‘La Chambre’: A Flirtation with Madness

Abstract

In the short story ‘La Chambre’, part of the collection Le Mur (1939), Sartre addresses a question that was topical at the time, namely the dilemma of whether insanity is an authentic existential attitude. Using dialectical argumentation, he ultimately concludes that insanity offers no authentic way out outside normality, since the madman inevitably falls prey to his own hallucinations and is therefore condemned to pretence and lies, if not total dehumanisation. At the same time, Sartre ironically deconstructs the polarity of the sane and demented worlds. The bourgeois people he portrays are also ‘a bit sick’, believing themselves to be useful and indispensable in an absurd world. In ‘La Chambre’ Sartre has narrated the key themes of his philosophy of existence in the making, which he would later present in his essay L’Être et le néant (1943): contingency, bad faith, the game, the for-itself and the in-itself. However, Sartre's relevance lies above all in the critical way in which he dismantled the bourgeois world. His plea for authenticity and sincerity continues to keep us alert in the post-postmodern world, where artifice and pretence often prevent us from seeing clearly.