Sartre's No Exit: The Torture of Human Relationships

Sartre's *No Exit* reveals that hell is other people's judgments, creating inescapable suffering.

### The Complexity of Human Relationships: Insights from Sartre's *No Exit*
* 🔥 Sartre's play *No Exit* reveals that "**hell is other people**," emphasizing how the characters' interactions drive them to **madness rather than physical torture**.
* 🛋 The play features Garcin, who struggles with his **cowardice after deserting the army**, and Estelle, who grapples with her **guilt over having killed a child**, both attempting to maintain a façade of **moral respectability**.
* 💔 In contrast, Inez openly acknowledges her cruel actions, highlighting the **burden of cognitive dissonance** that Garcin and Estelle endure as they try to reconcile their **self-image with their past**.
* 👁 The absence of mirrors forces the characters to rely on each other's judgments, exacerbating their **insecurities** and leading to a **toxic need for validation and approval**.
* 🔒 Sartre illustrates that while we **crave the recognition of others**, this dependence can lead to suffering, as seen when Garcin chooses to **stay in hell rather than escape**, fearing the **judgment of Inez**.
* 💭 The play suggests that our **static self-images create unnecessary suffering**, echoing Buddhist teachings that advocate for a **more fluid understanding of the self**.
* 🧠 By examining our egos and the unconscious needs they fulfill, we can better understand the **sources of our pain** and the role of **external validation** in our lives.
* 🌌 Ultimately, Sartre's exploration reveals that while other people can be a source of torment, our own **rigid identities** contribute significantly to our suffering, urging us to reflect on the **nature of our self-concept**.

You remember all we were told about the torture chambers, the fire and brimstone, the burning, all old wives' tales. There's no need for red-hot pokers; hell is other people.

This line is spoken near the end of Jean-Paul Sartre's play *No Exit*, where three

people are trapped in a room together and told that this is hell, and they will be staying in one another's company forever. There is no torturer and there is no demon; they are to drive one another insane for eternity.

Contained within these pages are some of the

greatest insights, both of the immense value and the immense risk in getting close to other people. Here I will explore how it does this and what we can learn from it, but first we must set the scene. There is an ornate living room, and a man and two women are sat upon

different sofas. The man, Garcin, was shot for deserting the army and has a deep insecurity about being seen as a coward. He has also spent years mistreating his wife and has had endless affairs.

leap to protect their perceived moral virtue, but far from keeping them safe, this clinging to a veneer of respectability torments them inside. This forms a key part of their torture, whereas Inz sees herself in the light of day, fully conceding what she did was cruel

and underhanded to her cousin. The other two attempt to reconcile their shameful actions with the internal perception that they are somehow good people, despite it all. Gasan hides his perceived cowardice behind principles of pacifism, but he himself seems to know that this

is just a justification later applied to an act of fear. Estelle likewise clings to her outward appearance as a helpless young woman who is at the whims of the world around her, despite the fact that she killed a child. Both Gasan and Estelle want to maintain their pristine moral

character despite their actions, and this turns them inside out almost immediately. Not only do they have to continue existing knowing what they've done, but they face the additional cognitive dissonance of simultaneously trying to think of themselves as moral people. Inz is the only one free of this burden, and

so she has one fewer layer of suffering to go through. Satra here tells us something about the way morality operates in society that inadvertently makes us miserable. Let's think about what morality is for. Ultimately, it serves to control the actions of people in society. We don't want people stealing

stuff all the time, so we call it wrong and we socially and legally condemn those that do it. The trouble is that humans are not perfect; we've all done things that most would consider wrong. We might have indulged in some shoplifting in our younger years or lied to our

friends, or not, stuck by our principles when some personal gain was at stake. And our system of morality prevents us from owning these prior actions; we have to shuffle them away into a dark corner in our mind so that we can continue to think of ourselves as good. We fear the

moral condemnation of others, so we torture ourselves with this continual cognitive dissonance. Sartre is obviously not saying that we should do away with morality entirely, but his play nicely illustrates one downside of our moral system: we are not perfect, but to a

certain extent we have to pretend that we are. And if you want more on philosophy and the art of learning, then sign up to my email list; the link is in the description.  Two, the gays of the other...

flow of social conversation, or being out in public, or just enjoying life in a pleasantly unselfconscious way, only to be suddenly conscious of what you're doing, how you're walking, or how you're dressed—whether you have a spot on your face or whether your hair is a mess? What

was a wonderful moment turns into a sudden burst of anxiety. This is the effect of seeing yourself through the eyes of an imagined other. In Hell, the characters are condemned to constantly be watched by one another. The play is explicit about there being no mirrors in

Hell, and the only way the characters can tell what they look like is by asking one another. They are damned to constantly see themselves through the gaze of other people and are subject to their judgments, both about their appearance and their character. This is a big part of what slowly drives them mad.

