Crime passionnel

Crime passionnel is a French-language edition of Sartre's play, better known in English as Dirty Hands. It is set in a fictional Eastern European country during the Second World War, where a young idealistic communist is given a dangerous political task. The play weighs principle against practical politics, and asks how far one may compromise ideals to achieve a goal. It is a tense drama of loyalty, suspicion and conscience, and it shows Sartre's interest in political action and moral choice.