Jean-Paul Sartre - Quiz
Jean Paul Sartre
  • 1. Which work defined the first period of Sartre's career?
A) The Second Sex
B) Critique of Dialectical Reason
C) Les mains sales
D) Being and Nothingness
  • 2. In his 1948 play Les mains sales, what topic did Sartre explore?
A) The problem of being a politically engaged intellectual
B) The life of French resistance fighters
C) The economic future of the United States of Europe
D) The merits of Soviet labor camps
  • 3. What did Sartre call French nationalism in a 1949 essay?
A) Revolutionary
B) Provincial
C) Essential
D) Outdated
  • 4. Sartre argued that Europe should strive to be what?
A) A colonial power
B) A satellite of the Soviet Union
C) A third communist bloc
D) An autonomous force between the blocs
  • 5. Regarding the Korean War, who did Sartre believe began the conflict?
A) The North Koreans
B) The American imperialists
C) The South Korean feudalists
D) The United Nations
  • 6. What catchphrase did Sartre use to argue that communists should withhold the truth from workers?
A) The masses are always ready for the truth
B) Workers of Billancourt must not be deprived of their hopes
C) Truth is the ultimate revolutionary act
D) History will absolve the workers
  • 7. Who called Sartre an 'ultra-Bolshevik' due to his opposition to criticizing the Soviet Union?
A) Frantz Fanon
B) Maurice Merleau-Ponty
C) Louis Althusser
D) François Bondy
  • 8. What did Sartre claim to find when he visited the Soviet Union in 1954?
A) A democratic political structure
B) Complete freedom of criticism
C) A failing economic system
D) Evidence of labor camps
  • 9. What was Sartre's stance on the expulsion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the Union of Soviet Writers in 1969?
A) He defended the expulsion as necessary
B) He remained silent on the issue
C) He signed a letter of protest against the expulsion
D) He publicly praised the decision
  • 10. Which Polish leader did Sartre admire for favoring a 'Polish road to socialism'?
A) Władysław Gomułka
B) Nikita Khrushchev
C) Joseph Stalin
D) Lech Wałęsa
  • 11. Which organization did Sartre support during the Algerian War?
A) The French military
B) The American CIA
C) The FLN
D) The OAS
  • 12. What was the result of Sartre's involvement in the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria?
A) He was forced to leave the Communist Party
B) He was exiled to Algeria
C) He became a target of the OAS and survived bomb attacks
D) He was imprisoned by the French government
  • 13. What was the purpose of the Russell Tribunal established in 1967?
A) To condemn the Soviet invasion of Hungary
B) To judge French actions in Algeria
C) To promote European autonomy
D) To expose U.S. war crimes in Vietnam
  • 14. In the Critique of Dialectical Reason, what conclusion did Sartre reach about Marx's notion of 'class'?
A) It applied only to the bourgeoisie
B) It was scientifically perfect
C) It was fallacious as an objective entity
D) It was the only truth of history
  • 15. Whom did Sartre consider to be the 'most complete human being of our age'?
A) Ernesto 'Che' Guevara
B) Fidel Castro
C) Władysław Gomułka
D) Bertrand Russell
  • 16. How did Sartre compare the persecution of homosexuals in Cuba to other historical events?
A) To French colonialism
B) To Nazi persecution of the Jews
C) To American imperialism
D) To Soviet labor camps
  • 17. Whom did Sartre visit in Stammheim Prison in 1974?
A) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
B) Robert Brasillach
C) Fidel Castro
D) Andreas Baader
  • 18. Who was Sartre's Algerian mistress who later became his adopted daughter?
A) Frantz Fanon
B) Simone de Beauvoir
C) Arlette Elkaïm
D) Louis Aragon
  • 19. What did Sartre believe regarding the masses and the truth during the era of Khrushchev?
A) Khrushchev was a liar
B) The masses were not ready to receive the truth
C) The truth should always be prioritized
D) The masses knew the truth already
  • 20. What did Sartre describe as his 'disgust' in the 1960s?
A) The Americanization of the French working class
B) The rise of existentialism
C) The spread of Maoism in Europe
D) The collapse of the Soviet Union
  • 21. In which city was Jean-Paul Sartre born?
A) Meudon
B) La Rochelle
C) Paris
D) Trier
  • 22. What subject did Sartre's grandfather, Charles Schweitzer, teach him?
A) History
B) Physics
C) Philosophy
D) Mathematics
  • 23. Which prestigious institution was Sartre's alma mater?
