Jean-Paul Marat

Expectations and standards for women in society are unrealistic and outrageous. These thoughts of what a woman should be like and how they should behave have been around for centuries. Woman are often times looked down upon when they don’t look like how society tells them to and this can cause a number of things to go wrong in their self image and life. Unfortunately these high expectations have had an extremely negative impact on females. In Margie Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll” she discusses the…

1. Would you agree that Beckett’s Waiting for Godot perfectly encapsulates all the uncertainties of modernity? Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd. The absence of a meaningful plot, of objective dialogues and of absolute certainty is the state of absurdity. Beckett utilizes absurdity to play around with the concept of existential nullity which saw man trapped in a hostile world. Human life is meaningless and this created a sense of alienation, despair and…

Jean-Paul Sartre is known for defending existentialism against challenges and giving further explanation regarding the meanings of existentialism’s claims. After reading the Stephen Colbert interview with GQ, I believe Sartre would promote Colbert’s way of living. Sartre has a very precise outlook on how the human should act and his beliefs are briefly summarized early in his book when he says, “not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be…

The idea of existence precedes essence is a notion of existentialism that is hard to understand. The best way to understand this is to use the concept of death. It is impossible however, to make any sense out of death. Death is something that is outside our realm of understanding. Death is ontologically inseparable from existence. Death is always something in our lives and is the end of perception. Monsieur Meursault in the final hours of his life finally begins to understand the notion of…

Existentialism in Groundhog Day Groundhog Day directed by Harold Ramis, is a film that demonstrates existential ideas. An existentialist believes that people make a purpose of their life through free will, choices and facing your consequences. In the movie, Phil Connors is a weatherman who is reporting from Pennsylvania. He was reporting a blizzard and later on he goes to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog Day festivities. Due to the storm he gets stuck in Punxsutawney and when he wakes…

In Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, No Exit, which he wrote during World War II, there are many historical and traditional voices present. Existentialism as well as his experiences in the war and Christianity’s definition of Hell shape the play’s ideas and overall thought tremendously. Throughout the play, Sartre incorporates his existentialist thoughts as well as Christianity’s view on Hell as a traditional voice. As a historical voice, he blends together his feelings and experiences from the war in…

The idea of existentialism is believed to have been founded by a Danish philosopher named Søren Kierkegaard, who lived from 1813 to 1855. Although Kierkegaard was a religious man, existentialism became a more atheistic worldview as the philosophy further developed in the 20th century. There are many variations of existentialism, but the main idea of it is that human lives has “no meaning unless people give them meaning.” To elaborate, existentialists say that although life itself originally has…

What is Human Nature? This question has been asked throughout generations of philosophers and, yet, today Philosophers still do not have an exact answer. They have created multiple answers and continually have this debate as to which is correct. Throughout this philosophy course, we have learned a great deal about different philosophers’ opinions about what human nature is. That being said, we all have formed our own beliefs to which of these philosophers are creating a more persuasive argument.…

Jean-Paul Sartre, who happened to live from 1905-1980, was an existentialist philosopher. He famously challenged a particular question and left it available for anyone to interpret it. The question is all about “the self” and everything that comes with it. According to Sartre, “the self lies always in the future; it is what we aim toward, as we try to make ourselves into something. But this means that as long as we are alive there is no self - at least, no fixed and finished self” (pg. 206). By…

Heidegger sought to radicalize the traditional understanding of what it means to be human and the transform the ‘common sense’ approach held by the tradition by reawakening the question of the meaning of being; however, he arrived too early. Even though his unfinished edifice was successfully nailed on the door of Cartesian tradition long ago; the discussion fell, and is still falling, upon deaf ears. This split with the tradition led him to a disagreement with his old master Edmund Husserl…