This essay is a manifestation of my subconscious mind trying to direct me towards the reality that I've so naively ignored.
 Years ago, I was so lost in a labyrinth that I could proudly say I have memorized its creeks, never to get lost again, never to turn back again, finally free from the shackles of my limitations.
If you find yourself surrounded by adversaries, I hope this essay sheds some light and wisdom on your experience.
“Hell is other people” made me grasp that hell is nothing but what you allow to have authority over you, do not submit to any will that doesn’t serve the divine. Do not give up parts of yourself to be accepted, do not allow people to be your hell.
Some people live in hell and if you stay by their side long enough the flames will eventually catch you.
Surround yourself with reflections you want to embody.
Know when to let go, and don’t hold on to anything longer than intended as the claws will leave marks, the longer the hold, the deeper the scar.
Save yourself some grace and dismantle all that wants to choke the light.
You are not anyone's property neither yourself.
All materials belong to this world, including your meat suit. The only thing you own is what belongs to the divine.
Remember who you are, integral, infinite and loved….

Hell is other people

This essay analyses Sartre’s play No Exit from an existentialist point of view. The research uses Sartre’s philosophy and Jungian psychology as a method of analysis to explain why “hell is other people?” By examining each of the character’s interactions in the context of Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism. The characters endure Sartre’s hell, their behavior, and interactions with one another are explained using Jung’s psychoanalysis. The research concludes a suggested solution for escaping the other in the Sartrean hell. The research arrives at the suggested solution by combining both Jung’s psychology of the psyche and Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism. In order to escape the Sartrean hell each of the characters must reach self-actualization by facing their own shadow, disregarding the false persona and abandoning bad faith.

Sartre implements an existentialist understanding of hell in the play No Exit, showing us the horrors of coexistence through his philosophical theories of being-in-itself en-soi and being-for-itself pour-so diverting from the traditional universal understanding of hell. In the play, No Exit, Sartre employs an existentialist portrayal of hell as other people by examining the conscious and subconscious mind through Jungian psychoanalysis.

This existentialist feature seems to build up through the evolution that is seen in Sartre’s hell:

So, this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is—other people! (No Exit 49).

Being and Nothingness: the deception of being

The text contains key existentialist concepts, of freedom, anguish, and shame. According to Sartre in Being and Nothingness, there are two binaries to being. The first one is the unconscious Being-for-itself and the second is the conscience Being-for-itself. Rowlands supports this by stating that anguish is the consciousness of freedom, and shame is the consciousness of one’s appearing as an object in retrospect to the “other” (Rowlands 177). Garcin exemplifies shame from the moment he enters hell, tormented; he plays the role of a coward pacifist. On multiple occasions, Garcin projects the fear of being perceived as a coward; he doubts his masculinity and thus, he becomes hyper-conscious of how he appears. Hence, Garcin desperately attempts to combat his insecurity through self-reflection and by seeking external reassurance. “Finally, I thought: my death will settle it if I face death courageously, I’ll prove I’m no coward” (No Exit 41). Garcin’s self-reflection restrains his bad faith and self-deception, and he is aware of the existence of flaws in his personality. In contrast, Estelle’s character lacks accountability, she never feels guilt nor remorse for the suffering she caused others, instead, she remains a victim in her own narrative claiming she does not belong in hell and that her death was painless and caused by pneumonia. She is hyper-vigilant about her looks and constantly needs to see her own reflection. Estelle then confesses to cheating on her rich husband and drowning her lover’s child to cover up her affair. Thus, she is the perfect representation of “Bad Faith.” Self-deceptive and in denial, her perfectionism is a crucial tool feeding Estelle’s sugarcoated narrative of her reality. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre gives an example that is reminiscent of Estelle’s character: A young woman’s date compliments her looks, but she ignores the obvious sexual implications of his compliments and chooses to direct the compliments at herself as a conscious human being. The young woman can delude herself into thinking that she has no choice, but in doing so she is actually making a choice (253–258). Estelle’s mask eventually comes off; she confesses her sins of killing her infant and betraying her husband, thus displaying her manipulative nature. Estelle suffers the consequences of self-disclosure: she overhears her “bosom friend” Olga back on earth, disclosing intimate details pertaining to what Estelle had done to her baby and how it resulted in her former spouse’s suicide. “All right you can have him now. Isn’t it foul, Garcin? She’s told him, about Roger, my trip to Switzerland. The baby” (No Exit 35). Remorseless, Estelle lacks the cognition to understand and reflect on her behaviour; in addition, her self-deception is rooted so deeply in her subconscious that she finds it almost impossible to recognize her wickedness. Inez is a sadistic cruel character who appears to be the most conscious and perceptive among all the characters in the play. She proudly claims the title of being “A Damn Bitch.” Her notoriously blunt nature accentuates her objectivity, making her the least self-deceptive among the other two characters Sartre’s theory of existentialism is supported by a journal published by a philosophical library stating:

