THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

"No Exit" Jean Paul Sartre

1. Think about the place you have chosen as your hell. Does it look ordinary and bourgeois, like Sartre's drawing room, or is it equipped with literal instruments of torture like Dante's Inferno? Can the mind be in hell in a beautiful place? Is there a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment? Enter Sartre's space more fully and imagine how it would feel to live there endlessly, night and day:

-Hell would be a place where past mistakes and events constantly haunt you. This place can be ordinary or extraordinary but doesn't have to be equipped with literal torture instruments. It would be a place where all of the things that have happened to you that you've tried to forget are constantly being displayed in front of you and never disappear. The mind can be in hell in a beautiful place. It is the past that is haunting you regardless of the environment. The only way to find peace in a hellish environment would be to accept that there is nothing to be done about past events but even then peace would be difficult to achieve.

2. Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess,' whether it be cheesecake or ravenous sex?

-Variety would make hell somewhat less hellish. Variety offers new experiences and keeps life interesting. We've all learned that there definitely can be too much of a good thing and having variety in our lives allows us to enjoy good things without overdoing one certain thing. Without variety we would overdo everything and enjoy nothing.

3. How does Sartre create a sense of place through dialogue? Can you imagine what it feels like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place? How does GARCIN react to this hell? How could you twist your daily activities around so that everyday habits become hell? Is there a pattern of circumstances that reinforces the experience of hell?

-The characters converse a lot and that's really all that they have available to do. Garcin is surprised by the room and has many questions and seems unwilling to accept his predicament. I would be easy for me to create my personal hell in my own life. Living in the past is something that unfortunately a lot of people do. It takes a conscious effort to not let past experiences run your present life. It would easy to relive past traumas and live in hell but I choose not to do that.

4. Compare how Plato and Sartre describe the limitations of our thinking and imply solutions to the problem. Be sure to analyze their literary techniques, especially their use of allegory and extended metaphor.

-Both Plato and Sartre focus on the significance of the ability to learn new things. In The Allegory of the Cave Plato showed that one must consciously leave the cave to gain knowledge. Sartre is essentially saying that in hell you cannot leave the cave of misunderstood knowledge and therefore if someone escapes the cave, going back would be their hell. Potential solutions would be to live your life in a way that you are able to learn and reflect on your experiences. The extended metaphors that both use show how people go from ignorance to understanding. Going back to the cave would be hell because you know too much and in ''No Exit'' hell the understanding that they now have doesn't make them happy.

So pretty much the "hell" in the play isn't a hell defined by physical torture, it is defined by the people. The characters are in hell because of the people they are stuck with.

Irony: The characters accuse each other of being torturers when really they all are.