ABSTRACT
The role of parody in Sartre's Les Mats has received some critical attention but the view that parody is a fundamental literary and philosophical strategy for Sartre has not been fully explored.! This discussion will focus on Les Mats as a parody of autobiography itself by comparing it with Book I of Rousseau's Confessions, will examine how Sartre's parodic strategy is linked to his philosophic concerns and what light parody throws on Sartre's development as a writer. The latter question can also be linked to a related problem, namely the reasons for Sartre's abandonment of literature for journalism, interviews and biography in the latter half of his career. Sartre's parodic technique, understood as an underlying strategy of his writing, may go some way to explain his formal eclecticism?
