“Chacun de nous accepte la réalité du monde auquel il est confronté” : really?

Jean-Paul #Sartre said in Being and Nothingness in 1943 that a human is a conscientious being who knows who he is, what he does and what he can do. Then, thanks to his characteristic of Homo sapiens sapiens (he knows that he knows what he knows), human can have a good hold on the World. The latter is composed by other humans, rules of Societies and personal desires. At this time, it is necessary to have link with those elements in order to live. Indeed, according to #Sartre, existence is before essence, and then, humans have to lead actions and fulfil purposes to reach their own personality, their own life, so essence.

            The Truman show, a movie of 1998, gives us a quotation that I think it’s better to keep in French version: “Chacun de nous accepte la réalité du monde auquel il est confronté”. What an enthralling sentence well-linked with Existentialism’s and #Sartre’s ideas! According to this, a human is going to carry his essence out by following Society’s principles. We have to focus on this claiming and see if an essence of a human is linked to his neighbouring world.

            To do it, we will study 3 cases that I met in movies: Truman Burbank in The Truman Show, Stanley Schupak also known as Bree in Transamerica, and Larry Gopnik in A serious man.

In A serious man, Larry Gopnik represents the concrete example of a stage in his world’s reality.

            Larry is a physics teacher at the university, and has a wife and two children. He is an upright civil servant and a good practicing Jew. Then, he respects all rules in civil Society and religious Society. A such respect is going to be testes by a lot of hardships, like his wife who wants to divorce or an attempt of corruption by one of his students. At this time, it is interesting to notice that Larry keeps his good conduct, but, in spite of all, misfortunes arrive in a large number. Then, a question is highlighted: What can he do in order to be happier? Indeed, he has all behaviours that Society requires… What else? To know what to do, he decides to meet rabbis, but no one has a good solution to give him. In this way, it proves that the internalization can’t give human a good life. The problem is that Larry does nothing to change it, and appears unlucky deeply. Indeed, the once time he attempts to change his behaviour by changing his student’s mark results to a bad news: medical problems.

            In this case, Larry belongs to his Society perfectly, but it doesn’t end in a good essence for human. World is accepted, but it doesn’t result in a happy life. At this moment, we should better talk about a peremptory submission to the world rather an acceptance.

Truman Burbank embodies in The Truman Show the perfect example of a man who is in symbiosis with his world, but ends up denying it.

Truman is a young man who lives in Seahaven and is married with Meryl. He lives a perfect life, regulated by his job and by his little customs. For instance, he goes to buy newspaper everyday close to the same seller, and talks with him a few minutes. He has internalized habits of his Society perfectly: all its rules and good manners are known by him. Then, each day, he says to his neighbours: “Good morning! Oh, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.”.

What a sweet neighbour!

So, he’s the best man of the city due to his complete adaptation to the rules. We could imagine that he would lead a perfect and calm life, without having any problem or worry. However, movie is going to show us that this kind of way of life which represents Truman’s essence is undesirable. Indeed, Truman appears sad, and seems bored by this monotonous life. Then, the only thing which appeals to him is to find a woman again, who said to him that life isn’t what it seems several years ago. By this research, Truman wants to break customs, and make his life take a turning point.

We have here a situation where a human is able to adapt himself to his neighbouring world, but feels bad because it doesn’t delight him. Then, Truman gets used to his world’s reality, but doesn’t accept it and is going to make it change.

Our last case, Stanley Schupak/Bree in Transamerica is a good mean to show the rejection of the world and its reality by human.

Stanley is a man who wants to be a woman, and is about to suffer a vaginal surgery. His/her parents disagree with him/her completely, because they deem that a man is just a man and a woman is just a man. 

                                              The struggle of essence against existence

In this situation, Stanley’s will is the perfect illustration of the idea of existence before essence. Stanley’s existence, his reality and his neighbouring world’s reality are that he is a man. At this time, his physical transformation is made in order to reach his/her real essence, that is to say being a woman. This fulfilment of his/her essence is a shift of his neighbouring world’s reality. There is not acceptance of the reality, but a strong fight against it, and a final success to change it. It is perceptible when his/her own son attempts to kiss her/him: a new part of his/her world has been led to the shift, and accept it. For Toby, Stanley is first of all Bree, despite he doesn’t know Bree’s true identity.

In the situation of Stanley/Bree, a human is not going to accept his world’s reality. On the contrary, a human changes his world and adapt it to his own essence. The link is inversed: the human’s essence, just made by his own personality, influences the world and its way to see him.

To sum up, humans belong to the world which surround them, and but have different links with it. Some of them have a weak personality, which entails that they are going to be led by world’s rules and principles. Other have a strong personality influencing their way to make their essence deeply, and then which ends in leave their own mark on their world. The ways to perceive their own essence affect the degree of acceptance of their world, and cause will to make change it sometimes.

Then, my question will be simple: Do you think we have to change our neighbouring world to be happy?