of Sartrean existential ethics while bad faith is the chief vice of Sartrean existential ethics. There are many debates among expert about Sartre’s authenticity. Since Sartre never offers a prescriptive virtue ethics, all of his ethics are the implication of the ontological definition of Being and nothingness. The most fundamental and clear definition of authenticity
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is given by Sartre in his book entitled Anti-Semite and Jew. Sartre define authenticity as following: If it is agreed that man may be defined as a being having freedom within the limits of a situation, then it is easy to see that the exercise of this freedom may be considered as authentic or inauthentic according to the choices made in the situation. Authenticity, it is almost needless to say, consists in having a true and lucid consciousness of the situation, in assuming the responsibilities and risks that it involves, in accepting it in pride or humiliation, sometimes in horror and hate. (Sartre, 1948:90)
From above quotation some implication can be drawn. Firstly, authenticity consists only in devoting oneself to one's freely chosen project with full reflectiveness. Clearly, overcoming bad faith by attaining a lucid awareness of one's actions and situation is one dimension of authenticity. Inauthenticity involves bad faith, for it is a failure to 'live up to' one's situation, a failure to live one's condition fully. Inauthentic people conceal certain parts of themselves from themselves. So the 'lucidity' Sartre refers to above is the self-awareness involved in overcoming bad faith.
T Storm Heter in his book “Sartre’s Ethics of Engagement: Authenticity and Civic Virtue has clearly described the three variation of responsibility. The reason for distinguishing three variations of responsibility has been to provide a clearer analysis of existential authenticity. Authenticity requires accepting responsibility. In discussing the notion of responsibility,there are three conditions of authenticity, namely respect others. Recall that the standard view takes authenticity to consist in lucidity, responsibility and respect for other. There are some reasons to include respect for others as a third condition of authenticity. The first motivation is clarity. For too long time existential authenticity has been
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Thus, respecting others is as important to authenticity as awareness and responsibility are. Second, Sartre's attempt to derive the obligation of respect from causal and role responsibilities is questionable. Thus, Heter claims that the intersubjectivity of the self and the need for the self to be recognized through others provides a strong justification for the obligation of respect. Moreover, Sartre's view, authenticity requires respect. Respect, in short is incompatible with torture, murder and oppression. Respect requires abstaining from coercion and desiring that the other be free from coercion
As a conclusion, Existential authenticity requires three conditions. First, authenticity requires overcoming bad faith. A person must have a lucid awareness of himself and of his situation. Since the self is intersubjective, an authentic person must understand the networks of social dependency that are necessary for self-identity, including the major social roles he occupies. Second, an authentic person must embrace his responsibilities. He must accurately understand his causal liabilities and own up to these liabilities. He must also understand and perform his role duties. Finally, and most importantly, an authentic person must be disposed to respect the freedom of other human beings. An authentic person must not pursue his own freedom at the expense of the freedom of others. (Heter, 2006:84 -87)
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2.3.Being For-itself
Being and Nothingness, a book that gives foundation to Sartrean ontology,
has subtitle an essay on phenomenological ontology that indicates his phenomenological approach. Henceforth, his explanation is highly characterized by phenomenological investigations. Beings for Sartre is everything perceived. He names human being as for-itself because of the existence of consciousness that raises the existence of free-will, a self-determining will.
Barnez, the translator of Being and Nothingness, writes that what distinguishes for-itself from in it-self is only nothingness (Howells, 2006:1). The simplest definition of for-itsef is conscious and self-awareness being. For-itself, although it is a conscious being, it also contains in-itself. In fact, the physical body is classified as in-itself. Yet, since consciousness exists the body, it changes the in-itself to for it-self. Therefore, the corpse, body without consciousness, is no longer for-itself. It is in-itself. He begins his analysis by describing the work of consciousness, which marks the unique characteristics of human being.
Consciousness is an activity of for-itself that should not be separated and united from for-itself. They are inseparable. Sartre is a monistic materialist that believes only material, and refuses spiritual beings. Thus, consciousness is an activity resulted by the material condition of for-itself. Body has certain character of being that results existence of consciousness.
To summarize in one sentence, consciousness can be defined as “a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far as this being implies a being rather than itself”(Sartre, 1958:630). He argues consciousness is always
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consciousness of something. It always has object and never consciousness of nothing. Thus, the being of consciousness is what consciousness is conscious of.
In reflecting, consciousness also revealing other’s being. The being reveled is also consciousness’ being. However, consciousness is not an object reveled. In a more elaborated ideas, Barnez explains “To be aware of an object is not to be the object. The object does not enter into consciousness any more than consciousness enters into it. Consciousness is not a thing, not an entity, not a substance. Sartre calls it a "nonsubstantial absolute" (Howells, 2006:12). Consciousness absolutely has nothing substantial since its being merely appearance in the sense that consciousness exists only as long as it appears. Consciousness is completely emptiness because the entire world is outside of it. “Its existence is only activity of revealing”(Howells, 2006:15). Consciousness is being which is not what it is and which is what it is not. Consciousness never is its own and what it is not consciousness forms consciousness.
He divides consciousness activity based on the object. The first is non- reflective consciousness. This state of consciousness happens when consciousness objectifying anything else but itself. The example is when someone is conscious of a tree, or a house, or other beings. He directs his awareness to outside. The second, reflective consciousness, happens when the object of consciousness is the consciousness. However, since consciousness is empty when it is conscious of itself it always results in consciousness of other than itself. By this reflective consciousness, the self is constituted. Consciousness is possible to be aware of itself and realize how consciousness works. This raises self-awareness.
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Consciousness has the ability to negate as the result of nothingness which dwells in it. This consciousness negation also separates beings. The world, according to Sartre, is fullness of beings. There is no empty space in it. When consciousness negates the fullness of the world, nothingness comes into it. Thus, the structure of the world becomes being and nothingness. This nothingness in the world which comes, gives possibility for human to change and shift his attention.
In other word, the nothingness of consciousness, by projecting its nothingness to outside, creates nothingness in fullness of beings.
The existence of nothingness in the fullness of being can be justified by the distinction of ground and picture. He writes “….we seem to have found fullness everywhere. But we must observe that in perception there is always the construction of figure on a ground” (Sarte,1958:9). Sartre gives example of how consciousness works in his searching for a friend named Pierre in a cafe. When he entered the cafe, he was making an object as a picture and the rest as the ground.
He moved his picture to one object and raises the objects to found Pierre out. He tells that “I am witness to the successive disappearance of all the objects which I look at-in particular of the faces, which detain me for an instant (Could this be Pierre?) and which as quickly decompose precisely because they ‘are not’ the face of Pierre”(Sartre,1958:10). Finally he found that there was no Pierre in the Cafe.
When creating a picture, consciousness sinks the others into nothingness to make those things fall into ground. Thus, when raising an object, consciousness sinks others. Consciousness’ spontaneity determines what to sink and rise. The nothingness rises by consciousness gives space for the existence of free will.
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Sartre also finds that consciousness is indeed impersonal spontaneity. It determines its existence at each instant, without our being able to conceive anything before it. Thus, each instant of our conscious reveals to us a creation ex
nihilo. Not a new arrangement¸ but a new existence (Sartre,1960:99). To hide and
mask this spontaneity consciousness is “the essential role of the ego”(Sartre,1960:99). The I also serves as unity of all the spontaneity.