What is Freedom?: Jean-Paul Sartre’s “The Age of Reason” (Part 2)

And the sky, the light, the trees, the whole of Nature would be, as always, in league with them: Daniel was a man of evil will. (136) 

This curious line describes Daniel, the only homosexual character in The Age of Reason, and his perception of himself. It is an unflattering image imbued with self-loathing, indicative of a mind that views its perceiver as a social outcast and a victim of universal oppression. It is interesting to note that Daniel’s homosexuality is hidden from the public, and that there is no indication that he has been openly discriminated against – and yet, what we have here is a young man in his prime, possessor of a “dark, handsome, blue-jowled visage,” whom Marcelle ironically calls “her dear archangel” (82), grappling with a self-hatred so powerful that every thought crossing his mind is associated with destruction and death.

Our first proper introduction to him takes place in Chapter 7, and it is here that we find Daniel shaving “naked to the waist,” thinking “it wouldn’t be a bad joke to deface the head they all admired” (82). Daniel is aware that women (and most likely men as well) are attracted to him because of his uncommonly good looks; but this knowledge leaves him cold. He does not deface himself on this occasion (nor on subsequent similar occasions), reasoning that he likes to be goodlooking.

The chapter then continues with Daniel picking up his three pet cats and stuffing them into a basket (the act is described in cringing detail). What he intends to do is to drown the cats in the Seine. On his way there he has “a vision that penetrated everything, and saw to the very end of the world”:

Daniel noticed that he was a few steps in advance of his body – yonder, at the level of the gas-jet, and that he was watching his own progress, hobbling a little under his burden … he saw himself come, he was no more than a disembodied vision. (87)

These lines that detail an out-of-body experience before the committing of an extreme act parallel the later passage where Mathieu also has a similar experience while drinking with his friends in the Sumatra. It is a unique fleeting moment, an unstable vision that only presents itself at the point when someone has decided to “take action.” In Daniel’s case, it is the drowning of what “I love most in the world,” because he “hasn’t the courage to kill himself” (90). He thinks of Mathieu then, priding himself on being the one who is “free,” the one who dares to do what is necessary to change. But Daniel does not go through with the act, and he returns to his apartment with the cats in the basket only to run into Mathieu. “He was glad to be able to hate another person,” the narrator tells us when Daniel realises Mathieu has come to see him. Mathieu has come to borrow the money he needs for Marcelle’s abortion, but Daniel makes him believe that he does not have the money. After Mathieu leaves, Daniel goes up to the mirror and inspects his “dark and comely countenance,” thinking that “it would be worth a packet if he (Mathieu) were forced to marry Marcelle” (97).

This may come across as sheer vindictiveness, but if the reader interprets the entire episode in the light of Sartre’s coinage of “bad faith” (mauvaise foi – a term referring to the conflict between oppressive, deadening conformity and the “authentic state of being”), Daniel’s decision not to lend Mathieu the money and his desire to see him forced into marriage can be seen as a counter-reaction to his own failure to liberate himself from his own “bad faith.”

Daniel is as much a victim of “bad faith” as Mathieu; indecision and self-hatred keep him deeply rooted in abjection. The most apparent example can be found in Chapter 9, where Daniel impulsively decides to go to the fair, and while there he chances upon a young man he is attracted to (“he ached to put his hand on the young man’s arm”), but is spared the “humiliation” of having to seduce the young man when an older “handsome gentleman” comes into the picture. Daniel feels at that point he is “delivered,” and is pleased with himself because “he had resisted” (129).

Daniel views the older seducer disapprovingly, but his view of the young man who gives in to the older man’s advances is even harsher:

Daniel looked disgustedly at his plump hips, his broad bucolic cheeks, grey and already begrimed with an incipient beard. ‘Female flesh,’ he thought, ‘as lush as dough.’ The gentleman would take him home, give him a bath, soap him, and perhaps scent him. At this thought, Daniel’s rage revived. ‘Swine,’ he murmured. (130)

The language here betrays an undeniable sense of envy. Daniel despises the older man and the young man and judges them for their “immoral” transaction for only one reason: he himself would have liked to take the older gentleman’s place. When he eventually leaves the fair by himself, alone and lonely, he knows he has failed once again to take action, concluding with these dejected words: “Living the life I do, I can always expect to break up pretty soon” (136).