Confronted with a situation in which a decision must be taken, and an action carried out, yet lacking sufficient casual factors derived from convention, or moral or religious codes, to determine the decision or the action for to be determined by these would be to have chosen bad faith as a basic principle of life (philosophical library 260)

In terms of Inez’s past and her choice of “bad faith” as a life principle, first, she is seen as being outwardly vicious and hostile: She seduces her cousin’s partner, Florence, and goes far as to agonize her cousin by displaying her affair shamelessly; according to her, he was “pathetic” and “weak.” Her cruelty extended further once she realized that she no longer derived any satisfaction from humiliating her cousin. She had a proclivity to harm others as it brought her pleasure. Soon after, she began torturing Florence psychologically, challenging her limits until one day Florence killed both of them:

When I say I’m cruel, I mean I can’t get on without making people suffer. Like live coal. A live coal in others’ hearts. When I’m alone I flicker out. For six months I flamed away in her heart, till there was nothing but a cinder. One night she got up and turned on the gas while I was asleep. Then she crept back into bed. So now you know (No Exit 28).

On multiple occasions Inez flaunts her cruelness, she physically and mentally assaults the closest people in her life whom she is supposed to love, and she harms them without any real reason or logical explanation, through her behaviour and multiple confessions of being remorselessly cruel we can conclude that Inez neither has moral principles nor does she appear to have any religious constraints, thus making her character the perfect exemplification of a physical embodiment of bad faith. She is not only remorseless but also derives pleasure in inflicting vicious brutal attacks on others around her. Her role in hell is that of a torturer, not exclusively to others but also to herself in the process.

Individuation and authenticity

Authenticity implies credibility and validity: In a literal sense, it implies originality and “realness.” The concept of authenticity is very much similar to the Jungian psychological theory of individuation: In his collective works, Jung writes about a young woman during the process of individuation: “She was protected from this by her natural intelligence and by a remarkable readiness to tolerate the opinions of other people” (291). This young woman is no different than Sartre’s characters displaying “bad faith” hiding behind falsely claimed personality traits. Garcin presents himself as a man of courage despite being a coward; Inez pretends to be the wisest, yet she is narrow-minded, and Estelle claims to be innocent and sinless, yet she is in hell. All these characters have to go through the process of individuation in order for them to escape their “bad faith” to exit hell.

Individuation has two principles: First, it should be realized that such a process is both internal and subjective; second, such a process is of objective relationships (Shelburne 66). What it means to be dispensable of objective relationships, is that lessons are learnt through the relationship and existence of others without the consciousness effort to do so. Humans gain information simply by being in the presence of one another. It becomes obvious that individuation and the ability of self-realization are restricted to the extent of a harmonious relationship forming between the conscious and unconscious aspects of the self. Humans ought to gather experience both consciously and unconsciously in the presence of others in order to separate and reach individuation. The process related to individuation is complex; this is because the ability to fully realize oneself is linguistically incomprehensible, thus making the process of becoming an “in-dividual” subjectively unique. In an interview in 1957, Jung stated:

The self is merely a term that designates the whole personality, the whole personality of man is indescribable, his consciousness can be described, but his unconscious cannot be described because the unconscious is always unconscious. (16:06–16:32)

 In No Exit, we can see that the characters’ actions are neither determined by universal law, nor can they exercise their unconditional freedom since being in hell is the ultimate imprisonment. The primary aims of Sartre and Jung should be considered when making a comparison of their ideas. The characters of No Exits are on a quest for individuation as a solution to escape hell, each of the characters needs to realize their unconscious to intergrade a sense of set grounds they operate through. Once this sense of individuation is established, it results in an integration with the “other,” thus resulting in the minimization of their suffering. As a result, each of the characters will realize their flaws and, in turn, will understand the darkness of human nature, thus enabling them to escape from themselves and therefore escape from hell altogether. Each of the characters must shed their accumulated false layers to stand face to face with their darkness, through this acceptance only then they can be free and essentially escape Sartre’s hell.

