Born in 1905, Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He believed that philosophical arguments were most persuasive when presented as fiction. However, unlike works such as Voltaire's Candide, Sartre's fiction rejected the allegory and parable genres, and instead plainly outlined many of his most complicated ideas in a thinly veiled narrative format. Although Sartre is most well known for his straightforward philosophical analysis in Being and Nothingness, his arguments and theories are conveniently summarized in his novels, short stories, and plays. For example, one of his most gripping plays, No Exit, was written in 1944, just one year after Being and Nothingness. As a result, many of the themes and symbolism in the play support and condense Sartre's arguments in the larger (and longer) philosophical work.
Sartre was interested in the nature of existence, freedom, responsibility, consciousness, and time, helping to develop a philosophical movement called existentialism. Sartre defined existentialism as the doctrine that "existence precedes essence." He distinguished between inanimate objects, or a "being-in-itself," and human consciousness, or a "being-for-itself." For example, consider a computer mouse. Its essence is the quality or qualities that one would use to describe it, such as its shape, color, smoothness, and weight. Its existence results from the fact that it plainly is. This distinction means that the observer "creates" the essence of the object simply by being conscious of it. The computer mouse is thus a "being-in-itself": its character has been assigned to it. But a person's emotions are not the same as a mouse's color. Sartre claimed that if one is happy it is by his or her own free choice. In this sense, humans exist and then define and choose their essence. Someone who has no fixed character consciously decides his or her essence and is thus a "being-for-itself."
War and tragedy influenced many of Sartre's ideas. For example, the Spanish Civil War and the worldwide economic crisis instigated many of his writings during the 1930s. Nevertheless, World War II had an enormous effect on Sartre's life both physically and intellectually. When war broke out in 1939 Sartre joined the French Army, but was quickly captured and imprisoned. After France's capitulation in 1940, Germany occupied most of France, including Paris. Sartre and many men like him were allowed to return to Paris. He immediately joined the French Resistance, organizing meetings and writing for clandestine newspapers. In his small circle of intellectuals participating in the Resistance, Sartre was able to develop many of his ideas with future literati, including Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus.
Faced with the humiliation of defeat and the suffering of war and occupation, Sartre examined many of his questions about existence with respect to World War II. For example, No Exit, which takes place in a room in hell occupied by three people who can't stand each other, has often been compared to living in Paris during the German occupation. In this context, Sartre examined such issues as freedom, self-deception, and the nature of time in the play to help fellow French men and women cope with the ordeal of defeat
both during the war and after.
No Exit Characters
Garcin - He is a journalist from Rio and the first to arrive in the room. He was shot by a firing squad for attempting to desert during a war. He is also the best of the three prisoners at dealing with damnation. He recognizes that the three of them have been grouped together to make each other miserable and thinks that each of them should remain silent in their respective corners. He continually tries to make peace with himself and the people he hurt during his lifetime. He does not question his damnation, easily recalling how awful he had been to his wife. When given a chance to leave, he chooses to stay, hoping to convince Inez that he is not a coward.
Inez - A self-described "damned bitch," she is the second prisoner and also the most hostile. She had been a postal clerk and thinks that she is in hell for seducing a friend's wife. Her lover killed them both by leaving the gas on while Inez was asleep. She says that she does not like men and instantly detests everything about Garcin. However, she finds Estelle very attractive and tries to seduce her. She offers to be Estelle's "mirror," by describing her physical appearance, but ends up frightening her instead. After laughing off Estelle's attempt to kill her with a paper-knife, she agrees to let Garcin try and convince her that he is not a coward.
Estelle - The third and final prisoner, she is also the most frightened. She desperately wants to see her reflection in a mirror and swears that she does not belong in hell, having just died of pneumonia. Inez tries to seduce her, but she says that she needs to be with a man. She eventually confesses to not only having an affair, but also drowning the baby of her lover. Garcin is momentarily drawn to her but chooses instead to focus all his energy on Inez. She tries to kill Inez, forgetting that they are all already dead.
