The Sartre-Camus Controversy: A Literary and Philosophical Critique

Margaret Dowling was a Toronto librarian.

Royle has written a critique of the Sartre-Camus controversy with a thoroughness that gets to the heart of the differences that separated them. Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were French political and literary figures of the 1950s whose friendship broke because of differences in their philosophical outlook.

These differences have been explained and analyzed by other writers on a political plane, whereas Royle has set out to elucidate the argument and differences using their works of fiction as a vehicle. Taking the literature of both these writers, Royle shows them in relation to each other and in relation to the world around them. Germaine Bree, author of Camus and Sartre: Crisis and Commitment (London: Calder and Boyais, 1974) said, “It is Camus’ relation with others that most clearly differentiates his attitude as writer and as human being, from Sartre’s. His confrontations are with himself; others he may have to struggle against but he does not ‘judge’.” Royle, in examining the stories of these two writers, agrees that “Sartre’s attitude to nature is the opposite of Camus’s. Whereas for Camus, despite the ambivalences I have pointed out, nature is essentially wholesome and refreshing, for Sartre it is menacing and revolting.”

Royle has written an objective analysis, indicating the overall theme of both writers to be one of concern for man’s place in this world. Sartre’s emphasis on responsibility and Camus’s stress on the value of the individual come through in Royle’s interpretations.