subsequent plays and novels; in fact it inspires the English title for one of
his plays: “Loser Wins.”^31 This mantra will echo in later paradoxes such
as the claim that in art, one must lie to tell the truth and even in the
ontological phenomenon of “counter-finality” in nature, where the
intention is foiled by the very achievement of the end.^32 In a sense, these
are forms of Nietzschean “inversion” where cause and effect exchange
roles. As such, a certain Nietzschean “logic” can be seen at play in this
and other Sartrean stories.
The Nietzschean presence inThe Defeatis enhanced with references
to a mystique of “Power” (la Force) but associated with the notion of
freedom as exhibited in the following excerpts: “Freedom and spring.
[Fre ́de ́ric] lives for freedom spring strikes him as a freedom which he
doesn’t know how to handle...‘Spring,’ he muses, ‘is an invitation to
become aware of oneself; it is an invitation to Power. If one feels free in
springtime, it is because nature ceases to be hostile to one’s body. It’s
in equilibrium with spring. Spring is pure power [la Force]’” (EJ
218 – 219 ). Like restless and indomitable Nature, Fre ́de ́ric “cannot be
the disciple of any man” (EJ 232 ). And though Delilah’s gentle manipu-
lation in the Samson story, toward which Fre ́de ́ric’s meditation turns,
teaches him that “power” is more than simple “force,” Samson’s self-
destructive victory over the Philistines confirms again the thesis that
“the loser wins.” Sartre has telescoped a series of Nietzschean themes
in these lines – power (both subtle and overt), nature, embodiment,
freedom and autonomy – without seeking to systematize them any more
than did Nietzsche himself.
Punctuated with moments of Proustian description suggestive of what
Husserlian phenomenology would later enable Sartre to exploit philo-
sophically, the novel raises issues where psychological and epistemic
concerns overlap – as they will do in phenomenological descriptions.
Consider Sartre’s analysis of Cosima, as being irreparably (irre ́parable-
ment) an other to Fre ́de ́ric:
(^31) Better known asThe Condemned of Altona(trans. Slyvia and George Leeson [New York:
32 Vintage,^1961 ]); hereafterCondemned.
Sartre’s most graphic examples of such counterfinality in theCritiqueare exhibited by the
loss of arable land occasioned by floods brought about by the very deforestation intended to
increase such land (in vol.i) and by the feints and jabs of the boxing match (in vol.ii). See
Jean-Paul Sartre,The Critique of Dialectical Reason, trans. Alan Sheridan-Smith (London:
Ve r s o, 2004 ),i: 161 – 165 andii: 5 – 6 and 17 – 50. HereafterCDR.
30 An elite education: student, author, soldier, teacher