Valet - A taciturn representative of the devil. He shows each prisoner to their room, answers their questions, and promptly leaves. There is a call bell in the room but he doesn't always answer it.
No Exit Summary
The scene is a drawing room with Second-Empire French furnishings, including three couches and a bronze mantelpiece. Enter through a door a valet and a man named Joseph Garcin. Garcin is extremely surprised at the room’s appearance – it seems he was expecting something very different.
The two of men converse cryptically about this place and the rules (no mirrors, no nighttime, no sleep) while Garcin guesses about the methods of "torture." The valet reveals that, beyond the door, there are simply more passages and more rooms. Odd. The valet finally excuses himself. Before he exits, he informs Garcin that he can be summoned via the call-button, but that the call-button is temperamental and doesn’t always work.
Garcin lasts about, oh, two seconds alone before trying to summon the valet back. Of course, the call-button doesn’t work. He despairs, but the door soon opens and in walks the valet, bringing with him Inez, a women who, like Garcin, is supposed to stay in this room. Unlike Garcin, however, she doesn’t have any questions to ask the valet. The valet exits, leaving the two of them alone.
Inez is expecting to see a woman named Florence. When she doesn’t, she concludes that this is "torture by separation." Then she accuses Garcin of being her torturer. Garcin finds this amusing and reveals that, actually, no, he’s not a torturer. He was a journalist, and now he’s in the same boat as she. At this point they’re basically trying to feel each other out. Garcin is interested in being polite and helping each other as best they can, while Inez thinks they should look after their own interests. Besides, she says, she’s not a polite person.
Then the door opens once more and in walks the valet, again, this time with a third person, Estelle. Estelle immediately freaks out when she sees Garcin, who has his head buried in his hands. She tells him not to look up, since she knows he has no face. When he looks up and reveals that, actually, yes, he does have a face, she’s confused. It seems she was expecting someone else (and a faceless someone else at that). Meanwhile Inez, who we can safely conclude is gay, has taken an extreme interest in Estelle, who we can safely assume is beautiful.
Estelle is concerned with aesthetics. She wants to sit on a couch with a color to complement her outfit. She wants a mirror to look at herself. She wants everyone to stare at her and think she’s beautiful. Inez is more than willing to do this, but Garcin is not. This is problematic, as Estelle is interested in the man, not the woman. Much bickering ensues.
At this point in the play, based on hints and suggestions we’ve gotten from the dialogue, we suspect that Garcin, Inez, and Estelle are dead and have found themselves in hell. We know this absolutely when Estelle refuses to hear the word "dead" and instead wants to be called "an absentee" (as in, absent from earth). Estelle is in denial for much of the play. Inez, on the other hand, wants to face the music. She makes a big deal out of yelling, "We’re in hell!" whenever she can, lest anyone forget. As for Garcin, he generally wants to be left alone. He’s afraid (correctly) that they will only hurt each other if they interact, so he thinks they should sit alone on their couches and not speak. This fails miserably.
While harassing each other and arguing, each of the three characters slowly reveals the story of his or her life. Garcin was a journalist in Rio who ran a pacifist newspaper. He was shot for standing up for his principles. Estelle was a poor girl whose parents died when she was young. She married a wealthy man three times her age to support her and her younger brother, became a society woman, and died of pneumonia. Inez was a postal worker.
While they speak, each of the three are allowed glimpses of scenes back on earth. Garcin watches his colleague, Gomez, talk about him to their friends. Inez watches her old apartment get closed up and then rented out to someone new. Estelle watches her friend, Olga, flirt with a boy who used to love her. All of them proclaim ignorance as to why they are in hell.
And then the real stories come out. Garcin was a big-time adulterer who used to bring his mistresses home with him for his wife to host in the morning. His wife adored him, but he treated her badly. Estelle carried on an affair with a young man and got pregnant with his child. She fled to Switzerland so she could have the baby away from the sight of her husband, and then drowned the infant while her lover watched helplessly. Inez lived with her cousin and his wife, Florence. She slowly turned Florence against her husband and then took the woman for herself.