 

According to Jung, individuation happens through multiple stages, referring to the example of women portrayed through the character of “Miss X” (see Fig. 1).
These phenomena of individuation were demonstrated through paintings capturing the entire essence of the process. Individuation commences with imprisonment, with the idea of being psychologically caught by the unconscious. In Figure 1, Miss X is portrayed as being stuck. Her hair seems to be blown out behind her, and the movement of the sea suggests a strong wind. Since the unconscious is always the unconscious, it slips into subliminal imagery to convey symbolism that language fails to
convey. As the transformation of Miss X takes place, we see that the symbolism is reflective of birth: Birthing one persona by merging with all aspects of the personality, the egg is a symbol of life as Jung states in his study of individuation (see Fig. 2).

(Fig. 2).

Figure 1. Jung, C. G. The Sacred Round: Mandalas by the Patients of Carl Jung 1926–1945. Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Brookhaven, Georgia.

Figure 2. Jung, C. G. The Sacred Round: Mandalas by the Patients of Carl Jung 1926–1945. Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Brookhaven, Georgia.

 

The egg is a germ of life, and it carries a lofty symbolic significance. It is not just a cosmogonic symbol but also a philosophical one. A similar concept of rebirth resides in the concept of the play Being and Nothingness. The concept of this play is a movement toward the attainment of freedom from “the spirit of seriousness.” The first principle of the play involves a man on a quest to escape from himself. He sets multiple rules that he decides to act upon and operate by; such rules and definitions are established through a deeply rooted structure of human reality (Zheng 133).

Sartre’s Hell

Hell is the setting of the play. Contrary to conventional portrayals of hell with burning pits, demons etc., what we have here is an elegant drawing room that is furnished with all the period trappings of the Second Empire; the room contains a mantelpiece with a bronze ornament and three sofas of distinct colors, without any mirrors and windows. A perfect setting where Garcin, Estelle, and Inez spend the rest of eternity in the company of one another. The play reveals that true or real misery lies the inability of humans to control their objective reality, especially in the presence of other humans. Rea introduced the idea of the human experience related to the “other” and its impact on the human consciousness. In his view, once a person is aware of the other’s consciousness, the person’s freedom vanishes, the person can no longer define himself or herself, and the main subject then becomes a tool that is exposed to the judgment of others (55–58). The very idea that “Hell is other people” does not imply that other people are inherently torturous, but that the nuances of human contact can tamper with a human’s ability to picture themselves in a specific manner. There seems to be an association between this argument of Sartre and his philosophical discourse related to conversion within the context of social relations. As the play progresses, the characters slowly began to understand the nature of hell; they soon realize that they are tortured and there is a progression in their suffering by virtue of their time spent in hell rather than them being tortured by the actual presence of the “other.” A study of contemporary philosophy at the University of Porto, Portugal, would serve as a reflection of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophical work on the transcendence of the ego; this work suggests that the theme of freedom is fundamental as Sartre characterized our being as one that is “condemned to be free” (1–2). Sartre refers to our awareness of freedom, which is revealed through anguish; the ego is a mask that hides the unpredictability of our consciousness. Thus, humans should not bear malice or cause despair for others. People are seen as being inherently spontaneous; thus, the ego is merely a mask that is customized for our interactions with others. Sartre’s conversion comprises two aspects and these are highlighted by Rae Gavin: The first one proclaims that only when the human’s consciousness experiences pain is the person able to open up to the “other”; only in such circumstances do we experience a sense of understanding of another’s freedom. This idea is clear in the relationship between Estell and Inez: The two women pretended to be allies but lacked respect for each other’s boundaries, consequently resulting in the deterioration of things. This suggests the second aspect of conversion: Freedom is subjective, and it exists in an objective world that is governed by an objective body (54). Regardless of Inez’s desire for Estelle, the drawing-room “Bad Faith” implies that deception inhibits the existence of any positive connections. The deceptive nature of hell overpowers Inez and Estelle’s freedom of choice. Thus, the source of their disagreement is the result of their unconscious self. In a particular scene, Inez urges Estelle to look inside her reflective pupils to see her reflection. Estelle notices that her reflective smile “sinks” down into Inez’s pupils, causing her extreme discomfort and an aversion toward Inez. “You know the way the catch larks—with a mirror? I’m your lark-mirror, my dear, and you can't escape me” (No Exit 22). Despite Inez’s efforts to conciliate Estelle, she cannot escape the reality of being in hell.

