Jean Paul Sartre No Exit Themes

No Exit is a work of literature – a play to be exact – which is a nice change from the usual articles that we read in class. Written by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, the play’s themes illustrate a few of his philosophical concepts, most importantly “bad faith” which is a “refusal to confront facts and/or choices” especially in front of society. We see bad faith almost immediately and especially obviously in the character Estelle, a narcissistic woman who made a fuss over the fact that her dress didn’t match the remaining couch and that her make up wasn’t proper. Estelle is so preoccupied by what people think of her that she becomes delirious over the fact that there isn’t a mirror and she has to go by what Inez tells her – a woman Estelle doesn’t trust in the very least. Her bad faith goes to the extreme extent that when

All three characters were hesitant to talk about their deaths, and both Garcin and Estelle make themselves seem as innocent as possible before revealing the true reasons for their deaths and why they are in Hell. However, Inez doesn’t care to go too much into detail over her death, simply saying “gas stove” and that she had an affair with her cousin’s wife, insinuating that the wife was the cause of Inez’s death. Other than that, Inez wasn’t “too keen” on telling the tale, and there really isn’t any reason for her not to tell unless she cared about what Garcin and Estelle had to say. Therefore, Inez also fell into the trap of bad faith and hell is also other people for her. Inez is the most mature in the situation though, unlike the two other characters, she is the most realistic – saying this is not just chance – and has accepted her fate “Dead! Dead! Dead! Knives, poison, ropes— useless. It has happened already, do you understand? Once and for all. So here we are,