A) École Normale Supérieure
B) Lycée Condorcet
C) Institut français d'Allemagne
D) Lycée Pasteur
  • 24. What is the English translation of Sartre's concept 'mauvaise foi'?
A) Bourgeois morality
B) Evil intent
C) Bad faith
D) False consciousness
  • 25. Which year was Sartre awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature?
A) 1980
B) 1955
C) 1964
D) 1945
  • 26. What was the name of the resistance group co-founded by Sartre?
A) Socialisme et Liberté
B) Sous la Botte
C) Les Temps modernes
D) Combat
  • 27. Which philosopher did Sartre study at the Institut français d'Allemagne in Berlin?
A) Jean Hyppolite
B) Henri Bergson
C) Alexandre Kojève
D) Edmund Husserl
  • 28. What physical condition did Sartre suffer from?
A) Color blindness
B) Sensory exotropia
C) Astigmatism
D) Myopia
  • 29. What was the name of the journal Sartre co-founded in 1945?
A) La Nouvelle Revue française
B) Combat
C) La Condition humaine
D) Les Temps modernes
  • 30. During World War II, in which branch of the French military did Sartre serve?
A) Infantry
B) Intelligence
C) Meteorologist
D) Artillery
  • 31. What is the origin of the phrase 'Hell is other people'?
A) His play No Exit
B) Being and Nothingness
C) His political activism in Algeria
D) His essay on antisemitism
  • 32. Which thinker was considered Sartre's alter ego during his university years?
A) Albert Camus
B) Paul Nizan
C) Raymond Aron
D) Maurice Merleau-Ponty
  • 33. Which famous work by Louis-Ferdinand Céline influenced Sartre in 1932?
A) Being and Nothingness
B) Existentialism Is a Humanism
C) Voyage au bout de la nuit
D) The Flies
  • 34. Where was Sartre held as a prisoner of war?
A) Stalag XII-D
B) A prison in Paris
C) A camp in La Rochelle
D) A camp in Indochina
  • 35. How did Sartre describe the behavior of German soldiers in occupied Paris?
A) Hostile
B) Chaotic
C) Correct
D) Aggressive
  • 36. Which political ideology did Sartre align himself with later in life?
A) Liberalism
B) Fascism
C) Conservatism
D) Maoism
  • 37. What is the English title of Sartre's work 'L'existentialisme est un humanisme'?
A) Being and Nothingness
B) The Roads to Freedom
C) Black Orpheus
D) Existentialism Is a Humanism
  • 38. Where was Sartre's headquarters located before World War II?
A) The Dome café
B) A Parisian university library
C) The French Communist Party headquarters
D) A resistance safe house
  • 39. Which intellectual was executed for 'intellectual crimes' despite Sartre's advocacy for the sentence?
A) Robert Brasillach
B) Michael Walzer
C) Brian C. Anderson
D) Frantz Fanon
  • 40. Which political party did Sartre help found in 1948?
A) French Communist Party
B) Rassemblement démocratique révolutionnaire
C) Gaullist Party
D) Gauche prolétarienne
  • 41. What was a major challenge for public intellectuals during Sartre's time?
A) A shortage of writing paper
B) Technological advancements outdating the printed word
C) Lack of interest in philosophy
D) Government bans on university teaching
  • 42. Who criticized Sartre by calling him a hypocrite for not volunteering to be killed?
A) Michael Walzer
B) Robert Brasillach
C) Josie Fanon
D) Frantz Fanon
  • 43. Which film script did Sartre write for John Huston before withdrawing his name?
A) Saint Genet
B) Freud: The Secret Passion
C) The Family Idiot
D) The Roads to Freedom
  • 44. In what year did the Catholic Church place Sartre's œuvre on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum?
A) 1945
B) 1980
C) 1964
D) 1948
  • 45. Which decoration did Sartre refuse in 1945?
A) Nobel Prize
B) Prix Goncourt
C) Presidential Medal of Freedom
D) Légion d'honneur
  • 46. What was the cause of Sartre's death on 15 April 1980?
A) Hypertension
B) Complications from a stroke
C) Blindness
D) Pulmonary edema
  • 47. Where was Sartre buried after his death?
A) Montparnasse Cemetery
B) The Pantheon
C) Outside Paris
D) Père-Lachaise Cemetery
  • 48. What substance did Sartre use during the writing of his massive analytical biography of Flaubert?
A) Coffee
B) Opium
C) Amphetamines
D) Alcohol
  • 49. Who provided the model of littérature engagée for Sartre's generation?
