The Change and the Unchangeable
Apart from the central idea that ‘Hell is other people’, there is also a much darker underlying meaning to Sartre’s hell. Existentialism is mainly based off the idea that defining, developing and changing one’s nature and identity is purely the free will and responsibility of the individual (Merriam-Webster, 2017). In other words, existentialism emphasizes on one’s freedom to change things.
However, this can only apply to the living. Living people can change their past mistakes by being better people in the future, but once dead, life is frozen and unchangeable. A living individual may be able to change a rocky relationship with another person for the better over time, but a dead person will forever be remembered …show more content…
When he asks if there is a toothbrush, the valet replies “So you haven't yet got over your— what-do-you-call-it?— sense of human dignity? …All our guests ask me the same questions. Silly questions, if you'll pardon my saying so. Where's the torture-chamber? That's the first thing they ask, all of them… But after a bit, when they've got their nerve back, they start in about their toothbrushes and what-ot. Good heavens, Mr. Garcin, can't you use your brains? What, I ask you, would be the point of brushing your teeth? (Sartre, 1944).” As someone who is already dead, Garcin no longer needs his ‘human dignity’. He no longer has the responsibility for maintaining or changing who he is - not even brushing his teeth. He will not need to do anything except for just existing, confined in a room for eternity. Again, this unchangeable history is also shown when Garcin and Inez have one of the most crucial conversations in the play. As Garcin is about the leave towards the end of the play, he realises it is not Estelle he must convince that he isn’t a coward, but Inèz, because she is someone who knows what it’s like to be one. In response this is what she …show more content…
Aside from the fact that once dead, the inability to change who you are is a form of torture, Sartre’s hell does not actually fully align with his most famous quote “Hell is other people”. In fact, it is not other people who are causing you hell, but rather how other people draw out your most feared characteristics that cause your own hell. Who can we blame then, when it is not the scrutiny of others that torment us, but our own existence and our own choices that
Apart from the central idea that ‘Hell is other people’, there is also a much darker underlying meaning to Sartre’s hell. Existentialism is mainly based off the idea that defining, developing and changing one’s nature and identity is purely the free will and responsibility of the individual (Merriam-Webster, 2017). In other words, existentialism emphasizes on one’s freedom to change things.
However, this can only apply to the living. Living people can change their past mistakes by being better people in the future, but once dead, life is frozen and unchangeable. A living individual may be able to change a rocky relationship with another person for the better over time, but a dead person will forever be remembered …show more content…
When he asks if there is a toothbrush, the valet replies “So you haven't yet got over your— what-do-you-call-it?— sense of human dignity? …All our guests ask me the same questions. Silly questions, if you'll pardon my saying so. Where's the torture-chamber? That's the first thing they ask, all of them… But after a bit, when they've got their nerve back, they start in about their toothbrushes and what-ot. Good heavens, Mr. Garcin, can't you use your brains? What, I ask you, would be the point of brushing your teeth? (Sartre, 1944).” As someone who is already dead, Garcin no longer needs his ‘human dignity’. He no longer has the responsibility for maintaining or changing who he is - not even brushing his teeth. He will not need to do anything except for just existing, confined in a room for eternity. Again, this unchangeable history is also shown when Garcin and Inez have one of the most crucial conversations in the play. As Garcin is about the leave towards the end of the play, he realises it is not Estelle he must convince that he isn’t a coward, but Inèz, because she is someone who knows what it’s like to be one. In response this is what she …show more content…
Aside from the fact that once dead, the inability to change who you are is a form of torture, Sartre’s hell does not actually fully align with his most famous quote “Hell is other people”. In fact, it is not other people who are causing you hell, but rather how other people draw out your most feared characteristics that cause your own hell. Who can we blame then, when it is not the scrutiny of others that torment us, but our own existence and our own choices that