Jean-Paul Sartre, “Why Write?” From What is Literature?

What are the answers to Sartre’s questions on why write? What is the role of the reader when reading literature?

Freedom is the answer to the question: Why Write? In the essay, Sartre asserts that an author, just like anyone, has a freedom. Through writing, the author is able to animate and penetrate his freedom. As a writer though, he must be aware that he cannot escape from history. His history includes an implicit recourse to institutions, customs, certain forms of implicit recourse to institutions, customs, certain forms of oppression and conflict, to the wisdom and the folly of the day, to lasting passions and passing stubbornness, to superstitions and recent victories of commonsense, to evidence and ignorance, to particular modes of reasoning which the sciences have made fashionable and which are applied in all domains, to hopes to fears, to habits of sensibility, imagination, and even perception, and finally, to customs and values. All these (history and ideology) are inevitably included in the author’s text. Hence, as he writes, he unconsciously freely expresses these (representing himself).
So in reading, what is the role of the reader? Just like the author, the reader has freedom—freedom to interpret the text according to his history and ideology. For this reason, the interpretation of a text differs from one reader to another. Phenomenology believes that an object exist because it is registered in the mind of the reader. If that appeals to the consciousness of the reader, then it exists—it has a meaning. Because different people have different backgrounds (consciousness), there will also be differences in the interpretation. Still, there is no one correct interpretation.
The reading process (or the interaction between the author and text), in Phenomenology, can be summarized through the proceeding sentences. When the reader reads, he brings with him his worldview (or theme identity) to see the text. As he brings his worldview with him, he interacts with the text. While interacting with the text, the author is able to express himself (his purpose, intention, history, ideology, among others) to the reader. This process further implies that there are as many interpretations of the text as there are readers.
Therefore, Sartre states that the writer must write for a public which has the freedom of changing everything.