Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser as Responses to Vichy France Essay

Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser as Responses to Vichy France The Second World War seems to have had an enormous impact on theorists writing on literary theory. While their arguments are usually confined to a structure that at first blush seems to only apply to theory, a closer examination finds that they contain an inherently political aspect. Driven by the psychological trauma of the war, theorists, particularly French theorists, find themselves questioning the structures that led to the particular events and situations of the war. Many of these writers found themselves driven to engage the lackluster resistance against the Vichy regime in France and sought critical models that explain or lay to rest the guilt of a complacent citizenry. In particular, Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser reshaped the notion of the author and the subject to encompass the existence of a complacent citizenry. Sartre primarily concerned himself with the role of the author while Althusser addressed the role of the subject. It must be remembered, however, that Sartre’s model of the committed author has implications that modify the notion of the subject to some extent, just as Althusser’s model of ideology modifies the concept of the author. In accordance to their focus (the author or the subject), the two writers come to contradictory conclusions regarding the role of personal responsibility. Addressing the issue of a complacent citizenry in â€Å"What is Literature?†, Sartre’s abstract notions of the writer reveal a certain preoccupation with the failed resistance in World War II. Specifically, he chooses to directly address the Resistance poets: How can one hope to provoke the indignation or the political enthusiasm of the rea... ... the complexity and the guilt of a complacent citizenry, both writers re-evaluated the idea of the author and the subject. In spite of being largely contradictory, they both leave room for some agreement. One could argue that the choice presented by the author to the subject in Sartre fits within Althusser’s ideology of ideologies. Insofar as it is the author’s responsibility to reveal the ideology, the world, to the subject and it is the subject’s responsibility to interpret the ideology or the text. However, this common ground is both narrow and unstable and would be difficult, at best, to support. References Althusser, Louis. â€Å"Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.† Contemproary Critical Theory. Dan Latimer (ed.). San Diego: Harcourt 1989. Sartre, Jean-Paul. â€Å"What is Literature?† and Other Essays. Cambradge, MA: Harvard University Press 1988.