| − | While the broad focus of Sartre's life revolved around the notion of human freedom, he began a sustained intellectual participation in more public matters in 1945. Prior to this—before the Second World War—he was content with the role of an apolitical liberal intellectual: "Now teaching at a lycée in Laon [...] Sartre made his headquarters the Dome café at the crossing of Montparnasse and Raspail boulevards. He attended plays, read novels, and dined <nowiki>[with]</nowiki> women. He wrote. And he was published" (Gerassi 1989: 134). Sartre and his lifelong companion, [[Simone de Beauvoir]], existed, in her words, where "the world about us was a mere backdrop against which our private lives were played out" (de Beauvoir 1958: 339). | + | While the broad focus of Sartre's life revolved around the notion of human freedom, he began a sustained intellectual participation in more public matters in 1945. Prior to this—before the Second World War—he was content with the role of an apolitical liberal intellectual: "Now teaching at a lycée in Laon [...] Sartre made his headquarters the Dome café at the crossing of Montparnasse and Raspail boulevards. He attended plays, read novels, and dined <nowiki>[with]</nowiki> women. He wrote. And he was published" (Gerassi 1989: 134). Sartre and his lifelong companion, Simone de Beauvoir, existed, in her words, where "the world about us was a mere backdrop against which our private lives were played out" (de Beauvoir 1958: 339). |