In a particularly poignant moment of the play, Inz offers to be Estelle's mirror and tell Estelle what she looks like. This is all well and good at first, and Inz begins by admiring Estelle, but when she perceives Estelle as judging her,

she tells Estelle that there's an ugly spot on her chin, which greatly upsets her. Estelle cannot check whether Inz is lying or not because there are no mirrors, no independent judge of her appearance. Likewise, trapped in a room with just two people,

Gasan is forced to rely on the judgment of Estelle and Inz to determine his self-worth. He begs them to recognize him as a brave man and not a coward who deserted his duty. Though he does convince Estelle, Inz will not budge, and this throws Gasan into a frenzy. He

cannot help but crave the approval of Inz, someone who openly hates him and holds him in contempt, just like Estelle. He has no one to turn to to give him an honest appraisal of his character, nor is he given enough solitude that he can rescue

his own self-image. He is stuck looking at himself through the eyes of other people and is constantly miserable as a result. And how different is our situation from theirs, really? Unless you currently reside in a monastery, you probably crave the attention, approval, and affection of others in some way. This

is not unusual; it is a cornerstone of human existence.  SRA is pointing out that most of the time we only see ourselves as reflected in the judgments and opinions of others. Through their warped mirror, can you truly conceive of yourself as brave if you've never been

Told that by another person, can you think of yourself as beautiful if everyone else disagrees with you?  SRA thinks that, for the most part, the answer is no, at least not at the moment. And as long as this is true, social interaction will always carry an element of fear or

misery, because at each turn we are looking to be reassured in the eyes of other people that we are who we say we are, which incidentally brings us nicely onto our next point. Three: other people are essential. This is both the bitter and the sweet of SRA's analysis of our

relationships to others: they are essential to our experience in the world, and this is both for good and for ill. It is not just that we're forced to bear the judgments of others and see ourselves through their eyes, but that we actively want to hear that judgment, so

that we can change their mind if it's a negative judgment and feel happy if it's a positive one. SRA says that we recognize other people as free agents, and this is both immensely edifying and deeply terrifying. Since we recognize other people as free, that means we're

not alone; we have people to share the world with, to experience things with. Without this, we would no doubt be depressingly lonely. But on the other hand, this freedom is terrifying; after all, we cannot control other people. Every time we come to care for them or respect

their opinion, we are opening ourselves up to being disappointed or rejected. We need other people, and we need to be vulnerable with them, but this vulnerability comes with great risk, and this is what *No Exit* highlights perfectly, at my favorite moment of the

Gasan has decided he's had enough of the company of ANZ and Estelle, and he frantically tries to leave the room. To his surprise, the door swings wide open; he is free to go. He pauses for a second, and then he decides to stay until ANZ

has conceded that he's not a coward. Think about that for a second: the door to hell is wide open, and Gasan can leave, but he instead chooses to stay because, as much as he seems to hate other people, he needs them to validate him. As he puts

it: "No, no, I could not leave you here gloating over my defeat, with all those thoughts about me running around in your head." This is a really telling line because it shows us the torturous dynamic we can have with others: we need their approval and their validation, and

this need seems to grow ever stronger the more they disapprove of us. But a certain extent of recognition and judgment by others seems necessary if we're going to become fully rounded humans. After all, if we stayed in blissful ignorance of what we were like

through the eyes of other people, then we would be deprived of many of the cues that we need to develop and grow as a person and to take part in society. For Sartre, a person cannot exist in isolation; they're created by the friction, the tension, and the interplay that exists

between society at large and the agent themselves. Think about it this way: while you would probably learn not to throw yourself into fires from the bare pain stimulus of burning, you would not learn that it's a good thing to help others if it were not for the fact that

Other people rewarded you when you did, and condemned you when you did not. A lot of people claim that Sartre's view on societal constraints and morality was pessimistic; that he would rather have us as fully independent agents. But I think Sartre's opinion is more complex than that.

I think he recognizes that other people are essential for our development as persons, but at the same time, this comes with a lot of suffering, and that suffering is worth acknowledging. He elsewhere says that it's in our interactions with others that we learn

of our freedom and to take responsibility for our actions. So I doubt he thinks that other people are wholly bad; he just thinks that it is complicated, and we cannot have all the benefits of living in a society without incurring some drawbacks. But what do we

do about it? Sartre does not provide an opinion on this in *No Exit*, but if you'll allow me to speculate, I would like to do some philosophizing of my own. For the ego takes the...