Individuation: Escaping the other

No Exit portrays each of the characters as an archetypical figure who is embedded in the “collective unconscious.” The characters of No Exit are stuck in their shadow. This is obvious since they are, in a literal sense, doomed in hell; therefore, they are imprisoned by their own psyche as well as by the gaze of the “other.” Using the suggestive psychological pattern observed in the literary plots implemented by Jung, we can argue that to escape hell Garcin, Inez, and Estell must transform themselves entirely to attain self-realization and wholeness. They could achieve this through a rational order, emotional sympathy, and an intuitive understanding of the “other” at a conscious and subconscious level, reaching a tranquil balance by overcoming egoism and one-sidedness governed by “darkness,” in other words, the shadow self (Leigh 99). The goal of individuation is to integrate the conscious with the unconscious aspects of one’s psyche. According to Jung, the collective unconscious resides deep in the psyche and it consists of symbolic forms that have accumulated through the human experience. The key archetypes are the persona, “the social mask,” the shadow, “a person’s hidden dark side,” the child, the mother, the old wise man, the anima/animus, and the self. The self represents the fully integrated person in Jung’s theory. These symbols are prominent in Sartre’s literature. Garcin’s mask is represented as a brave, masculine man. His shadow is the contrary, which is of an emasculated coward who constantly humiliated and cheated on his wife, he was killed by a firing squad as was fling the country in times of war, making him a coward for being a pacifist and not fighting to protect his land. As for Estelle her mask is of a innocent and coy women, who is only concerned for aesthetics and romance, as for her shadow, the interest she takes in aesthetics and beauty is a source of obsession, her coyness is false as it was revealed that she murdered her own child and betrayed her high status husband that she used for acquiring money. Last and not least, Inez’s mask reflects a strong individual with minimum regard to the suffering of others and goes far to seek the pain and suffering of those around her. Her shadow is desperate for real connections, she is unable to love or have empathy for others, therefore resenting those who are capable of such emotions. Inez destroys the relationship between her cousin and his partner and tries desperately to come between Estelle and Garcin in efforts to soothe the lack of love and compassion she possesses.

In the Sartrean universe, shame is the token that measures human inequity. According to Sartre, one becomes frozen by the other’s look, thus becoming an object for the other:

GARCIN: Well, I, anyhow, can feel sorry for you, too. Look at me, we're naked, naked right through, and I can see into your heart. That’s one link between us. Do you think I’d want to hurt you? I don’t regret anything, I'm dried up, too. But for you, I can still feel pity. (No Exit 33)

Garcin desperately attempts to reconcile with Inez; however, she reminds him that “there are traps for him too in this room.” The very nature of the Sartrean hell was specifically designed to punish each of the characters. What Sartre is trying to communicate is that one experiences himself or herself only through the other’s gaze; therefore, one suffers only due to the assumed assumption about the other’s psyche and the perceptive judgment of the targeted object. One must go through a catharsis to free oneself from the absurdity of being, thus using the process of individuation as a tool to attain self-actualization (Mirvish 156).

Exiting hell: confrontation and integration

Garcin was the closest to exiting hell; however, he refused to do so, instead choosing to remain in hell to convince Inez that he is no coward. In reality, Garcin is simply seeking the approval and validation of the “other.” Garcin never questioned being in hell; in fact, he had the necessary awareness to comprehend the sins he had committed during his lifetime. He knew exactly why he was sentenced to eternal damnation. Garcin is also seen to be the most reflective and conscious person compared with Inez and Estelle. From a Jungian perspective, Inez is an embodiment of the “shadow” self; she is a self-proclaimed “Damn Bitch” who constantly seeks the suffering of others; and even in death, she is portrayed as being remorseless and ruthless. Estelle is the perfect manifestation of Sartre’s bad faith: She remains in denial and thirsts for male validation until the end of the play. She even tries to kill Inez by stabbing her and forgetting the eternal nature of hell. Estelle refuses accountability, seeing no fault regarding her action; she is driven by her unconsciousness, as Jung would suggest, thereby operating through the repressed parts of her psyche.

