Monday, November 25, 2013

No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre

-Sartre was as French literary critique and playwright
-The play is an Existentialist play: stresses the individuals unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices
-"Hell is other people"
-"People are condemned to be free"
-the entire play takes place in a drawing room
-the four characters are Valet, Garcin, Estelle and Inez
-the rules are the cannot sleep, there are no mirrors and no darkness
-Garcin and Valet are in the room together a few minutes later Valet leaves and returns with a woman named Inez
-Inez believes that she should be with Florence and she accuses Garcin of being her torturer
-Valet enters again with Estelle, Estelle is scared because Garcin does not have a face he begs him to not look up at her
-Garcin and Inez take interest in Estelle (Inez is gay)
-Estelle wants to fix her makeup but there is no mirror for her to fix it in, Inez offers to help her but Estelle declines because she is not interested in women
-Estelle is in denial that she is actually dead
-Inez accepts the fact that they are all dead and frequently announces that they are in Hell
-Garcin wants to be left alone as he thinks they will hurt each other so he doesn't think that they should speak
-Garcin was a journalist in Rio that owned a newspaper he was shot for standing up for his opinion
-Estelle was a poor orphan, she married a rich man to take care of her. she died of pneumonia
-Inez was a postal worker
-they are allowed to have glimpses from their lives, Garcin watches old friends talk, Estelle watches an old friend betray her and flirt with a boy she use to love, Inez watches new people move into her apartment
-In real life Garcin was an adulterer, his wife loved and adored him but he treated her poorly and was not faithful. Estelle was not faithful to her husband either and had a child with a younger man, she ran away to Switzerland and drowned the baby while her lover watched. Inez lived with her cousin and his wife, she turned her cousins wife against him and took her for herself.
-the groups hell is: Garcin tortures Estelle because she wants him to love her but he wont, Estelle tortures Inez because Inez is attracted to Estelle, Inez tortures Garcin because he wants to feel like a hero and seeks Inez approval but she wont give it to him.
-the group realizes that hey are never able to separate and they all erupt into laughter and fall onto the hard floor.

1) My version of Hell is one in which I watch my family go on in with their lives not even noticing that I am not there with them. My Hell is equipped with literal instruments like Dante's inferno it is more painful for me to watch this then it would be to physically be hurt. The mind can be in a beautiful hell because every person has there own version of hell and something that may be beautiful can really be a hell place for someone to be. I don't think there is ever a way to find peace in a hellish place. Living in Sartre's hell night and day would be hard, knowing that you are stuck there would be hard for me to understand and cope with I do not like being told what to do and I do not like being stuck with something I am unable to change.
2) Hell could be described as anything without a break moderation is good and keeps people sane.
3) Sartre creates a sense of place with the character's speaking to each other the readers are able to really capture their sense of place and frustration. Staying awake all the time would make me go crazy. I need to sleep and be in the dark to let my mind clear itself and start fresh for the next day but if there was not dark how would I know when a new day started and ended. Garcin reacts to his hell by deny that it was happening to him.

No comments:

Post a Comment