Abstract

In Westworld, viewers learn that the timid and mild‐mannered William is the younger version of the violent, sinister, mission‐driven Man in Black. This chapter considers what it means for William to have, as Sartre calls it, an existential project. It shows how Sartre's theory explains quite cogently William's change in essence from his young self to the violent Man in Black. In a Sartrean framework, William did not discover himself in the park, rather, his experience in the park, or new “situation”, led him to make a new choice of himself in the world and pursue a new set of ends. The chapter then examines Maeve's choice to leave the train at the end of the “The Bicameral Mind”. Although Maeve is a programmed android, she is able to resist her programming and formulate her own goal and, perhaps, start her own existential journey.