An Analysis of the Background of Sweeney Todd’s Murderous Path with Theravada Buddhist and Sartre’s Free Will Theories

Abstract

This research paper contains these following objectives: 1) to study Jean-Paul Sartre’s free will theory, 2) to study Theravada Buddhist’s free will theory, and 3) to analyze Sweeney Todd’s behaviors with Theravada Buddhist and Jean-Paul Sartre’s free will theories. Main perspectives relating to free will, both from Sartre and Theravada Buddhism, were studied by the researcher. From this point, the researcher realized that the two sides share the belief in free will, indicating that humans are able to choose their own paths but, at the same time, forced to accept consequences. According to Sartre’s theory, the philosopher said directly that men are condemned to be free and everybody needs to be responsible for their choices. On the other hand, Theravada Buddhism doesn’t mention free will directly, but contains a series of principles, including ‘Saṅkhārakkhandha’, that confirm humans’ intelligence, the ability to think and the ability to make decisions. The law of ‘Karma’ also insists that humans can never escape results of their choices and acts. Therefore, after analyzing Sweeney Todd’s behaviors with Sartre and Theravada Buddhism’s views, the researcher discovered that Sweeney Todd became a serial murderer on purpose. Even the life of this fictional character was unfairly destroyed, waking the vengefulness inside him up, everything was controlled by his own mind and decision. It was clear that he chose his own murderous path and, inevitably, had to accept his own ending.