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No Exit - Sartre: "Hell Is Other People"

Hell is Other People

“Only in the self can the drama of truth occur.   A crowd is untruth.”   - Kierkegaard

On a literal level, Sartre’s play, “No Exit”, is an account of three individuals

damned to a hell unlike any other.   The first and only Act opens upon the arrival of

Garcin.   He is escorted by a valet into a   room furnished with   Second-Empire furniture

where he shall be spending the rest of his eternal existence.   The valet, the only other

character besides the occupants of this room, is amused by Garcin’s pre-conceived notion

of hell.   Garcin observes there are no mirrors, nor anything breakable in the room.   He

then shouts that they should have at least allowed him his “damn toothbrush!”   The valet

is further amused by this outburst, pointing out that every single “guest” inquires about

the torture chamber, and then once they’ve gotten over the initial shock, they start asking

for their toothbrushes and what-not.   He assures Garcin that he’ll have no need for his

toothbrush here, nor sleep, and advises him to forego his “sense of human dignity”.

While trying to come to terms with his situation, Garcin is disturbed by the valet’s

lidless eyes and parallels his perpetual sight to his own perpetual consciousness. “So

that’s the idea, I am to live without eyelids….No eyelids, no sleep; it follows, doesn’t it?  

I shall never sleep again.   But then - how shall I endure my own company?” (After

rereading the play for a second time, this seems the most ironic bit because Garcin is

Liedtke 2

unaware at this point that this room IS his torture chamber, and the other occupants are

his torturers, and there will be no escaping them; not even in sleep.)

When left alone, Garcin quickly grows impatient and begins repeatedly ringing

the bell which is supposedly meant to summon the valet.   However, it doesn’t seem to be

working so he gives up.   The   door then opens and the valet is...