No Exit Research Paper

What is hell? The question has haunted humanity for ages, as our eternal future remains a mystery. Many sources have risen up to answer this question, from religious sources promoting a fiery place of torment, to philosophical sources that believe in nothingness. Many traditional sources are Christian concepts of a place for people who have done wrong to be tortured. These ideas have become ingrained in our society and belief systems, and that shows through heavily in Sartre’s work, No Exit, through the characters and the actual reality portrayed in the play. The voices of history and tradition are prominent in No Exit, and this is made clear from the beginning, through the expectations of the characters. In his conversation with Garcin, the …show more content…
First, there are repeated references to the heat of the room, as Garcin exclaims, “Whew! How hot it is here...Stifling, that it is” (13). While not nearly as intense as religious descriptions of the fire of hell, such as the book of Revelation, which described it as a “Fiery lake of burning sulfur,” the references to the heat of the room are a clear allusion to traditional ideas of a fiery hell. Second, the hell portrayed in No Exit is a place of no rest. The bible demonstrates this idea when it states, “There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image.” This similarity is made clear in the conversation between the valet and Garcin, when Garcin states, “So that's the idea. I'm to live without eyelids. Don't act the fool, you know what I mean. No eyelids, no sleep; it follows, doesn't it? I shall never sleep again. But then— how shall I endure my own company?” (6). Another similarity in the hell of No Exit is torture by separation. Many Christian sources depict hell as a place of separation from God. While separation from God is never specifically stated in No Exit, it is clear that the people in that hel are still separated from the things and people they loved during their lives. After Inez realizes that the woman she loved is not there with her, she states, "Ah, that's the way it works, is it? Torture by separation" (8). While not as direct a similarity as others, the concept of torture by separation is still the same as traditional sources. While it may be simple to focus on the many differences between No Exit’s hell and a traditional hell, after looking deeper it is clear that the reality in the play speaks for the voices of tradition through the many similarities its setting bears to traditional concepts of