"This bronze. Yes, now's the moment; I'm looking at this thing on the mantelpiece, and I understand that I'm in hell. I tell you, everything's been thought out beforehand. They knew I'd stand at the fireplace stroking this thing of bronze, with all those eyes intent on me. Devouring me. What? Only two of you? I thought there were more; many more. 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!"
— Garcin
A classic play by Jean-Paul Sartre that's highly popular in Existentialism, No Exit is an often darkly comic look at the Self-Inflicted Hell faced by its three characters. They are Joseph Garcin, an insecure journalist; Inès Serrano, a lesbian postal clerk, and Estelle Rigault, a beautiful and charming young aristocrat.
Contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: The play leaves many unanswered questions, and the characters don't ask them either, given that The Valet, likely the only one that could answer them, does not return after escorting Estelle.
- Why did the door finally open? Was it to further mock the trio by reminding them of their reliance on one another? What would have happened if they had left, given that The Valet claimed there is nothing beyond their room other than passages and other rooms? Where would they end up?
- Inès and Garcin claim to have been dead for several months before being escorted to their Hell room, whereas Estelle claims to have died the day before. Where were Garcin and Inès' souls held before they went to Hell?
- It's never explained what became of Florence after her death. Given that she committed a murder-suicide, it's possible that she was damned to Hell, too.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Once he gets over the fact that he's not being sent to a Fire and Brimstone Hell, Garcin asks why he's not been given a toothbrush. The Valet explains this is common for new arrivals.The Valet: All our guests ask me the same questions. Silly questions, if you'll pardon my saying so. Where's the torture-chamber? That's the first thing they ask, all of them. They don't bother their heads about the bathroom requisites, that I can assure you. But after a bit, when they've got their nerve back, they start in about their toothbrushes and what-not.
- Asshole Victim: Garcin and Estelle at first insist that they're in hell because of a mistake. They aren't. Inès at least is very well aware that she was an evil person and had this coming.
- At Least I Admit It: Inès is the first to realize that they're in Hell, and she makes no bones about what a terrible person she was. Garcin and Estelle, by contrast, attempt to keep up their genteel facades for a while, over which she browbeats them relentlessly. Eventually it's Garcin who suggests they all come clean and admit why they've been damned.
- Attention Whore: All three of them, which is a major reason they're perfect for tormenting each other— they're completely incapable of leaving each other alone.
- Badass Pacifist: Garcin thinks he's this, but he's really a Dirty Coward.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Estelle appears nice at first, but she's truly vicious.
- Bottle Episode: An extreme example, in that the entire play takes place in the one room, where the characters are condemned to stay for ever.
- Brutal Honesty: Inès doesn't mince her words.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Inès is quite self-aware of what a terrible person she is.
- The Casanova: Garcin. One of his flaws is his lust.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: A precursor to cell phones, when showing off the room the Valet draws attention to the service bell that the characters are to ring if they want something from the staff. He casually points out that the wiring on the bell is bad and it tends to be unreliable, never ringing when someone actually needs something. Sure enough, the bell breaks immediately after the Valet leaves, and only serves to mockingly reinforce the fact that our characters are sealed in together alone.
- Coitus Uninterruptus: In life, Garcin was fond of bringing his conquests home in full view of his wife, and making her serve them coffee in bed. He does it with Estelle during the course of the play whilst Inès offers running commentary, in a very awkward scene.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Hell involves locking you in a small hotel room with two similarly unpleasant people... forever. Better yet, the door isn't locked. It even pops open near the end. No one has the nerve to leave. It's implied that the door will only open at a time when the people in the room won't decide to leave.
- Dead to Begin With: Our characters are introduced entering the hotel, which is Hell.
- Deadpan Snarker: Inès, who even admits to being impolite. Despite her borderline obsession with Estelle, she's even snarky toward her.
- Dirty Coward: Garcin deserted and met his end by firing squad.
- Domestic Abuse: Garcin was emotionally abusive to his wife, whom he also openly cheated on. That more than his deserting the army sent him to Hell.
- Driven to Suicide: After witnessing Estelle murder their child, her lover committed suicide by shooting himself in the face.
- Epiphanic Prison: The door pops open into the end, allowing the characters to leave. None do, because they're all too dependent on each other. Since nobody had an epiphany, they're all stuck there forever.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Estelle, who had a younger boy interested in her while alive but did not return his feelings because she is not a "cradle snatcher." She still becomes horribly jealous when the still-alive Olga begins making advances at him and reveals to him what she did.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: A uniquely dark and disturbing example since the people are in hell and their laughter could be them going insane.
