"No Exit" Response #2

The play reaches a high point on page 45, when Garcin says, "There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is--other people!” All three of the characters represent the existentialist idea of being-in-itself. They exist through other people's perception of them, and are tormented by the reflections of themselves that they see from others. It is particularly agonizing for all of them to watch (or imagine) how all memory of them is being erased, as the people on earth gradually forget them. As Inez says, "I feel so empty, desiccated - really dead at last. All of me's here, in this room" (29). When the people on earth no longer give any thought to the characters, they are left in hell, with horrifying images of themselves as killers and cowards, which they cannot accept.

Estelle, in particular, tries to hold onto her former image of herself by thinking of Peter. As she says, "All the time you're thinking "my glancing stream, my crystal girl," I'm only half here" (32). Estelle thinks that if someone on earth can view her as pure and crystal clear, she can also believe that she is not as bad as some of her actions, such as drowning her daughter in the lake. Garcin also needs the same thing - he desperately wants someone to believe that he is not a coward, that his life was not as pointless as it is starting to seem to him. For this reason, he tells Estelle, "One person's faith would save me. Will you have faith in me?"(39) Garcin needs someone to believe in him and reflect that image back to him. In existentialist terms, this is also being-in-itself, as Garcin and Estelle want to be defined by other people.

Something I also found interesting was why no one left when the door opened. Was it because none of the characters wanted to leave the relative security of the room? Or, possibly, because all of them were frightened of being left alone, where there would be no one to prove their existence.