Daniel is confronted with change later on, in Chapter 16, when he succumbs to his same-sex desire and has a sexual encounter with Ralph. The incident itself, placed in the claustrophobic setting of Ralph’s attic room, spans only a little more than four pages. The intimacy between the two men is coloured with violent language, projected through Daniel’s point of view. Here we again find Daniel standing in front of a mirror dressing up (a recurring image). While doing so, he is also scrutinising Ralph in the mirror: “He could see Ralph’s haggard, harsh profile, and his hands began to tremble: he longed to squeeze that thin neck with its protuberant Adam’s apple, and feel it crack beneath his finger” (261). He also projects his own murderous rage onto Ralph: “He’s looking positively murderous … he’s hurt in his little masculine pride, he hates me” (261, italics mine).  

Their conversation also veers towards acts of violence, with Ralph recounting how he knocked out a man once. Upon hearing this, Daniel is “seized by an access of rage,” and longs to “knock him down” (263). When he leaves Ralph behind, his first thought is to “wash myself from head to foot” (265), a clear indication that he is disgusted with the whole experience. Despite his endeavour to break out of his “bad faith,” the move has not been successful. It is later proved to be counter-productive, ballooning his already all-consuming self-loathing, and leading him to contemplate self-mutilation (see Part 1 for Mathieu’s self-mutilating act).

Daniel is compelled to “dead the beast, dead the poison” (266), the “beast” and the “poison” being his homosexual essence. Back in his own apartment, his attention is claimed by a gleaming razor. He seriously considers using the razor on himself (though Sartre’s language is ambiguous at this point, we find out later that he had intended to castrate himself). He is acutely conscious of being alone in the process: “Nothing impels him to decide, nothing stops him from doing so: he alone must decide” (267). This line corresponds with the Sartrean notion that in the existentialist universe we have no-one but ourselves to answer to.

What follows next is perhaps to be expected: Daniel gets cold feet and does not go through with the gruesome act. He shame-facedly admits to himself that “when he picked up the razor, he had not deceived himself for one second” (270). The admittance tells the reader that Daniel, though teemed with self-destructive thoughts, will never have the courage to harm himself. He is, however, different from all the other characters in the novel – Mathieu, Ivich, Boris, Lola – because he is conscious of his failure to dispel his “bad faith.” The others, one could venture to say, are only marginally aware of being slaves to “bad faith” and do not even make an effort to break free. In other words, being an “outcast” has heightened his self-consciousness.

The next time we meet Daniel is in the final chapter, where he announces to Mathieu that he will be marrying Marcelle to save her from ruin, and makes his confession. When asked why he would do such a thing, he says he is not doing it out of philanthropy or out of love. He is merely doing it to keep Marcelle from being unhappy. None of Daniel’s reasons for marrying Marcelle are completely convincing, but when Mathieu says that Daniel’s intention has made him “more disgusted with [himself],” Daniel replies: “Yes … I suppose you must be feeling pretty rotten” (296). His words suggest that his intention to marry Marcelle has more to do with Mathieu than with Marcelle’s happiness. It becomes all the more obvious when Mathieu asks him if it would not be better if he were “to accept the fact (of his being homosexual).” Daniel’s response to this is one of annoyance:

You can say that to me, when you have accepted the fact that you’re a swine … No, homosexuals who boast of it or proclaim it, or merely acquiesce … are dead men. Their very sense of shame has killed them. I don’t want to die that sort of death. (297)

Daniel’s lines are full of ironic contradictions. They show that his intention is to coerce Mathieu into accepting responsibility for what he has done, to spur him to action; but at the same time, they reveal that his motive is based on a steely denial of his homosexual self. He has broken away from his “bad faith” for all the wrong reasons.

Mathieu, however, does not see this. He is in awe of Daniel’s gumption and is overcome with envy: “‘It’s true,’ thought Mathieu: ‘he went right through with it, this time … he is free’ … And the horror with which Daniel inspired him was suddenly combined with envy” (298). Here is where the novel’s irony reaches its peak: Daniel the homosexual denies his own sexuality and makes an inappropriate choice that Mathieu interprets as an “act of freedom.” The novel ends with Mathieu coming to terms with all the failures in his life. Before the novel comes to a close, he casually repeats to himself: “It’s true, it’s absolutely true: I have attained the age of reason” (299). This is miles from the truth. Mathieu, at this point, still has not shown any inclination to move beyond what he is accustomed to.

It is an opaque ending that will frustrate a lot of readers. Is Sartre saying that human beings are incapable of eliminating “bad faith,” even when they are conscious of being its prisoners? And if they do attempt to, is it not often a case of leaping from the frying pan into the roaring fire, as in Daniel’s case? True to the Sartrean enigma, no cookie-cutter answers are to be found in this first volume of Roads to Freedom.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Age of Reason. London: Penguin Books, 2001 Penguin Classics ed.