- Evil Is Petty: The pettiness of all three is readily apparent, and as the play goes on we see how deep their evil deeds go.
- Freudian Trio: Garcin is Ego, the harshly critical Inès eventually becomes the Superego (while acting like Id at first), and the psychotic Estelle reveals herself to be Id.
- The Golden Rule: The point of the play, and of existentialist philosophy in general. You create the world you live in, and hellish behaviour will make your life hell quite well enough without any divine intervention required.
- Hell Hotel: Arguably, this is the inversion (rather than an Earthly hotel being hellish, Hell is a rather normal Earthly hotel–on the surface anyway).
- In Love with Love: Garcin is disgusted with Estelle because she tries to seduce him with flattery, so when Estelle calls Garcin a hero like he wishes, it doesn't actually mean anything.
- Insistent Terminology: Garcin and Estelle tend to fall into this a fair deal to try and distance themselves from what's become of them. Garcin avoids mentioning Hell by name to the Valet, referring to it as "This residence" while Estelle insists they all refer to themselves as "absentees" as opposed to dead people.
- I Regret Nothing: Garcin almost says this word-for-word after telling Inès and Estelle the story of how badly he mentally and emotionally abused his former wife when he was still alive. Estelle and Inès wordlessly look on, making it unclear if they feel bad for his wife or are shocked by his audacity. Whatever feeling was there, it doesn't stick for Estelle, as she tries to pursue Garcin anyway.
- Ironic Hell: A very stripped-down, bare-bones version. You got sent to hell because you're an unpleasant person. Your punishment is to be locked into a room with two other unpleasant people. Forever. And you're not even locked in—it's only your psychological flaws, the ones that got you sent to hell in the first place, that keep you there.
- It's All About Me: All three are this, leading to the sins that caused them to become damned to begin with. They spend a good deal of time in hell fussing about how they're remembered on Earth, either claiming their friends are remembering them unfairly or expressing indignation when their friends don't think of them at all.
- Jerkass: The three of them in life were awful people, which comes to be used as their mutual hell.
- Love Triangle: Played with all over the place. Hell picks the roommates very well; every one of them is capable of respecting each other at least superficially, but when any two start getting along, the third person will try to break it up out of jealousy. All three are attention whores and cannot stand the other two being friendly. Estelle makes romantic overtures at both but really wants to get with Garcin, who ends up ignoring her in favor of Inès (because he thinks that Inès, as the Only Sane Man, will be able to validate him), while Inès ignores and degrades him because she's in love with Estelle. The three are perfectly suited to constantly torturing each other via social shenanigans, and yet incapable of dealing with the idea of leaving the other two.
- The Gadfly: All three are trapped in hell to be gadfly's to each other, but Inès, who is all but explicitly stated to be a sociopath, and Estelle, who is a whiny Attention Whore, are more pronounced than Garcin, at least for the duration of the play.
- Inès actively antagonizes both Estelle and Garcin, making it impossible for them to keep to themselves. She also can't seem to help herself but be antagonistic and creepy toward Estelle even when she's trying to win her favor.
- Garcin finds Estelle "innocently" annoying because she wants his attention while he's uninterested in her. However, when he finally gives her the attention she craves after tiring of her and Inès pestering him, she can't put her ego aside long enough to stroke his and belittles him for his cowardice, ruining any chance she had of him becoming interested in her.
- Gold Digger: Estelle married a wealthy older man when she was just 16 to provide for herself and her orphaned brother.
- Manipulative Bitch: Inès gaslighted her lover in life until she committed a Murder-Suicide with a gas leak. Inès tries repeatedly to make Estelle dependent on her over the course of the story, but Estelle is creeped out by her advances and rejects her every time.
- Meaningful Name:
- Garcin: Resembles the French word for "boy". It comes from his desire to be seen as a hero or a man.
- Estelle: Est-elle or "is she". Comes from the fact that she can't know if she's real or not without seeing herself in a mirror.
- Estelle also means "star", as befits a narcissist.
- Inés means "chaste", and she was a closeted lesbian in life.
- Her last name Serrano is the name of a chili pepper of the extra hot variety.
- Minimalist Cast: The only characters are Estelle, Garcin, Inès, and the Valet (who's a one-scene wonder).
- Mundane Afterlife: The characters' afterlife is a mundane-looking hotel room with three couches, much to their amusement. The dialog does make it clear that Hell isn't like this for everyone, though.Garcin: (Gesturing a the decor) Are all the rooms like this one?
The Valet: How could they be? We cater to all sorts. - Murder the Hypotenuse: After taking a liking to her cousin's wife, Inès manipulated his murder so she'd have her to herself.
