Sartre's "No Exit" - by Hhhalek
Jean Paul Sartre was a philosopher, not a novelist or playwright. He was a philosopher, whose epistemic stance was immediately influenced by the twentieth century’s unrelenting destruction of ideals and idols, and the annihilation of heroes and heroism; by a century which had witnessed not one, but two world wars; by a century which had exposed the boundless human capacity for brutality and man’s limitless ingenuity at inflicting pain and suffering upon others; a century which had witnessed the invasion of France, the treachery of the Vichy government and the collapse of the Third, Fourth and Fifth French Republics. Sartre, a product of, and witness to, the twentieth century was indubitably coloured by it. His philosophy, as he himself, was a product of that century. His works of literature were born of that philosophy and, arguably, a dramatic enactment of Sartrian existentialism, with their unwavering exploration of the concepts of being and nothing. Nowhere is this more evident that in his one-act play, “Huis Clos.” A dialogical exposition of the hellish nothingness which pervades three characters, “Huis Clos” does not simply emanate from within Sartrian existentialism but, may be defined as an enactment of it, with each of the characters therein personifying a particular aspect of this complex philosophical construct. Understanding “Huis Clos” and appreciating it as an enactment of, and metaphor for, Sartrian existentialism, necessitates identifying and defining Sartre’s existentialist concerns and conceptualisations.
Sartre’ existentialist concerns and his perception of the human condition are, according to some critics, most concisely and precisely expressed in his Being versus Nothingness treatise. In L’Etre et le Néant, Sartre explicates his philosophical conceptualisation of human existence and the relation between man and himself, man and others and man and the environment within which he exists. Within the context of these relationships, man wavers between being and nothingness. Assuming that life has meaning, that the universe has some grand design, man is forever striving for meaning, convinced that he will attain being-hood once he has found meaning to his life. This quest is erroneously predicated on the belief that meaning, thus, being, is attained through others. Man believes his life acquires meaning, that he attains being-hood, from the positive perceptions and opinions that others may have of him. However, within Sartrian philosophy, this definition of being is nothing.
Man’s overwhelming predilection to define himself through the perception and opinion of others and his unwavering tendency to assume that he, accordingly, acquires being-hood, is inherently false. From the Sartrian existentialist perspective, it is false insofar as it assumes that life has meaning and creation has a noble purpose. Life, however, has no meaning and can only be defined as a void, as nothingness. Furthermore, the attempt to derive meaning, identity from the perception of others is a form of self-annihilation or a determined attempt to suppress the consciousness, or the authentic self. It is only when man accepts his authentic self, embraces nothingness, and realises that meaning emerges from within him, that he can acquire being-hood.
Sartre’s conceptualisation of being and nothingness is remarkably complex and if misunderstood, would seem self-negating. On the one hand, he claims that man lives in a void and that nothingness is the definitive feature of the human condition. He further maintains that the quest for being from without the self is futile. On the other hand, Sartre contends that the embrace of nothingness and the realisation of the void within which we live and which defines the human condition can lead to something. Not only that but he further asserts that once man realises that meaning cannot be imposed from without but, resides within the self, man can aspire towards being-hood. In this case, being is an outcome of the conscious realisation, and acceptance of the nothing-less of life and the futility of the human struggle for self-definition. Upon that realisation and acceptance, the authentic self, within which Being resides, emerges.
Being and Nothingness are Sartrian existentialism’s definitive concepts. Once man accepts nothingness, he acquires being but insofar as the baggage of socio-cultural and theological beliefs and myths weigh him down, man is blinded to that truth. Like Camus’ Sisyphus, man is trapped in the futile quest to escape nothingness and attain being through others. Man is inherently and fundamentally incapable of accepting that the only certitude in life is death, as Beckett had pointed out and that life, as such, is an ephemeral and momentary experience. Persistent in his determination to forge bonds with others and to find meaning from without, man becomes what he assumes others want him to be and, thus, damns himself to an eternal void. Meaning and Being can only emerge once man realises meaningless and beingless and, accordingly, ends his search for ideals and commences his quest for authenticity. It is thus that Sartre writes « silence, c'est Dieu. L'absence c'est Dieu. Dieu, c'est la solitude des hommes le diable et le bon dieu. » Escape from existentialist damnation is predicated on acceptance that happiness and meaning reside within the self, in the silence which surrounds man, in his solitude and in his natural, authentic state of loneliness. Happiness and self-fulfilment do not lie in, or with others and, being-hood can never be realised if the self is to be constantly defined, and redefined, according to the expectations of others. Those who maintain such an existence are guilty of self-delusion and deception,; they re guilty of bad faith.
