No Exit and Three Other Plays

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Product Details

Author : Jean-Paul Sartre
Binding : Paperback
EAN : 9780679725169
Edition : Reissue
Number of Pages : 275
Product Group : Book
Publication Date : 1989-10-23
Publisher : Vintage
Release Date : 1989-10-23

ASIN : 0679725164

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Customer Reviews

Great drama, great philosophy (2004-06-17)

No Exit is a tautly written that works on both the dramatic and philosophical levels. With only one act, four characters, and no set other than a sofa and chairs, this play takes minimalism to its extreme. The tension is palpable throughout. Sartre creates a perfectly unworkable triangle of personalities in Garcin, Inez, and Estelle, and within this triangle the dramatic tension steadily builds.

The real beauty of this play is that its message can be interpreted in many different ways. It's not entirely clear what Sartre is trying to say about human nature here. I've heard some people argue that the main point is that the company of other people can be a form of hell. I think this is way to simplistic. If anything, Sartre might be trying to say that hell is a self-fulfilling prophecy - that these people, realizing that they were in hell, created among themselves a set of circumstances that was hellish. The logical converse of that idea would therefore be that by exercising their free will, they could have chosen otherwise. Then there is also the interesting question of why these people are in hell in the first place. Here Sartre makes a strong argument that people have a moral responsibility to act in the best interest of humanity as a whole - something that none of these characters can claim to have done.

While existentialism as a movement has long since been abandoned by most philosophers, this play has lived on, and rightly so. It's well worth the hour that it takes to read it.

Some of the Greatest Writing Ever (2004-06-08)

No Exit and The Other Plays is, in my humble opinion, the greatest collection of plays I have ever read, restoring my enjoyment of them after high school ruined it by shoving Shakspere down my throat. Sartre is able to convey great imagery and story lines through his writing, and it makes for a gripping read. Out of these, I would recommend Dirty Hands as the best, but all of them are an essential read.

Much Impressed (2004-05-04)

I was a bit skeptical going into this one. The premise of the book is fairly simple: three strangers are locked into a single room with minimal furniture and expected to stay there with one another for all eternity. That's it. No violent overthrow of government, no breaking into an elaborate computer mainframe. So why bother reading? C'mon Sartre, show us some plot.The amazing thing was, I completely enjoyed this play. I gave it a chance and read it through and was not at all disappointed. Think of it: three strangers walk into a room containing three couches, a mantle, an odd mantle decoration, and a door that won't open, and try to make sense of the whole setup. The female/male ratio is 2 to 1, leaving Garcin to hold his own against Inez, a trouble-making bisexual, and Estelle, a woman who doesn't believe she can function without the support of a man. They realize that the room is their torture chamber, of sorts, in a long corridor of Hell, and their punishment is to be carried out through--are you ready?--annoying one another. For fear of giving away the plot, or lack thereof, I'll leave you with this: the book is a must-read, if only to discover for yourself the awesome ability of human beings to torture one another using only their personalities. :o)

Nothingness (2003-10-25)

Okay, let me start with mentioning that this book is worth of few hours. Turn off the TV and read it.Sartre's existentialism is best expressed in his fictions including this one, at least I think.His persuation to nothingness is not quite expressible without phenomenological settings. And here they are.I'm having hard time to interest myself by reading Being and Nothingness, but this book is fun to read and easier to capture by sense, not even getting to literal understanding of existentialism.For those of whom not interested in Philosophy, this book still is to read. It's a well written persuasive book which doesn't seem spoiled by translation. If it doesn't bring us original intention of Sartre, the translator was as brilliant as the author. So read it.

Not a mirror of most people (2003-08-15)

To hold to a view of hell as being in a room without mirrors forever can be characterized as an excess of narcissm. The characters in this play are all cursed with this (rare) affliction, born as it is from total lack of self-confidence. When one of them, Estelle, cannot see herself, she doubts her existence. This (characteristically European) existential insecurity is remedied in the short term by patting herself, but a mirror is ultimately what is needed to set her mind at ease. But these optical guarantees of existence are nowhere to be found. Self-reflection will thus have to take place in consciousness only: definitely the severest punishment of all for Garcin, Estelle, and Inez. Their anxiety, their punishment for wrongdoing, their hell, consists of having to depend on others for the interpretation of their appearance, of having to rely upon the taste of others.

Hell of course is in the eye of the beholder, and others might think that being locked in a room with two women forever might actually be more like heaven. The key idea in all visions of hell though is that it lasts eternally, just like heaven. But eternal life in bliss is just as bad, perhaps more so, than eternal life in hell. After all, in heaven one can put off goals for as long as one wants. Time constraints become meaningless. All one need do is to perhaps think about what one can do, and of course, the goals will always be successful (one cannot be frustrated in heaven).

To find hell in other people, as Garcin did, might make his sojourn with Inez and Estelle much more palatable. After all, he has an infinite amount of time to adjust. His narcissm might have a short decay time compared to infinity. Estelle might get creative and invent a mirror: unending time permits much innovation, regardless of its boredom. Inez might eventually be successful in her advances towards Estelle: Inez has plenty of time for seduction.

It might be very difficult to be optimistic facing the prospect of eternal life as these characters do in the play. The certainty of existence is painful: to be happy one needs uncertainty, or rather, the possibility of failure. But of course one could find a way to embrace this prospect of eternal life. Imagination and creativity would find the answers. An optimistic individual, i.e. an individual not engaging in a self-reflecting narcisstic excess of introspection would, paraphrasing Garcin's last line in the play, get on with it.

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