'Master, Slave and Merciless Struggle': Sin and Lovelessness in Sartre's Saint Genet. Issue 1 (1st June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kirkpatrick, Kate
• Is Part Of: Sartre studies international. Volume 25:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 22
• Page End: 34
• Publication Date: 2019-06-01
• Subjects: Beauvoir -- freedom -- love -- lovelessness -- reciprocity -- sin; Philosophy, French -- 20th century -- Periodicals; French literature -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; 194
• DOI: 10.3167/ssi.2019.250103
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1357-1559

Abstract

Abstract : In his biography of Jean Genet, Sartre says his aim is 'to demonstrate that freedom alone can account for a person in his totality'. Building on my reading of Being and Nothingness in Sartre on Sin, I examine the compatibility of Sartrean freedom and love in Saint Genet. Sartre's account of Genet's person is largely a loveless one in which there is no reciprocity, others are 'empty shells' and love is 'only the lofty name which [Genet] gives to onanism'. I use Saint Genet to suggest Genet's lovelessness is the direct result of locating the totality of personhood in freedom. This location results in a lonely experience of subjectivity as 'master, slave and merciless struggle' – never lover or beloved, whether on the divine plane or the human.