Sartrian existentialism, as defined and discussed thus far, finds narrative, dramatic voice in “Huis Clos.” A post-mortem melodramatic dissection of three characters and their lives, “Huis Clos” derives from the existentialist concepts of being, nothingness, authenticity and bad faith. The characters, Garcin, Inès and Estelle, are damned by their inauthenticity and continued inability to see themselves as they truly are, to admit to their crimes, even after death. In life, each was trapped in a niche assigned them by society and which they, in complicity against their own authentic self, willingly embraced. Garcin is the intellectual and criminal who, ironically, was not executed for crimes he actually committed, but for a crime which society had imposed upon him. Inès is “une femme damnée.” She is the “damned bitch,” the rich adulteress who has three murders on her conscience but, maintained a façade of respectability, nevertheless. Rather than be executed for her crimes or admit to them, she revelled in the persona imposed upon her by society and had lost her authentic self, if she had ever possessed it, to the extent that she had come to perceive of herself in those terms. In a moment of poetic justice, she dies of gas asphyxiation. Estelle is the actress, trapped in a world of fantasy which, upon its being shattered and her realisation that « le cristal est en miettes, » is unable to survive. She kills her own infant daughter, drowns her, but never acknowledges her crime. Again, in a moment of poetic justice, she dies of pneumonia; her lungs fill with water and she dies. Each of these characters is damned but, in typical existentialist irony, their damnation is their own doing.
The post-mortem setting expounds upon the theme of damnation while, simultaneously, explicating the Sartrian concept of life, of living. Garcin, Inès and Estelle are entirely lacking in authenticity. Their inauthenticity, inability to attain Being, is their hell. The fact that they are dead is inconsequential, at least from the Sartrian existentialism perspective. To live is to realise the self, to attain Being through the embrace of Nothingness and the authentic self. Even in life, these three characters were dead. They were existentially dead because they defined themselves according to the mirror held up to them by society. Assuming that life held meaning and that value lay in the perceptions of the Other, none of these characters ever acknowledged the void which pervaded their lives, or allowed their authentic self to develop and express itself. Living as Objects for the Other, Garcin, Inès and Estelle were always passive and en-soi, never active and pour soi. They were never alive iinsofar as they, in life, suffocated their Being and killed their authentic self,. They never lived. In life they were as they are in death. Consequently, in selecting a post-mortem theme and emphasising that these characters are, indeed, physically dead, Sartre is expounding upon his philosophical conception of death versus life, effectively stating that by depicting these characters as dead, he is only portraying that state of being in which they were trapped, and within which, from the moment of birth, they trapped themselves.
While alive, these characters were trapped in an existentialist hell of their own making but in death, their suffering is compounded. They are deprived of the meaning bestowed upon them by the Other and are denied mirrors. Suffering « l’'obsession et l'absence de miroir », the three are forever searching for, and complaining about, the lack of mirrors. It is through mirrors that they see the external self which others see and it is through mirrors that they can arrange their physicality to meet the expectations of others. In their deprivation of mirrors, they are being deprived of their capacity to simultaneously respond to, and control, the perceptions of the Other of their external appearance. This is a unique and unbearable hell which is further compounded y the absence of the Other. Without the Other to impose meaning upon their self, they are truly nothing and, are truly in hell.
Garcin is the quintessential representation of Sartrian bad faith, or mauvaise fois. As explained in L’Etre et le Néant, mauvaise fois, is the most negative of the characteristics ascribed to the inauthentic man. Bad faith, a product of inauthenticity, predetermines the display of behaviours and the execution of actions which are deliberately intended to conceal the authentic self, from both the Other and one’s own consciousness and, hence, sustain that deceptive image of the self imposed upon one by the Other and by the mirror. Garcin, it can be argued, is existentialist bad faith come to life. Seeking to deceive others as regards his real persona, he ultimately only deceives himself. Garcin has spent a lifetime suppressing his Being under layer after layer of deceitful appearances and inauthentic behaviourisms and speech. The image he projects, the inauthentic Garcin, has so completely overwhelmed his Being that he has rendered himself incapable of self-knowledge. He is disconnected from his own self. Garcin has not deceived others as regards his real persona but has deceived himself. Thus, he is the victim of his own bad faith and, undoubtedly, this compounds his sense of being in hell.