A) Gustave Flaubert
B) André Gide
C) Marcel Proust
D) Albert Camus
  • 50. How many people accompanied Sartre's funeral cortege on 19 April 1980?
A) 10,000
B) 50,000
C) 5,000
D) 100,000
  • 51. Which object does Sartre use to illustrate the concept of essence?
A) A paper cutter
B) A book
C) A clock
D) A mirror
  • 52. What is the result of human beings having no Creator?
A) We are guided by a universal human nature.
B) We are destined to find a specific purpose.
C) We are left alone without excuse.
D) We are protected from absolute responsibility.
  • 53. What happens to a person when they die, according to Sartre?
A) They reach a state of pure essence.
B) They are finally free from the burden of existence.
C) They become objects that exist only for the outside world.
D) They continue to define their own meaning.
  • 54. In what year did Sartre meet Simone de Beauvoir at the École normale?
A) 1929
B) 1945
C) 1943
D) 1951
  • 55. When did Sartre and Albert Camus first meet?
A) 1945
B) 1929
C) June 1943
D) 1951
  • 56. At the opening of which play did Sartre first meet Camus?
A) The Flies
B) The Rebel
C) No Exit
D) The Wall
  • 57. Which newspaper assigned Sartre to travel to America in 1945?
A) Le Monde
B) The New York Times
C) Combat
D) Vogue
  • 58. In which publication did Sartre praise Camus's work as the literature of the future?
A) Combat
B) The Rebel
C) Vogue
D) The Flies
  • 59. What book did Camus publish in 1951 that caused a disagreement with Sartre?
A) The Myth of Sisyphus
B) The Flies
C) The Plague
D) The Rebel
  • 60. What did Sartre write for Camus after Camus passed away?
A) An apology
B) A biography
C) A scathing critique
D) A eulogy
  • 61. What is the English title of Bianca Lamblin's memoir?
A) The Respectful Prostitute
B) The Last Chance
C) No Exit
D) A Disgraceful Affair
  • 62. In what year was Bianca Lamblin's book published?
A) 1945
B) 1990
C) 1993
D) 1977
  • 63. Under what pseudonym was Bianca Lamblin referred to in Sartre's published letters?
A) Castor
B) Natalie Sorokin
C) Olga Kosakiewicz
D) Louise Védrine
  • 64. In which year was Sartre's novel Nausea published?
A) 1945
B) 1939
C) 1938
D) 1948
  • 65. The Wall is a collection of how many short stories?
A) 7
B) 5
C) 10
D) 3
  • 66. Which work by Sartre is described as unfinished?
A) Typhus
B) The Reprieve
C) The Trojan Women
D) The Last Chance
  • 67. Which play was also known by the title Crime Passionnel?
A) The Devil and the Good Lord
B) In the Mesh
C) The Victors
D) Dirty Hands
  • 68. When was the screenplay Typhus published?
A) 2007
B) 1944
C) 1984
D) 1962
  • 69. Who directed the film version of The Chips Are Down?
A) Jean Delannoy
B) Jean-Paul Sartre
C) Raymond Rouleau
D) John Huston
  • 70. What is another title for the play Morts sans sépulture?
A) Nekrassov
B) The Devil and the Good Lord
C) The Trojan Women
D) The Victors
  • 71. In which year was the play The Condemned of Altona published?
A) 1959
B) 1953
C) 1955
D) 1951
  • 72. Which of the following plays was written by Sartre in 1940?
A) Bariona
B) Kean
C) The Trojan Women
D) Nekrassov
  • 73. What is the primary subject of The Family Idiot?
A) Karl Marx
B) Gustave Flaubert
C) Charles Baudelaire
D) Jean Genet
  • 74. In which year was Existentialism Is a Humanism published?
A) 1946
B) 1943
C) 1960
D) 1957
  • 75. Which autobiographical work by Sartre was published in 1964?
A) Witness to My Life
B) Sartre By Himself
C) War Diaries
D) The Words
  • 76. What is the subject of the work 'Anti-Semite and Jew'?
A) Reflections on the Jewish question
B) Literary critique of Baudelaire
C) Colonialism in Africa
D) The philosophy of Marxism
  • 77. In which publication did Sartre write 'Americans and Their Myths' in 1947?
A) The Nation
B) Situations I
C) The New York Times
D) Le Monde
  • 78. Which essay deals with a psychological critique of imagination?
A) Truth and Existence
B) Situations IV
C) Being and Nothingness
D) L'imagination
  • 79. When were the 'War Diaries' published?
A) 1984
B) 1964
C) 1946
D) 1959
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