Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre
The author of the book holds the distinction of being the most iconic—and, for that matter, one of the few—women famous for being associated with existential philosophy and literature. She was both a romantic partner and intellectual partner to the single most famous existentialist: Jean-Paul Sartre who is also a significant figure in the text. Her mission in this tome is to compel the reader toward an understanding of how the philosophical view can be applied to the issue of ethics when even as it was often being attacked as a gateway to nihilism.
The Nihilist
This response is direct as the vision of nihilism is imposed upon the narrative in the form of an abstract represent character. Getting to the meat of the matter, as it were, de Beauvoir immediately clarifies the distinction between the existentialist capable of adhering to ethical standards and those that would embrace the darkness: “The nihilist attitude manifests a certain truth…the mistake is that it defines man not as the positive existence of a lack, but as a lack at the heart of existence.”
The Sub-Man
Another major abstract character is that which the author describes as the sub-man. The sub-man is characterized by fear which leads to rejecting passion and a willful embrace of ignorance of his own motivations and desires. His life is uncomplicated by action or engagement, but doomed by boredom and deep-seated sense that life has neither anything to gain or lose merely by existing. This positions the sub-man at the bottom of the hierarchical system of archetypes which also include the Child, the Serious Man, and the Tyrant, among others.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx is engaged to reveal the recognized close relationship between existential philosophy and communist ideology but rejects the argument that this makes Marx himself an existentialist or, by definition, means the two are inextricably linked. Marxism is a revolutionary economic paradigm that by definition requires the war known as class struggled and the ultimate victory of the working class over the ownership class before true freedom ever be realized. Existentialism rejects this bona fide as being a fundamental aspect to establishing autonomy over one’s essential state of being.