The play opens with Garcin and from the very first lines, he is revealed as a selfish, superficial and supercilious, inauthentic, non-being; the prototype of bad faith. With persistent determination, in every word and action he seeks to reinforce that image which he has of himself, the inauthentic self,. However, in every word and action, his image, the veneer behind which the real self is trapped, breaks. Ever-determined, even desperate to protect that image, Garcin engages in perennial dissembling, revealing only those parts of his life which he assumes serve and fortify that image. His unfailing attempts to project himself as a hero and to impose that image of his own self upon Ines and Estelle, cannot be sustained. When he reveals how he mistreated his wife, mentally tortured and humiliated her, the veneer, the mask, shatters. He is exposed, in the eyes of the Other as a coward who preys on the weak; as a sadist who derives pleasure from the pain he inflicts upon others. However, he has become so disconnected from his reality, his authentic self, and is so completely incapable of acknowledge and embracing the Nothingness which he is and which surrounds him so that he may emerge as Something, that he does not recognise his self-deception. Despite all his efforts to preserve the mask, the self-image he seeks to impose upon others, the mask shatters before Estelle and Ines but not before him. The literal absence of mirrors is further a figurative absence, in the sense that there is nothing that he can hold up as would allow him an objective, honest look into his own self. Garcin is a coward, the quintessential inauthentic being and the prototypical creature of bad faith. His hell not only lies in the fact that he is his own victim but in that those around him, Estelle and Inès, are determined to expose him before his own self. His utterance, « l’enfer, c’est les autres, », expresses the agonising torture he feels at their determination to expose him. Hell is the Other when that Other refuses to `play along,’ and accept the inauthentic self as the authentic self.
Garcin is truly in hell. He has been condemned to an eternity with Others who refuse to accept the image he projects and who are determined to expose him before his own self, leave him naked. While he could have exited from hell by embracing the reality of Nothingness and giving voice, expression, to his authentic self, he has determined that there will be `huis clos for him. In screaming out « l’enfer, c’est les autres, », he is rejecting the image of authenticity which the Others are trying to impose upon him and, in so doing, is denouncing Being and announcing his commitment to Seeming. This is unequivocally expressed in his defence of the self against Ines’ castigations:
Garcin: je n’ai pas rêve cet héroïsme. Je l’ai choisi. On est ce qu’on veut.
Inès : Prouve-le. Prouve que ce n’était pas un rêve. Seuls les actes décident de ce qu’on voulu.
Garcin : Je suis mort trop tôt. On ne m’a pas laisse le temps e faire mes actes.
Inès : On meurt toujours trop tôt – ou trop tard. Et cependant la vie est la, terminée ; le trait est tire, il faut faire la somme. Tu n’es rien d’autre que ta vie
In these lines Sartrian existentialism is encapsulated and the true extent of Garcin’s hell is clarified. He died too young, as do all those who never embraced their authentic self and, thus, died before ever living.
Interesting, Ines, the one who takes it upon herself to sadistically expose Garcin and Estelle, the one who is the most candid about her past and open about her sins, is equally guilty of bad faith and inauthenticity. Constantly referring to herself as a « méchante », « une femme damnée, » she has willingly accepted the definition of her-self imposed upon her by Others. She has never explored her self, never once sought her freedom from the labelling of others. Instead, accepting the definition imposed upon her, she devotes herself to authenticating that externally imposed definition and, in so doing, suffocates her authentic self and annihilates her Being.
Inès was dead before she died. She had allowed her pour soi to become an en soi. She had never lived for herself, nor had she ever allowed her-self, her authentic Being to emerge but only existed through the opinion that others had of her. Her life was devoted to becoming those opinions, to becoming the damned bitch Others had determined she was. Rejecting her Being, authenticity and Nothingness, Ines truly believed that the universe had some grand design, that everything in it was planned down to the last detail. The disparity between what she believed in and accepted, and what she should have believed and should have acknowledged, predetermined that she be dead, even while alive. The fact that she was Nothing, a non-being who had never existed, is succinctly expressed in the scene she witnesses when she looks back on earth from hell. A couple, a man and a woman, have rented out her room and there is not trace of her, of her existence whatsoever. She is not remembered by either person or thing. Her existence, not life as she never had lived, cannot be differentiated from her non-existence, her death.
