THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL:

The philosophical implications of Sartre’s Les Mains sales are as personal as they

are political

This essay aims to prove that Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Mains sales (1948) strengthens the

fact that politics is inextricably related to personal conditions. The mere expression

“Dirty Hands” depicts the moral dilemma between the revolutionary rigid ideology and

the necessity to corrupt ideas to obtain the required result and this last option is subtly

supported by Sartre at the moment he publishes it. Hence, I will illustrate my argument

focusing on three different angles from which the author shows the connection between

personal and political and I will do it through Sartre’s characters. Firstly, I will examine

the link between the Sartrean Existentialism and politics through his character Hugo;

then I will disclosure the philosophical expression of “Dirty Hands”, focusing on the

character of Hoederer; and thirdly I will associate the personal and political implications

with the female role in the novel, and the influence of love.

Les Mains sales is a clear example of the personal implications in politics.

Politics cannot be understood as a strategically accurate mechanism since it is created

by and for the human being and, as Suleiman indicates, Sartre’s argument

‘contradictions and failures are human’ (2016: 139). This statement leads to the

depiction of the two main characters in this text: Hugo, who tries to avoid -in vain- these

human contradictions, and Hoederer, who cleverly accepts them: ‘La pureté, c’est une

idée de fakir et de moine […] Moi, j’ai les mains sales’ (Sartre, 1948: 198). The point of

convergence in the action emerges when Hugo volunteers to kill Hoederer in order to

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stop his political strategies, against the Party ideals: ‘Sans Hoederer, nous mettons les

autres dans notre poche’ (Sartre, 1948: 52). Despite his will, Hugo’s personal situation

hinders the mission to murder him, since, as Suleiman considers:

He is the common Sartrean character, a young male intellectual unsure of

himself. Questioning the meaning of his actions […] He wants to transcend
his nothingness in order to reaffirm his identity. (2016: 133)

Thus, Hugo is the incarnation of the Sartrean Existentialism considering “Existence

precedes essence” (Ridge, 1957: 432), which means that Humans must shape

themselves. This necessity of “shaping” evidences the absurdity of life, which

consequently, provokes -in the existentialist individual and, therefore, in Hugo- a feeling

of anguish that Sartre calls ‘nausea’ (1957: 433). The choice to shape himself as a

revolutionary is the choice of killing Hoederer. However, he is paralyzed because of the

‘nausea’: ‘Je ne voudrais pas être à ma place’ (Sartre, 1948: 160). This paralysation is

caused by a cyclic process in Hugo’s persona, he is ‘searching for himself’ (Ridge, 1957:

432), however, the deeper he goes into himself and his political situation, the more

incongruities he progressively finds: ‘Est-ce que je sais ce que je vais faire?’ (Sartre,

1948: 175). Through the existential character of Hugo, Sartre is defending how his

narrative contains politic aspects. As François Bondy maintains, Sartre’s essay ‘Qu'est-

ce que la literature’ (1947) supports that the author must be committed (2018: 31). Then,

Sartre is developing the so-called ‘literatture engagée’, showing how literature -which is

common and mistakenly associated to the personal and private field- can conceal a

strong presence of politics. Thereby, the end of the novel is not purposeless, although

Hoederer’s murder alibi is because of jealous love: ‘Tue par hazard. Tue par une femme’

(Sartre, 1948: 246). Therefore, Hugo’s acceptance of death denotes political

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implications: ‘si je reniais mon acte, il deviendrait un cadaver anonyme, un déchet du

Parti. […] si j’accepte de payer le prix qu’il faut, alors il aura eu la mort qui lui convient’

(Sartre, 1948: 247).

The second trace of the personal implications in politics is founded in Hoederer’s

ideas, which agree with the Machiavellian statement that ‘The end justifies the means’

(López, 2006: 160), since there are some specific political situations truly difficult to

solve without corrupting some moral virtue. Precisely, Hoederer believes the Party

should ally the opposition to stop the war, his pretension is to disrupt the Party principles

in order to achieve a better solution for everyone. Sartre, in such manner, presents the

confrontation between being faithful to maintain political ideals, with which Hugo

identifies; and being aware of the possible consequences, giving supremacy to the

consequences rather than to the strategy, supported by Hoederer ‘Tous les moyens sont

bons quand ils sont efficaces’ (1948: 197), for Hoederer, Hugo has ‘des gants rouges

[…] d’aristocrate (1948: 198). In Busk’s investigation, he illustrates this dilemma as

‘Hugo’s intellectual devotion to revolutionary ideology and Hoederer’s pragmatic

opportunism’ (2015:56). This dispute is also disclosed by the mastermind Max Weber,

in ‘Politics as a Vocation’ (1919), where he explains the differences between the ‘Ethic

of Conviction’ and the ‘Ethic of Responsibility’ (López, 2016: 161). The first one

envisages politics as external from personal, since it considers that -regardless of the

case- its ideals can always provide the errorless solution. Whereas the other one is

cognizant of the possible infringements of the ideals because politics implies a

personality, and human nature is controversial: ‘la Révolution n’est pas une question de

merité, mais d’efficacité; et il n’y a pas de ciel’ (Sartre, 1948: 222). Taking into account

the end of the story, it seems that Sartre is positioned on Hoederer’s side and, as

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Suleiman shows, he explicitly confirmed it after writing the novel: ‘il est celui que je

voudrais être si j’étais révolutionnaire’ (2016: 135). Equally, O’Donohoe states that

‘Sartre ‘seems to subscribe’ to Hoederer’s position and that Hugo is ‘implicitly

condemned” (2012: 83). Hence, I argue that the novel turns to a defence of personal

implications in politics.

