What is hell? For some people it depends on what religion they believe in and what that religion depicts hell as. For other people hell is an individual's worst fears and nightmares. Others do not believe in heaven, hell, or any religion for that matter. Jean-Paul Sartre (an existentialist philosopher) had his own ideas of what hell is. The one act play No Exit, one of Sartre's more famous pieces of writing, is about three people who do not know each other and get stuck together in hell. This hell is a lot different than most people's assumption of what hell is. Basically all three of them are put into a regular looking room with some decorations and couches. There are no torture devices, flames, fires, weapons, or minions of Satan staged in the room where Garcin, Inez, and Estelle (the three main characters) have been sentenced to spend the rest of eternity.
Jean Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre (um 1950)
Inez Milholland (LOC)They are to stay in this room forever. They are not allowed to leave the room. They are always awake and they can not turn the light off in the room. They also can never get away from the other two watching them, which is part of Sartre's existential concept the look of the other. At first the characters do not exactly understand what the meaning of this "hell" is and why it is considered to be punishment. Although it seems that always being awake and being stuck in a lit up room with two other people for eternity is not that bad of a punishment, as the play progresses the characters get more and more frustrated and start to realize what kind of "hell" they are in. Even though they receive no physical punishment and the only people in the room are the three other people...