Contemplating Sartre's No Exit

Contemplating Sartre's No Exit

In No Exit, Sartre provides a compelling answer to the problem of other minds through the medium of drama. He puts two women (Inez and Estelle) in one hotel room with one man (Garcin) for all of eternity. This is his concept of hell, and he makes this point in one of the last few lines of the play: "Hell is--other people!" There are no torture racks or red-hot pitchforks in hell because they're after "an economy of man-power--or devil-power if you prefer." Each person is there (in hell) for a specific reason: Garcin because he cheated on and tormented his wife, Estelle because she killed her own child and her lover, then committed suicide, and Inez because she tormented (female) lover until that lover killed both of them. Each person is attracted to someone else: Garcin to Inez, for her strength, vitality (if it's possible to use that word on someone who's dead) and power over him; Inez to Estelle, because Estelle would be, with her weak personality, easily dominated by Inez's strong personality; and Estelle to Garcin, because he is the only man and, as a woman who is weak, she requires a masculine approval to validate her existence.

It is interesting to not that Estelle comes from an extremely poor background and was elevated to the upper classes only through her marriage to a wealthy husband old enough to be her father, who could provide for her and her physically weak and sick younger brother and give them social status. Estelle, however, looks down on Inez, who was only a postal clerk. This is consistent with the way in which Estelle needs others to validate her own existence: she needs Estelle to look down on so that she can value herself by comparison.

Garc...

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..." in the words of Estelle.

Of course, this concept of mirroring extends beyond Estelle's simple need of a mirror. Examples are found in the reasons that each subject needs the person to which he is attracted. Garcin needs Inez to tell him that he is not a coward, and so to validate his existence; Inez needs to dominate Estelle and to see herself reflected in Estelle's eyes; and Estelle needs to have Garcin, as a man validate and affirm her existence by possessing her. Inez puts it aptly to Garcin: "You're a coward, Garcin, because I wish it. And yet, just look at me, see how weak I am, a mere breath on air, a gaze observing you, a formless thought that thinks you."

And that's why "hell is--other people": because we rely on these people to be who and what we are, and the reliance upon absurd people in an absurd universe is--nauseating.