Sartre’s statement “Hell is other people” is emphasized. A solution is suggested to resolve this phenomenon through a Jungian psychological theory of individuation. Garcin, Inez, and Estelle can escape the Sartrean hell by going through a psychological catharsis, thus allowing them to confront the self. The Sartrean hell is grounded in the collective unconscious. In Jung’s book Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious, Jung recalls a patient’s dream that resembles Sartre’s description of hell: “she was in a drawing room. There was a table with three chairs beside it. An unknown man standing beside her invited her to sit down” (332). What this suggests is that the Sartrean hell does operate from the unconsciousness of one’s mind; this explains why each of Sartre’s characters was unable to hide their “shadow” self and “bad faith.” As Jung suggests in his study of individuation, to escape hell, Sartre’s characters are compelled to confront themselves; the subconscious and the conscious mind have to come together in harmony to attain individuation and, therefore, freedom.

Garcin’s bad faith, also known as a shadow, is his fear of being perceived as a coward. He is tortured by the other’s perception of him, and this results in him desperately seeking external approval. As Sartre argues, “man is the desire to be” (258). For Garcin to overcome his bath faith, he must reconcile with his shadow by choosing his freedom over external validation and approval. According to a review of Sartre’s existentialist psychoanalysis, man in relation to others is confronted with a situation in which a decision is required, and action must be conducted; however, there is a lack of sufficient causal factors that are derived from morals and conventions (Wisdom 260). Consequently, it is suggested that a motive is required for a course of action to be achieved: Garcin must want his freedom over the approval of the “other” to be free.

Inez has a masochistic personality: She purposefully inflicts harm on others and derives pleasure in doing this. She operates through her shadow; according to Jungian psychology, this translates as an oppositional repressed self to what she is projecting externally. The projected shadow supplements her character with a natural dark essence. Inez is a representation of what Sartre describes as the foundation of being “the worm at the heart of being.” To get rid of the limitations of hell, Inez must confront the side of herself that is desperate to connect with others. Recalling what Jung has suggested concerning attaining individuation through self-confrontation, becoming a true individual is impossible when there is an inadequacy of true meaningful relationships. Only by interacting with others and merging with one’s environment can a person acknowledge who he or she can become (Leigh 99). Inez refuses to form any meaningful connection, whether in life or death, making her doomed for eternity. Only by confronting her shadow, which seeks external connection and love, at a subconscious level, Inez can be free.

Estelle lives in her made-up delusions, overly romanticizes reality, lacks self-disclosure and insight, operates along a superficial plane, and is only concerned with how she physically looks and about obtaining Garcin’s attention. She insists that being in hell is a mistake and refuses to accept her reality. Estelle’s consciousness suffers mostly due to her inability to see herself as being the root cause of her epistemic social anxiety (Bering 4). Estelle’s shadow is unconscious, symbolically meaning that her dark side is hidden, or unacknowledged as Jung would suggest. Estelle must abandon her bad faith in order for her to escape the Sartrean hell. In Sartre’s understanding, Estelle must shed the unauthentic mask that she has been accustomed to wearing, thereby polishing her external self. From a Jungian perspective, this mask is called the “persona,” the character that a person plays when being observed by others. Estelle will only be free once she confronts her true self in the absence of the other’s mirror.

No exit portrays hell as other people through Sartre’s philosophical existentialism of authenticity, being-in-itself, and being-for-itself, which encompasses the psychological elements that are found in the Jungian psychoanalysis of individuation and the collective unconscious. An attempt is made at diving into the character’s unconscious mind and allowing a deeper understanding of Sartre’s hell and the fundamental concept surrounding “Hell is other people.” A solution is suggested to help each of the characters navigate their way through the Sartrean hell.

 

 

Works Cited

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