Hell is--other people!

The premise of No Exit is simple to tell--three nogoodniks have died and gone to hell, locked together in a drawing-room to annoy each other for all eternity. Reduces the need for floggers and flayers, you know. Garcin, Inez, and Estelle slowly reveal their history, why they have come to this place and how each is exquisitely suited to torture the other. This eternal triangle is not quite equilateral, though. All is not well in this part of hell.

Garcin is the one who breaks the symmetry. He tries to avoid the role of torturer and fosters the hope that they can resolve their situation. He suggests that each should engage in self-examination, "that way we--we'll work out our salvation. Looking into ourselves." When that fails he suggests mutual examination of their sins, "if we bring our specters into the open, it may save us from disaster." This also fails, as Inez and Estelle embrace their hellish roles by being themselves. The two women, after all, are each complicit in murder/suicide, and are beyond hope. Garcin's transgressions are of another sort altogether. More about that below.

Three people tucked away for eternity--clever premise, well constructed character development and plot execution, but why do we care? It's not real, doesn't conform to any collective notion of an afterlife. What does strike us as real, though, and is closer to us than the two murderers, is Garcin. He considers his mistreatment of his wife the reason for consignment to hell, but says, "I regret nothing." It is not this issue that he needs to resolve. Rather, he agonizes over his cowardice, his desertion in time of war, for which he was shot. He cringes when he hears his colleagues denigrate him. He seeks and receives vindication from Estelle, then is made to understand by Inez that Estelle will say anything to assuage him. It is Inez who understands him completely, who knows his cowardice from exploring the depths of her own soul. It is she who must vindicate Garcin, else he suffer for eternity. When the door to the room opens unexpectedly, Garcin cannot leave while Inez remains behind, "gloating over [his] defeat."

Garcin is, using Sartre's terminology, both a being-for-itself (sentient) and a being-for-others (social). But in Garcin the being-for-others dominates, so that his life is totally controlled by what others think of him. Hence his extreme concern about his reputation as coward. Hence his treatment of his wife, whom he rescued from the gutter to serve as his vanity mirror. Garcin realizes that she, like Estelle, reflects not the truth, but Garcin as she needs to see him. Garcin punishes her either for her to become a faithful mirror or because she cannot.

Garcin is in hell, but we the living face his issue also. We are necessarily socially connected, we are a being-for-others, but we must be equally a being-for-itself. As a being-for-others we can see our own face only as reflected in the faces of others. As a being-for-itself we need to see our own independent image of ourselves--so that we can become the being that we imagine.

For Garcin, "no exit" may be too pessimistic, the original "huis clos" possibly more apt. Garcin could not escape the room when the door opened for him. Perhaps he still can if he realizes that his fate is not in Inez's hands, but in his own, by discounting her opinion and the opinion of others in favor of his own. Or, this being hell, perhaps not. But for us who are not yet arrived, the door is open to us, so to find ourselves on the other side, to see ourselves not as others see us. ( )

No Exit is one of my all-time fav's but I don't recall the other plays. No Exit is the ultimate one act. possibly best ever written. ( )

Every play was magnificent. Gripping,
psychologically scathing, it breathes life. ( )

Sartre did quite well as a novelist, but reading his plays brings the understanding of his philosophy to a whole new level. Brilliant playwright. Mind blowing works. ( )

Read alone at a single sitting for later group discussion. Have not seen performed.