Jean-Paul Sartre "No Exit"

Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit”

This reading, unlike the others so far this year, had its meaning slightly more hidden within the text simply based on the way in which it is written. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote this piece in the form of a play. All of the writing is character dialogue by Estelle, Inez, Cradeau, and the boy. The scene takes place with all the characters living in hell. Sartre writes his piece in this way, I believe, to provide examples of how we as humans create our own personal hells. Estelle’s hell is that she does not have any mirrors to look at herself in, meaning she needs Inez to tell her what she looks like. Inez’s happiness comes from Estelle’s happiness, but Estelle cannot achieve this unless she can win over Cradeau’s approval, which probably is not going to happen. Cradeau’s hell is that he is stuck with these two people for all of eternity. Jean-Paul Sartre is an existentialist, meaning he believes humans are morally free, and any rules or boundaries we set for ourselves limit that. An “act of bad faith” would be to restrict choices to fit a particular stereotype. He believes that is a waste of our freedom. For example, Estelle limits her freedom by defining herself by her beauty; therefore she creates her own unhappiness.

In class we played with this idea of being completely in control of our lives. Existentialists would say that if we are having a bad day, it is up to us to choose to have a better one. The only thing that makes us unhappy is the act of choosing to be unhappy. That’s not to say that we can control what happens in our lives, but Sartre’s point is that we have the ability to choose how we respond to the events, good and bad, that we experience. Arguments were made on both sides of this idea, but we came to the conclusion that this logic can be both empowering and rather saddening. It is empowering to think that we have the ability to control everything in our lives. Everything that we think was made for us; really we created ourselves, everything down to our souls that we have defined. On the flip-side though, we realized that based on existentialist logic, humans are their own torturers, just like in “No Exit.” At the end of the day, if we are unhappy that is “completely on us.” We create relationships with people that we think make us happy to give meaning to our lives. As we near the end of life, we realize that we are totally alone and everything we have done was to fill this sense of being alone. Our acts define us as people, and nothing else does. Existentialists also believe that we have no sub-conscience, but that it is something humans created as an excuse for our actions. By this logic we are entirely in control of everything in our lives.

I agree with our conclusion that existentialism is both kind of a sad concept, as well a powerful one. I like the idea that we have the power to change how we react to situations and make our days better. This does not mean it is easy, because it isn’t, but rather, it gives us a responsibility that I think we often take for granted. It is hard for me to think that basically everything in our lives we created, because as a Christian I like to believe that there is something more powerful than us, or something that has created some sort of meaning in our lives for us. Although existentialism may be a hard concept to grasp, I’m not completely sure I disagree with it, as hard as that is to say. In class we watched a music video by George Michael which was his way of coming out of the closet. George Michael is an existentialist and in the song he talks about how he is re-defining himself and his image by coming out and therefore choosing to fully embrace who he is.