Ines was dead and was in hell before ever dying and going to hell. While that hell was, arguably imposed on her by the Other and reinforced through mirrors, her refusal to see herself except through the eyes of the Other, signalled complicity. Her determination to define herself and her acceptance of externally imposed definitions of her own-self, are the source of her damnation and the reason why she was in hell before physically being in hell. The murders, the deaths that she has on her (non)conscience were immediately caused by her determination to embrace the image, the identity, imposed on her by others. If the Other had determined that she was a « méchante » and « une femme damnée, » she was going to play those roles, fit that identity, to perfection. Ines had condemned herself to death in life, to a living hell by her determination to escape authenticity and by her bad faith.
In death, Ines is as she was in life. When alive, with determined perversity, she set out to make Florence hate her lover. As she says, « Je me suis glissée en elle, elle l’a vu par mes yeux, » and is determined to do the same in death – to enforce her definition, her image of Garcin, upon Estelle and ensure that she loath him. She sees Garcon, the Other, as he really is but, her real hell lies in her unfailing inability to see herself. Certainly, she admits that she is damned. However, she never admits, or recognizes the unlimited capacity for sadism which lies within her, nor does she acknowledge that her exclamation, « tu es un lâche parce que je le veux, » emanates from her lesbian desires towards Estelle. She is in hell because she never embraced her authentic self and her unrelenting determination to behave and act in death as she did in life, determines that her hell be a permanent one from which there is huis clos.
Estelle is no less damned than Garcin and Ines, and she is no less complicit in her damnation as they were in theirs. In fact, if Garcin were the prototype of bad faith, Estelle is the quintessential inauthentic being; the personification of Sartrian Non-Being and lack of Authenticity. Of the three, she is the one that is most reluctant to admit to her crimes; of the three, she is the only one who refuses to acknowledge her death, referring to herself as “absente” and never once using the word “morte.” She existed in a world of illusions; a world of fiction, mirrors and inauthenticity. To her, the greatest hell is the absence of mirrors, the absence of admiring Others who would sustain the myth of Estelle. She had always been in control of how the Other saw her; in life constantly gazing at her image in mirrors so that she could see that which the Other saw and delude herself into believing that she controlled and determined that sight, that image. In hell, she is deprived of that control, that illusion and is, accordingly, exposed.
Estelle is uncompromisingly unauthentic. Throughout life, she was an actress on, and off-stage; a leading lady, the centre of attraction and the focal point of admiration. Her raison d’être was the admiration that her beauty inspired in others. She felt whole and alive only when her admirer called her “son eau vive,” “son cristal.” That she was, in fact nothing but a ruthless creature, a mother who murdered her own infant, was inconsequential to her; it was not real. It is only when she looks back on earth from hell and witnesses Olga dancing with her lover and recounting the murder, does she feel dead. She feels dead because “le cristal est en miettes.” Even then, her inauthenticity, lack of Being, is such that she does not hold herself responsible. The world is responsible for having abandoned her. It is her persistently inability to see, her unrelenting refusal to be and her unfailing determination to seem, which determined Estelle dead while she lived and which conspire to ensure that her hell has no exist.
“Huis Clos,” as a narrative and its three characters, are Sartrian existentialism come to life. Each of the characters represents a particular strain of existentialist damnation and all are, in death, as they were in life, non-beings. They are cursed by their own blindness, their unfailing inability to exist as authentic beings. They are damned to an eternity in hell because of their persistent resistance of authenticity. Their hell has no possibilities or promises, has no exist, because they cannot accept their reality of nothingness and non-being. They are persistent in their determination to maintain illusions. As they fail to maintain those illusions and as the Other refuses to cater to, and sustain the, the three find themselves in a no-man’s land, denied the superficial comfort of seeming and unwilling to embrace nothingness and the possibilities for self-realisation it holds. There is an exit from hell and the promise of freedom lies before them; freedom from seeming and freedom from externally imposed definitions of the self. Were they to eschew these definitions and embrace nothingness, the door to freedom, to Being would open. This door would allow them an exist from hell; not into paradise, but into other possibilities. As Sartre writes, beyond the gates of hell, « Il y a d’autres chambre et d’autres couloirs, et des escaliers. » The possibilities which lie behind the door, however, will never be realised and the three have condemned themselves to eternal hell in death, just as they had in life.
Bibliography
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Sartre, J.P. (1943) L’Etre et le Néant. Paris, Gallimard,
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