One of the main philosophical arguments that Existentialism philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre argues is the idea of bad faith and its application to not only society, as a whole, but also to the individual. Bad faith is the relationship between self deception and the sacrifice of freedom. It is based on who one is based on the current society that one is currently in. Bad faith argues that one limits and deceive themselves in relation to the role one play in society. Sartre implies that one’s sacrifice of freedom is based on not only what one is and what one does, but what one expect of themselves. A literary representation of the application of Sartre’s theory of bad faith is the transformation of Gregor from a human being to a bug. Gregor’s transformation…show more content… In the book, Sartre argues that “ the being of consciousness is the consciousness of being”. (Sartre 68). In the story The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the reader is introduced to the main character Gregor. His transformation from a man to a bug serves as the main idea of what the story is about. It is about struggle. Its relation to bad faith is that it is about accepting ourselves in our new sense, as well as navigating the society around one. At first, Gregor is sad and depressed that he is not able to do things that he once was capable of; however over time he becomes accustomed to his new role and his new identity. Because of his new role and identity transformation, Gregor struggles to identify what his new role is and based on his new role what is considered obliged and what is not obliged. This leads to him becoming a burden both financially and mentally on the family. A real world example of Gregor’s struggles is accepting a new job after graduating college. One do not know what is expected of one, but at the same time, one is expected to know some certain requirements about the job and the obligations and non-obligations it entails. Both of these situations relate to Sartre’s argument about bad faith because of their relationship to acceptance and their rigidity to society. The…show more content… In this case, one sees that both struggle to not only fit within the society themselves, but that they also struggle to accept who they are as people in their new identities. Both of these scenarios lead to self deception.This not only forms a self deception within ourselves, but it also forms a self-deception in relation to the public and our loss of freedom. This type of self deception is a deeply associated with American popular culture. An example of this phenomenon is the idea of an athlete. The athlete is deceived into thinking that they are actually a hero by the public. At the same time, the public knows that the athlete is just playing a role by entertaining people. However, in extreme circumstances, the athlete starts buying into their hype, which Sartre implies constrains the athlete’s freedom. Although there may be a small minority of people who do not believe he is just an athlete, he is still just an athlete. This not only clouds our judgment of people in relation to society, but it also clouds the judgment of ourselves with eventual acceptance. These particular attributes in both Sartre’s argument of bad faith and the transformation of Gregor helps one understand the relationship between both scenarios.It helps one understand the struggle of not only accepting ourselves, but also one being accepted by society as a
