Sartre & Virginia Woolf on Patterns of Bad Faith

In class on Tuesday, October 7th, we discussed Sartre’s “Patterns of Bad Faith”. I really enjoyed this section because I could see where Sartre was going with his philosophy on the patterns of bad faith in a much more familiar and understandable manner than I have encountered in other works. I am going to venture to say that none of us can call ourselves one of Nietzsche’s “übermensches”, however, I can suggest that all of us have encountered the predicament of the woman on a date or the waiter that Sartre uses in “Patterns of Bad Faith”.
While we were discussing this section of the reading, Professor Johnson mentioned Virginia Woolf’s “To The Lighthouse”. After she made the connection between Sartre and Woolf I immediately recalled a scene in the novel that is a perfect example of Sartre’s model of the woman on the date who is conducting herself in bad faith.

In the third and final section of “To the Lighthouse”, there is a scene between the main male character, Mr. Ramsay, and the Viginia Woolfesque character, Lily Briscoe. The scene takes place ten years after Mr. Ramsay’s wife has died and he and Lily, an artist and friend of the Ramsay family, are reunited at the Ramsay’s summerhouse. Mr. Ramsay is a needy, short-tempered man who until now in the novel has had the unwavering support and love of his wife. In this scene, he is seeking the sympathy and attention Lily who is, as Sartre would say, is reducing herself to her transcendence in order to remove herself from the uncomfortable situation.

Lily has decided to continue working on a painting that she had started 10 years prior to the scene however, she cannot concentrate and paint because Mr. Ramsay is hovering, lurking, and being distracting. Lily is very aware of his presence and chooses to ignore it by pretending to drink out of her empty coffee cup, concentrate on her brushes and her paint all in order to “put aside a moment longer that imperious need” that Mr. Ramsay is demanding of her. With him intruding on her space Woolf describes Lily’s struggle to avoid him as this:

“With Mr. Ramsay bearing down on her, she could do nothing. Every time he approached-he was walking up and down the terrace- ruin approached, chaos approached. She could not paint. He made it impossible for her to do anything.” 

“He permeated, he prevailed, he imposed himself. He changed everything. She could not see the colour; she could not see the lines; even with his back turned to her, she could only think, But he’ll be down on me in a moment, demanding- something she felt she could not give him”

“You shan’t touch your canvas, he seemed to say, bearing down on her, till you’ve given me what I want of you. Here he was, close upon her again, greedy, distraught.”

The need that Mr. Ramsay is demanding of Lily is her sympathy. He needs Lily to play the domestic, female role that his wife had played so well (maybe too well, we should ask Sartre if the late Mrs. Ramsay was reducing herself to her facticity by playing the role of “wife” so well). Lily however, is trying to escape his demands by ignoring them. In doing so, she is reducing herself to her transcendence, telling herself that she is above this domestic business, she is an artist in a world where men are telling her women can’t paint. Mr. Ramsay is asking her to act in a way that is not in her nature or character to do. Mr. Ramsay gives her various cues with his gestures and speech that would inevitably allow her to ask him why he is so sulky and how she can reassure him of his self worth. However, Lily pretends to not notice these attempts to gain her sympathy and attention by distracting herself by looking toward the sea (much like the woman on the date in Sartre’s “Patterns of Bad Faith” distracts herself from her date’s demands and intentions with polite conversation about the weather and the nice trees).

The difference between Sartre’s example and Woolf’s is that in “To the Lighthouse” we can see Mr. Ramsay’s attempts to make Lily make “the decision” and Lily’s struggle to escape acting in a decisive manner in great detail. Unlike the woman in Sartre’s “Patterns of Bad Faith”, we can see Lily reducing herself to her transcendence and her recognizing that she is doing so. In “Pattern’s of Bad Faith”, Sartre leads us to believe that the woman is lying to herself about her transcendence. I think that “lying” is too harsh of a word to use here. As Lily as an example, it is clear that Lily knows that she is being indecisive and her decision to reduce herself to her transcendence is making her uncomfortable and feel guilty. She also recognizes that she is making Mr. Ramsay uncomfortable and frustrated. She is not oblivious to her behavior; she is having an internal struggle with herself as well as a polite, unspoken struggle with Mr. Ramsay. However, despite her recognition of her transcendence and her guilt for her behavior, she is still conducting herself in bad faith according to Sartre. However, if she were to cave to Mr. Ramsay’s demands, Sartre would probably say that she is still acting in bad faith because she is reducing herself to her facticity by playing the role of Mrs. Ramsay (who while she was alive played the role of the traditional, domestic, nurturing, idealized wife to an excruciatingly perfect manner). Sartre seems like a tough guy to please and as we discussed in class, it is almost impossible to find that balance between reducing oneself to their transcendence or facticity in order to conduct oneself in good faith. And with that I will leave you with my favorite quote from this scene in “To the Lighthouse” which is a perfect summary of the scenario and the two characters unspoken struggle with each other and their own bad faith:

“They stood there, isolated from the rest of the world. His immense self-pity, his demand for sympathy poured and spread itself in pools at her feet, and all she did, miserable sinner that she was, was to draw her skirts a little closer round her ankles, lest she should get wet”.