Sartre's No Exit (1946)
To understand No Exit, it’s worth remembering that Hell traditionally
represents the opposite of the Ideal and that those condemned to Hell have
violated the essential nature of that Ideal. So, just as Sisyphus represents an
"Existential Ideal", a character able to leverage himself above his fate
thru existential perspective, Garcin, Inez and Estelle represent characters
doomed to never rise above their fates. It’s also worth emphasizing
that even though this existentialist Hell resembles the living world, it
exists after death and has striking differences from that living world;
understanding both those similarities and differences should help us understand
the basis of existential theory.
Sartre's Existential Hero
First, we know from Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism" that Sartre sees the "Existential Hero"
(EH) as is a person principally of action (rather than of just ideas or
emotion); so, the hero would be measured in what he or she has done with
his lot in life. (This is in contrast with Camus "Absurd Hero", whos heroism is
in his attitude, since his fate is to not be able to act.)
Second, the EH acts autonomously and would be
judged by his own morality, rather than by simply following social conventions.
This implies that the hero is cognizant of his own moral framework (what he
believes is or isn’t moral action and why it is or isn't) and that he is consistent within
that framework. Sartre uses the term "bad faith" to describe those who
frame their morality or beliefs around their actions, instead of vice versa
(see "Existentialism is a Humanism"): that is, you can't say that
stealing is moral simply because you want to do it; you cannot believe in an
afterlife simply because you are afraid of death -- instead, he explicitly
argues that we all must find the courage to truly live up to what we believe to
be both factually accurate and morally right, even when, or especially when, it
makes us unhappy or requires us to sacrifice. (Kierkegaard, however, has a work
around to this, and he believes that there are times when the absurdity of life
require one to adopt absurd ideas -- we do not live our lives simply as
scientists but also, at times, as artists and via faith and hope and love --
even when, or especially when, such attitudes are absurd. See Christian Existentialism.)
Third, Sartre clearly believes human freedom is
the basis of morality: in order to act, one must be free to choose and act, so a
person could not be moral while infringing on the freedoms of others;
thus, freedom is itself a moral means and a moral ends. This reminds us
that...
Fourth: Existentialism is not nihilism: we
are social animals and our actions affect other people and vice versa
(that’s why hell is other people). Existentialism is by its very
definition an attempt to locate morality in a universe with no God or absolutes
(or, from the Christian perspective, a God that has given us free will and
difficult “signs”), but what we do know of our “human condition” is that we
exist – not just that I exist, but that I exist among other people, and there
really is no useful definition of “morality” that does not deal with how actions
affectother people. (This theme drives No Exit)
For these reasons, the EH's actions lead to reasonably increased freedom – not
only for the “actor” but for all humans; moral actions have outcomes that
increase the frequency of other free choices, or the freedom of others, or they
deepen the environment in which those types of free choices and actions can
occur.
Hell As Existential Suffering
Sartre appears to borrow heavily from
Dante's Inferno and the Medieval concept of contrapasso: "The punishment
fits the crime."
The wage of sin, here is sin: What we do on earth distills
our soul to its most fundamental nature, and this is the soul, the fundamental
self, that we take with us into the afterlife. At its very root, Dante's
characters suffer a damnation of sin itself -- that is, their souls are reduced
to the sin itself, and the punishment of sinning becomes eternal sinning. This
is important because Dante creates a world in which the symbol refers to back to
itself and we are therefore reminded that Dante's lesson is a metaphorical,
spiritual one: we aren't simply supposed to fear some fantastical
afterworld/afterlife called Hell (after all, who is Dante to know what happens
after we die?) but to realize that when we sin we become that sin:
when we tell a lie we become a liar and the punishment is usually to be
untrusted, untrustworthy; when we cheat we become cheaters and so on.
For me it becomes easiest to understand
this Dantean/Sartrean contrapasso as the experience of addiction: that
point at which you want to stop smoking, eating, drinking, gaming, coming to
class late etc. but simply "cannot"; we have lost control of our desires and now
they control us. Satre says we make our lives meaningful through our will
to choose, and so, of course, suffering is losing that will.
Existential Suffering
Aside from disease and other usually short term physical pain, what is the most
common cause of human torment, suffering or “Hell”?
First, human relationships. And from our relationships with
others, so too our relationship to ourselves: when we truly grasp our own
weakness or failure, when we can no longer escape from an accurate judgment of
our own failure to live up to our own expectations, the realization that we have
failed to live up to our own moral standards (note how this relates to
contrapasso: Existential suffering is the realize that we, ourselves, have
reduced ourselves to cowards or cheaters and liars via our own choices; the
true suffering begins when we understand this about ourselves and it is too late
to make amends).
Second, to be denied choice. Consider that the worst form of
punishment -- murder -- is at root one person denying another the choice of
living or not; consider that prison is a system that defines punishment as
the denial of choice. Less extremely, when we deny each other a choice,
such as when we end a romantic relationship, the outcome is inevitably
suffering.
Discuss "psychological reactance".
What then is the specific failure of each of these three characters – that is,
how did they fail on earth, and how is the essence of each character’s
failure continued in Hell? No Exit Discussion Questions