Sartre's second century

Hidden Wordplay in the Works of Jean-Paul Sartre 145
aforementioned Delarue (literally, "of the street"), Sartre's quasi-
Doppelgdnger in Les Chemins de la liberte (Sartre often said he was and
wished to be "n'importe qui", "anyone at all"); Latex, a minor character in
Les Chemins de la liberte, who is encountered appropriating a little girl's
rubber ball; Achille—this is ironic, as Monsieur Achille, in La Nausee, is
an obvious lacked a coward; and Schalom—another irony, as this Jewish
character of Le Sursis, whose name means "peace", is, unlike most of
those surrounding him and for good reasons, in favour of war with
Germany during the Munich crisis of 1938. Sereno, the surname of Daniel,
the tormented homosexual of Les Chemins de la liberte, who is anything
but "serene", provides yet another irony; and Lemordant (literally, "the
biter", or "the biting one") who, as we have seen, is one of Lucien's
"biting", more aggressive friends in "L'Enfance d'un chef," has a bitingly
appropriate name.
A more cryptic example is to be found in the name of the character
Schneider, whose real name turns out to be Vicarios. It will be observed
that Schneider is German for "tailor", and, lo and behold, Sartre is "tailor"
in old French. So, should we infer that Schneider/Vicarios—we naturally
think of "vicarious" in English—is to be identified with Sartre himself? It
is more subtle than this. As Michel Contat points out, 11 what happens to
Vicarios in Les Chemins de la liberte is essentially what happened in real
life to Sartre's friend Nizan, who left the Communist party on the occasion
of the Soviet-German pact, and was unjustly denounced by his former
comrades as a police agent. Schneider/Vicarios is the incarnation of the
political uncertainties of both Sartre and Nizan, with whom Sartre had une
drole d'amitie (a peculiar friendship), and for whose rehabilitation he
worked after Nizan's death in the war. Finally, before we leave the subject
of proper names, let us note that there are a number of (no doubt) tonguein-cheek
references to the Swiss, and that Sartre's mother and her family
were Schweitzers. 12
In Les Mouches (The Flies), a title reminiscent of such plays as The
Wasps, The Birds, and The Frogs by Aristophanes, we have a triple play
on words, two that are obvious—les mouches mordent (flies bite), les
Cf. Sartre, L'Existentialisme est un hwnanisme, 84.
11 CEuvres romanesques, 2107.
12 E.g.: "Tout le monde n'a pas la chance d'etre Suisse" ["It's not everyone who
has the good luck to be Swiss"] (Le Sursis, 1033); "Tu es sur que ta montre
marche?' Le sergent sourit et regarde sa montre avec complaisance. 'C'est une
montre suisse,' dit-il simplement" ["'You're sure your watch is going?'" The
sergeant smiled and looked at his watch complacently. 'It's a Swiss watch' was all
he said"] (La Mort dans Vame, 1415).