If we look at the suffering of the characters in *No Exit*, we notice immediately that they're not going through any physical pain. There are no torture devices and nothing that is in itself harmful. The only pain they experience is the pain of being viewed and judged by other people, and how this conflicts with their self-image. But this

is only painful if they have a static self-image that can be attacked. If Garcin were not so married to the idea of not being a coward, then he wouldn't worry what Inez thinks he is. If Estelle did not cling to the idea that men find her...

Beautiful. She would not spend so much time and energy attempting to seduce Gasa if the characters' egos did not take up so much space in their minds. Then they would be naturally less self-conscious, and they would suffer less as a result. There are parallels to

be drawn here with some Buddhist ideas. Many of the Buddha's teachings are about minimizing the human tendency to place their flag on a hill and go, "This is what I am, and this is what I will always be." In other words, the aim is to dismantle

the development of a static ego upon which one's emotional state relies. Instead, many Buddhists recommend not identifying with the aspects of you that change. So they would advise Estelle to not identify so strongly with her looks because, although they might have served her in the past, they will not

last forever. And if she does not let go of her attachment to them, she will be forever scared of losing them and forever seeking the validation of others to reassure her that they're still there. They might take Gasa aside and let him know that even if he acted out of

cowardice, the suffering he undergoes stems from his identity as a man who's brave in every situation. This sort of declaration is a recipe for unhappiness, as virtually no one is brave in every situation. They might take Gasa aside and

let him know that her hatred for Gasa stems from him having something she wants: the admiration of Estelle. But that Estelle's behavior is not hers to control, and as long as she tries to, she will suffer for it. To press this point,

Further, we could appeal to some basic concepts from psychoanalysis. We can ask our main characters to truly examine their thoughts and ask them what unconscious emotional needs their egos are fulfilling. What is it about his less-than-stellar track record with bravery that torments Gasar so disproportionately?

Why is it that Estelle and Anz so need the attraction and approval of others beyond any reasonable degree? We cannot answer these questions on the characters' behalfs, but we can certainly ask them of ourselves. What are our egos doing for us?

And when do they cause us to suffer unnecessarily? What unconscious fears and desires do we have that are manifesting in this corrupted self-image? These are not easy questions to answer and are even harder questions to ask. It is not that the answers to these questions

will immediately alleviate our suffering, but we will better understand why it is that the judgments of other people hurt us so much. We will understand which parts of our self-concepts are vulnerable to attack from the outside and how much of our egos are doing us

more harm than good. Eventually, we will come to realize that, although it may seem like other people are making us suffer with their judgments and evaluations, that we are volunteering to suffer by maintaining an ego that is bound to burst at the first sign of judgment. So,

perhaps hell is other people, but hell is also ourselves when we mistake our egos for our souls. I hope you enjoyed this video and let me know what you think in the comments. And stick around the channel for more on thinking to improve your life.

Sartre's philosophy of why you hate people (Sartre's No Exit explained)

Unsolicited advice

Sartre's *No Exit* and the Nature of Hell

The play depicts hell as the inescapable company of others, not physical torture.

Three individuals are trapped in a room, their torment stemming from each other's presence.

The characters' suffering arises from their inability to escape each other's judgment.

The play explores the immense value and risk of close relationships.

The setting is an ornate living room where a man and two women are seated.

Characters attempt to reconcile shameful actions with a self-image of morality.

They justify their actions, creating cognitive dissonance.

Maintaining a pristine moral character despite past actions causes internal conflict.

One character's freedom from this pretense leads to less suffering.

Societal morality prevents acknowledging past wrongdoings, leading to self-torture.

The Gaze of Others and Self-Consciousness

Sudden awareness of self in public situations causes anxiety.

Characters in *No Exit* are constantly watched and judged by each other.

Their self-perception is entirely dependent on the judgment of others.

An offer to act as a mirror highlights the dependence on external validation.

Characters rely on others' judgment for self-worth, leading to misery.

The Essential and Terrifying Nature of Others

Others are essential to our experience, both positively and negatively.

We actively seek judgment to confirm or change self-perception.

Recognizing others as free agents is both edifying and terrifying.

Vulnerability to others' opinions brings both connection and risk of disappointment.

A character chooses to stay in hell rather than leave without validation.

Overcoming Suffering Through Self-Awareness

Suffering stems from the conflict between self-image and external judgment.

A static self-image makes individuals vulnerable to external criticism.

Buddhist ideas suggest minimizing a fixed self-image to reduce suffering.

The goal is to dismantle a static ego that dictates emotional states.

Psychoanalytic concepts encourage examining unconscious needs driving ego.