On the other hand, Jessica is the embodiment of the personal implications in the political

field, and the Sartrean analysis of -together with Olga- the female role in politics. Jessica

plays a determining role in the story, as Louette considers ‘Elle a une fonction et une

valeur indirecte’ (2016: 367). Especially at the end, if she would not have seduced

Hoederer, Hugo would not have killed him, he was convinced of Hoederer’s reasoning,

he decided not to shoot him: ‘je ne pourrai jamais tirer sur vous [sur Hoederer] parce

que…parce que je tiens à vous’ (1948: 223). At first, Jessica tries to press him to

‘forgive’ Hoederer’s life, and it seems she does it for Hugo’s sake, ‘Elle se jette entre

eux’ (190); ‘Elle se met entre eux’ (200). However, she finally betrays Hugo and

involuntary forces him to kill Hoederer. Ergo she really strengthens the relation between

personal and political aspects. As Lucien Goldman says ‘she is the one who knows

everything and who plays [..] She is able to say the truth opposing moral, political and

moral plans’ (1970: 110). Per contra, she is alienated by the female roles: ‘Faites de moi

ce que vous voudrez’ (227), she is oppressed in so far as she fortifies her position as a

woman below a man. Thus, Sartre is implicitly referring to her wife Simon de Beauvoir’s

emblematic essay ‘The Second Sex’ (1949). Hoederer’s statement ‘la question

d’emancipation de femmes ne me passionne pas’ (225) keeps a strong political

implication in relation to Beauvoir’s argument ‘One is not born but rather becomes, a

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woman’ (de Beauvoir, 1949/2010: 14) which means that gender is a social construction.

Jessica has become a ‘woman’, prisoner of stereotypes, ‘une galerie de clichés’ (Louette,

2016: 365). Even though she has betrayed Hugo searching for her freedom, she cannot

really achieve it, she is underneath Hoederer’s masculine position. Likewise, Hoederer

regards himself as a man, better than a woman: ‘Elles ferment les yeux pour ne pas

entendre […] Elles ont toutes peur de bruit’ (217). However, opposite to Jessica’s

character, Olga represents women’s empowerment in politics, according to de

Beauvoir’s and Sartre’s declaration ‘la révolution socialiste entraînerait nécessairement

l'émancipation de la femme’ (Louette, 2016: 366). Besides, although Olga is concerned

about the importance of revolution, she is also aware of feelings -related to personal

field-, and that is why she tells Luois ‘M'as-tu jamais vue céder aux sentiments’ (229).

This interrelation between the question of women and politics in the Sartrean narrative

leads to the feminist slogan ‘The personal is political’. Precisely, in the Sartrean ontology

‘a human being who has no secret, no private self, can hardly be called human’

(Suleiman, 2016: 138), since even the revolutionary figure has a ‘private’ personal life,

which affects the political decisions. Additionally, the analysis of Jessica also reveals a

peculiar perception of ‘love’ in Sartre’s narrative since Hugo experiences an

existentialist crisis with his identity, and because of that he is paralysed by the nausea,

by the incongruities. Then, his relationship with Jessica, as Jean Wyatt sustains, aims at

‘identifying with the freedom of the other’, which can be understood as ‘being-for-

others’ (2006: 2). It is quite significant what Paul Reed adds that ‘sense of identity […]

can only come through the meditation of others, for whom we exist as objects in the

world’ (1987: 36). Hereby, Hugo is truly searching for himself in the ‘other’ through

‘love’: ‘Je n’ai plus que toi [Jessica] au monde’ (1948: 179). But, finally, everything

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changes when he identifies himself with Hoederer, and consequently, Hugo starts to love

him: ‘Je crois que ne l’ai jamais tant aimé qu’à cette minute’ (244). Regarding Sartrean

‘love’, he loves him because he is ‘a real subject’ (Wyatt, 2006: 4): ‘Vous…vous avez

l’air si vrai, si solide!’ (Sartre, 1948: 198). In view of this, his political ideals are aligned

with his ‘being-for-others’: at first, he is identified with the role of a revolutionary,

assigned by the Party, and progressively he becomes identified with Hoederer, then his

ideology tends towards Hoederer’s pragmatism opting not to kill him (although he

finally does it, he realises it has been done in vain). Then, he wavers from ‘N’importe

qui peut tuer si le Parti le commande’ (216) to ‘Je vourais être de la vôtre: on doit se

sentir bien dans sa peau’ (223). All in all, and due to Hugo’s personality insecurities, he

is not able to develop his own morality, his own thoughts. Hence, the future of his

country is determined by his direct act of killing him. Despite its peculiar Sartrean

connotation, “love”, which seems (again) to be a personal feature, definitely affects the

political evolution of the whole fictional country.

Therefore, this essay demonstrates the inseparable association between personal and

political in Les Mains sales, whose narrative underlines Sartre’s own implications in his

political context. He returns to the perpetual and complex political dilemma of focusing

on the result, or in the method. Nevertheless, in both cases, as he exposes within the

existentialist framework, personal assumptions can be unavoidable, ‘the personal is

political’.

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