I first read Sartre’s The Age of Reason on a dingy couch with a cigarette burning itself out in the ashtray.
A book about a philosophy I barely understood but somehow felt in my bones. Existentialism. Freedom. Meaning. Or the lack of it.
Jean-Paul Sartre, that chain-smoking Frenchman, wrote this novel in 1945.
It’s the first book in his Roads to Freedom trilogy, a series that does for philosophy what whiskey does for a bad mood—drags it into the open and makes it louder.
The plot follows Mathieu, a philosophy professor in Paris, who is 34, broke, and trying to find the money for an abortion for his mistress, Marcelle.
He tells himself he values freedom above all, but does he? Or is he just running from responsibility like a rat from a sinking ship?
Sartre doesn’t make it easy for him. Or for us.
A Quick Look at the Players
- Mathieu Delarue – The main guy. A walking contradiction. Loves his freedom but spends the whole novel proving he has no idea what to do with it. Stuck in his own head, drowning in self-doubt. Wants to be a noble rebel but acts like a lost child.
- Marcelle – His mistress. Pregnant. Tired. Wants stability, love, a real life. Mathieu is the worst person to provide any of it.
- Ivich – A moody, self-destructive student. Young, reckless, and more interested in being a tortured artist than actually achieving anything. Mathieu is infatuated with her, which is another bad idea on his long list of bad ideas.
- Brunet – A Communist and an old friend of Mathieu. Represents action, ideology, certainty—everything Mathieu lacks.
- Daniel – A rich, manipulative bastard. Has money, doesn’t care. Watches other people squirm for his own amusement. Secretly in love with Mathieu, but would rather mess with him than admit it.
The whole book happens in a few days, but those days are packed with enough indecision, self-loathing, and philosophical dread to fill a lifetime.
Mathieu scrambles to get money for Marcelle’s abortion, but every attempt is a slow-motion disaster.
His friends are no help. His students are clueless. His mistress is losing patience.
And while all this is happening, he keeps getting lost in his head, circling the same questions like a drunk stumbling home.
What does it mean to be free? Can you ever truly escape responsibility?
Or is freedom just another illusion we tell ourselves while life makes choices for us?
The answers aren’t pretty.
1. Freedom Is a Beautiful, Terrible Thing
Mathieu thinks he wants freedom. He talks about it like a drunk talks about quitting—loud, passionate, and completely full of shit.
He doesn’t want to get married. He doesn’t want to be a father. He doesn’t want to be tied down. Fine.
But what does he actually want? That’s where things get messy.
He has no real plans, no real ambitions. He wants to be free, but all that really means is that he wants to avoid responsibility.
He stands in the middle of his life like a man at a train station, watching everyone else get on their trains, while he just stands there, waiting for something better.
Sartre is brutal about this. Freedom isn’t just about running away. It’s about what you do once you’re out there.
And Mathieu? He doesn’t do a damn thing.
2. Existentialism Is a Bitch
No fate. No guiding hand. Just you, your choices, and the weight of your own decisions pressing down on your ribs. That’s existentialism, baby.
Mathieu doesn’t believe in destiny. He believes in freedom, in choice.
But the cruel joke is that his own choices are the reason he’s miserable.
He keeps making decisions that don’t lead anywhere, like a rat running in a wheel. And every time he hesitates, time moves forward without him.
Sartre doesn’t just write about existentialism—he forces you to feel it. The nausea of being alive.
The terror of knowing that nobody is coming to save you. The realization that, in the end, it’s all on you.
3. Money, Morals, and Madness
Mathieu needs 4,000 francs. It might as well be 4 million.
Money in The Age of Reason isn’t just currency—it’s a test.
It’s a mirror that shows you who you really are when things get desperate. Mathieu asks for loans, but his friends suddenly have better things to do.
He asks Daniel, who does have the money, but Daniel plays with him like a cat with a dying mouse. It’s ugly. It’s humiliating. It’s real.
Sartre paints a Paris where money isn’t just a problem—it’s the thing that separates dreamers from survivors.
And Mathieu? He’s not a survivor.
4. Love Is Just Another Kind of Prison
Marcelle wants security. Mathieu wants escape. Ivich wants destruction.
Love in this book isn’t romantic. It’s desperate. It’s people clinging to each other because they’re scared of being alone.
Mathieu likes Marcelle, but love? Not really.
She’s just another responsibility he wants to avoid.
But here’s the kicker: Ivich, the younger woman he obsesses over, isn’t interested in being “saved” by him. She’s as lost as he is, just in a different way.
Sartre shows love not as a cure, but as another cage.
Sometimes the person holding you back the most is the one who loves you.
And sometimes, you’re the one clipping your own wings.
5. Time Eats Us All Alive
Time is the real villain here. It never stops. Never slows. Never waits for you to get your shit together.
Mathieu keeps hesitating, keeps thinking he has time. But deadlines don’t care about philosophy.
Marcelle’s pregnancy doesn’t pause for his existential crisis.
He waits too long, and suddenly, all his choices are made for him.
That’s the real horror of the novel—not war, not money, not love. Time itself.
Sartre doesn’t need a monster under the bed. The monster is the clock on the wall.
Summary Table
| Theme | What It Means | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Freedom | You have to do something with it, or it’s meaningless. | Shows how people trap themselves in their own indecision. |
| Existentialism | No fate, just choices—and their consequences. | Forces the reader to confront personal responsibility. |
| Money & Morality | Desperation brings out the truth. | Shows how financial struggle can be an existential crisis. |
| Love & Prison | Love isn’t always salvation. | Challenges the idea that relationships fix everything. |
| Time | It doesn’t wait. Ever. | Creates a slow, suffocating dread that sticks with you. |
Conclusion
You want to live without chains? Fine.
But don’t be surprised when the wind knocks you over.
Sartre knew that. Mathieu learns it too late. And the rest of us? We tell ourselves we’re different.
That we’d choose better. That we wouldn’t be caught standing in the wreckage of our own decisions, blinking like idiots.
Maybe that’s true.
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