On Summer Reading: Sartre

Since I am a bit behind in documenting my summer reading, I decided to do a two-for-one in this post and cover Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit and The Flies. I read these plays back to back anyway, they are both by the same author, and they were contained in the same volume, so I think it is allowed.

No Exit is a conception of hell. A man, Garcin, is led into a large room by a valet, leading one to believe the setting might be some kind of hotel. However, the two have a rather odd exchange before the bellhop leaves. A short while later a woman named Inez is led into the room, and later another young woman named Estelle. The three begin speaking and trying to sort out the situation into which they have been placed. Some natural relationships begin to form. The domineering Inez is attracted to Estelle, who is herself drawn to Garcin. However Garcin is so persistently caught up in his own thoughts that he is no answer to Estelle's desires. Throughout the dialogue, the three individuals begin revealing bits of their past and the circumstances of their deaths.

To make matters more interesting, these damned individuals can see glimpses of anyone who is talking or thinking about them. They still exist in part as long as someone remembers them. They find themselves somewhat surprised how quickly they are forgotten and are forced to face the circumstances in which they have been placed. They begin seeking an exit.

Contrary to the implications of the play's title, it seems that there may be a way out of this hell. The fellow captives serve in a way as either judge and redeemer for one another. However, each individual is so selfish that they cannot give up their own desires or fixations to allow the others their redemption. Nor do they have any mercy on one another. It is a horrible thing to have to witness, so that by the end of the play, you almost agree with Garcin's exclamation "Hell is other people."

It is an interesting idea. Especially when so much of the rhetoric regarding hell nowadays talks about separation and how hell is being alone. However, this is also an idea that cannot be entirely denied. People can be fantastically cruel to one another and can be far better torturers than perhaps a demon ever could. Nevertheless, I do not think it is necessarily true. I choose to agree more with Oscar Wilde when he writes in The Picture of Dorian Grey: "Each of us has heaven and hell in him." We all have a capacity for evil just as we have a capacity for good. And the play distinctly points out that these people could just as easily redeem as torture one another if only they gave up on choosing themselves. I think that this is an idea that goes along somewhat with C. S. Lewis's The Great Divorce which argues that people choose their fates all their lives, and they are not likely to change once they are dead. Interesting thoughts.

The other Sartre play that I read was The Flies. This was a retelling of the Greek myth in which Agamemnon has been killed by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her new lover, Aegisthus, who took his throne. The children of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are Elektra and Orestes. Orestes has been gone in Athens leaving Elektra alone to suffer under her step-father, but Orestes returns after eight years and kills both Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, but because he has gone so far as to shed family blood, he is tormented and driven mad by the Furies.

The Flies focuses primarily on the path Orestes takes from being a meek, inexperienced traveller to his reckless abandon in defying gods, law, and family, and the beginning of his torment by the Furies. Interlaced in Sartre's telling is the power of fear to grip people, denoted by the presence of flies--the presence of Zeus who is portrayed as a deity feeding on fear for his power.

I am still not entirely sure how I feel about this play. I certainly find it intriguing, and I always love seeing what different people will do with a common myth. The ideas in it are just tough for me. There is a great deal in this play about choice and about choosing your own fate. This is a common theme of Greek tragedies (and it usually doesn't work out for the protagonist), and it is also the strongest link between this play and No Exit. However, in this story, Orestes' choices of defiance, and his ability to overcome fear put him on an equal footing with Zeus. The idea of man being on equal footing with God is absurd to me, and I chafe against it, but I have to remind myself that although Zeus is a god, he is not God. They have hardly any qualities in common, and also, Zeus is fictional. Perhaps it would be better for me to think of Zeus in this play representing the fear he feeds on, and then I would be more okay with Orestes defying and overcoming fear. Because defying and overcoming fear are things I am always a fan of.