- Estelle attempts to do this to Inès towards the end when she grabs a letter opener and stabs her with it. However, since Inès is already dead, it has no effect, not even causing her pain.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The door to the room opens toward the end of the play, but nobody can bring themselves to actually leave. While part of it is because they're too hung up on their insecurities being probed by the others, they're also terrified to leave the (almost nonexistent) comfort of their room and go into Hell. Notably what's outside their door is never revealed to audience. Some productions have it represented by bright lights, sheer darkness, or ominous noises, but in the original script, the only note is that it's much, much hotter with the door open.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Estelle, who acts like a carefree airhead who believes they were sorted into hell "by accident" until Garcin and Inez force the truth about her being an unrepentant baby killer out of her.
- Offing the Offspring: Estelle, after being impregnated by her lover and not wishing her husband to find out, throws the baby from a balcony overlooking an ocean cliff, with a large rock tied to it to boot.
- Only Sane Man: Garcin believes himself to be this. He thinks that he's a provider and pacifist who has no reason to be here. Inès is the real deal, being the first one to recognize that they're in Hell, there for very good reasons, and are supposed to torture each other.
- Ontological Mystery: The play begins with them in a hotel, which they determine to be hell and then puzzle out why they are there.
- Pacifism Is Cowardice: Garcin presents himself as a Badass Pacifist, but is actually a Dirty Coward who was shot for desertion.
- Poor Communication Kills: Each person could probably get what they wanted from the other if they put their egos aside and communicated better. The issue here is that they just can't help themselves but to be annoying and pick at each other's flaws.
- While it is unlikely, given her personality, Inès could validate Garcin's desire to be seen as a real man if he stopped being so openly desperate to prove that he did nothing wrong.
- Garcin would have had sex if Estelle hadn't mocked him for his cowardice just as they were about to have it. However, her contempt for him and her perception of him as "taking what she can get given the circumstances" caused him to reject all of her advances, dooming her to an eternity of lust without relief since all he cares about now is Inès' validation, and having sex with Estelle will only make her resent him.
- While it is not explicitly stated, its clear that Estelle is either straight or simply has no romantic interest in Inès. That said, as the only women trapped together in that room, the two could form a friendship if Inès stopped being a creep toward Estelle and subtly insulting her even in her "nice" moments.
- Psycho Lesbian: Inès. It's never outright stated that she's a lesbian, but it's pretty clear she is, and committed a terrible act because of it. She also becomes obsessed with Estelle, constantly making passes at her and becoming enraged when Estelle doesn't return her affections. Exaggerated when Estelle becomes physical with Garcin which the two of them do intentionally to torture her.
- Remember the Dead: In one scene, Inès sees a man and a woman having sex on her bed, then her vision blacks out because she no longer has an alibi.
- Sadist: Inès lives for hurting others and quite readily admits it.
- Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere: The play's setting is a locked room that presumably isn't in any actual hotel, or building for that matter. As it turns out, it doesn't have to be sealed.
- Self-Inflicted Hell: The context of the famous "Hell is other people" quote. The only reason Hell is anything like hellish is because all the characters are horrible people who can't help but make each other miserable via social interaction. Made even more poignant by the fact that the characters are given several opportunities to escape during the play, but are held back every time by their own flaws, fears and anxieties. Not only is hell other people, YOU are its security system.
- Servile Snarker: The Valet takes immense pleasure in welcoming the new guests, letting them figure out the nature of their hell for themselves and answering questions only when prompted.
- Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: This is part of the entire point. At the end of the story, it's implied that the main characters could leave at any time they wished to, but their own character flaws and lack of empathy with each other prevent them from doing so.
- Trophy Wife: Estelle was this in life, the young, pretty wife of a much older (and wealthier) gentleman.
- Undying Loyalty: Garcin's wife was loyal to him and mourned his death despite everything he'd put her through while he was alive.
- Unfazed Everyman: Aside from agonizing over and denying their reasons for ending up in Hell, the characters' reactions to being there are fairly blasé.
- Villain Protagonist: All of the characters are horrible people that have done horrible things. That's why they're in Hell, but only Inès recognizes this fact at first.
- Would Hurt a Child: Estelle didn't want to have a child with her lover, so she threw it over a balcony with a rock while he was watching. She doesn't appear to be sorry for what she did, despite the fact that she claims to still love him.
- Yandere: Estelle was displeased by one of her lovers, so she took a horrible revenge by throwing their child off a balcony in front of him.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: During the play, the characters have visions of life progressing without them on Earth, and it seems unlike usual Hells in which an eternity in Hell is actually a second in "real-time," what feels like a brief time in Hell is actually several months on the outside.
