The Tragedy of Freedom | Jean-Paul Sartre
What if we’d get a chance to start a new life? In his short novel Les Jeux Sont Faits, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre plays with the idea of ‘starting all over’ in the same lifetime, despite the decisions we have made in the past. Even though we have free will, are we capable of deviating from the path that we have laid out for ourselves, including the burden of responsibility that comes with our past choices? Or, do the consequences of our actions govern our will?
Les Jeux Sont Faits - in English called All Chips Are Down - tells the story about a woman named Ève and a man named Pierre. They meet each other in a park shortly after they were officially declared ‘dead’. In the story, the dead still live among us as ghosts; they can see us, but we cannot see them. The realm of the dead is, of course, a crowded place because people from all ages of mankind inhabit it.
Both Ève and Pierre died because of betrayal. Ève is very sick. Her husband André is poisoning her, not only so he can receive her inheritance but also because he wants to marry Ève’s younger sister Lucette and receive her dowry. While grooming the beautiful seventeen-year-old, Lucette - who’s devastated by her sister’s condition - André continues to poison his wife until she dies. Pierre is the leader of the resistance that wants to overthrow the Regent. He meets with his comrades because they have planned a rebellion that should start the next morning.
When Pierre goes home, he’s approached by one of his men, Lucien, who admits that he was captured by the military and told them their plans. He asks him for forgiveness. Pierre calls him a traitor. And shortly after that, Lucien shoots him. After they die, Ève and Pierre discover that they are invisible to the people they try to address. They have become ghosts. And after they’re officially registered as such, they are free to wander wherever they want.
Unsurprisingly, they are drawn to the drama of their past lives. Ève tries to stop her husband, André, to seduce her sister Lucette, and Pierre tries to stop the rebellion because the Regent knows of the plans. It doesn’t take long before they realize their powerlessness over the situation. Because they’re invisible, they’re nothing more than spectators. Even though they’re free to roam the earth, they cannot intervene or connect with the living. Thus, there’s much unfreedom in their freedom.
In the park, when sharing their experiences, Ève and Pierre become aware of their romantic connection. However, as ghosts, they’re unable to really feel each other. Not much later, it turns out that there has been a mistake. Ève and Pierre were destined for each other. They should have met when they were still alive, but due to the circumstances, this didn’t happen. Therefore, they get a chance to return to the realm of the living, and they have 24 hours to prove their love.
If they succeed, they can stay and build a new life together. Even though Ève and Pierre are very attracted to each other, they seem to prioritize their own personal affairs. They create much confusion among the living because they can’t support their claims based on what they have seen when they were dead; no one believes them. And even though they try to cultivate their love, they fail to disentangle themselves from the lives they were living before. Tragically, both Ève and Pierre end up dead again and become ghosts.
So, how free are we? Could it be that freedom is just an illusion? Our lives start out as empty canvases, and it’s up to us to fill them up. We begin to entangle ourselves with the environment and to define ourselves and our values. We build relationships; we take on responsibilities, but the more ownership we take of the world, the more the world takes ownership of us. Yes, we are free to choose what we do, but the effects of our choices will always resonate between ourselves and the environment.
If Ève and Pierre ignored their past lives, they could have fully focused on their love. But what bloomed between them in isolation, seems...