Now that they’ve admitted why they’re in hell, they can start to understand what hell is about. It’s clear that each of them is meant to torture one of the others. Garcin tortures Estelle, because she wants him to love her and think her beautiful, while he refuses to do so. Estelle tortures Inez, because Inez feels an unreciprocated attraction to Estelle. And finally, Inez tortures Garcin. He wants to be considered a hero, not a coward, and it is Inez’s approval that he seeks (since he has correctly identified that she, not Estelle, knows and understands human emotions and faults).
The three of them are "inseparable," "inextricably linked." On top of the "agony of the human mind," they are allowed no respite from each other, as sleep and nighttime don’t exist here in hell. Consumed with the absurdity of this bleak future, the three characters break into laughter and collapse onto the three couches in the center of the drawing-room.
No Exit In A Nutshell
Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher famous as an existentialist. Throughout the course of his life (1905-1980), he wrote treatises, plays, essays, and novels. His fictional work was generally intended as a medium through which he could explore his bigger philosophical ideas.
No Exit is one literary exploration of his philosophical concepts. Written in 1944, the play focuses on three individuals trapped together in hell. Sartre portrays hell as a locked drawing room with three couches. This doesn’t sound like the traditional conception of hell and it isn’t. But trust us, this version of hell is, well, hellish. As the three characters try to determine why they are in hell and how they are to be tormented, they soon come to the conclusion that they will act as torturers for each other. The play famously concludes with one of Sartre’s most-quoted lines of all time: "hell is other people."
This line, however, goes far beyond the concept of other people simply being annoying. No Exit is running with one of the big ideas Sartre put forward in his famous philosophical treatise, Being and Nothingness, published in 1943, just one year before No Exit. In it, Sartre argues that the mere presence of another person will torment an individual because subjectivity is competitive. In other words, person #2 makes person #1 feel like an object rather than a subject. The play also explores Sartre’s idea of "bad faith" – the refuge we all seek in lieu of facing the anguish and terror of existence.
The point we’re making here is that No Exit is about more than three people trapped in hell. (As if that weren’t enough!) Some critics even argue that, in addition to acting a pulpit for his pet philosophy, No Exit functions as social commentary on Sartre’s environment – Paris during World War II in the midst of the German occupation. When you read about the "Setting" of No Exit, you’ll notice that Sartre’s hell sounds a lot like… Paris… in the 1940s. It is possible that Sartre thought of the German occupation as hell, but if so, this commentary remains secondary to the play’s philosophical significance.
Why Should I Care?
You’ve just had the worst day ever. Your little sister broke your alarm clock, so you were late to school to begin with; your girlfriend decided to break up with you in favor of the cute senior with the locker next to yours (so now you get to watch them all day…ugh); your teacher is surprising you with yet another pop quiz. Also, you have to eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and you despise (yes, despise, perhaps loathe) peanut butter and jelly. You sit down, read Sartre, and agree with No Exit’s assessment that hell is definitely other people.
Now, it could be that hell is other people because you have a really tough teacher, your sister is really annoying, and that cute senior wears way too much cologne. Or it could be that you’re competing for subjectivity because these other individuals stole your world from you, left you mentally hemorrhaging, objectified you, and ripped away your personal freedom.
Um…what? Last we checked you were upset about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Where did all that lingo come from? From Jean-Paul Sartre!
If you’re between the ages of twelve and twenty-five, in all likelihood, you’ve either had an existentialist crisis or will soon. Because as it happens, existentialism takes all that stuff you feel (like frustration over that sandwich, or the sneaking realization that you don’t have to go to school every day, or the concept that time is something very different than what you normally measure with a clock), and puts words to it. Existentialism explains these worries, concerns, and emotions, explores them, and tries to figure out how we should respond.
And if you’re going to get into existentialism, you’ve got to hit Jean-Paul Sartre somewhere along the way, since he is one of the major proponents of this philosophical view.
And if you’re going to get into Sartre, No Exit is a great place to start. You and your friends will be fighting for subjectivity in no time.