No Exit and Three Other Plays Review
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is extremely difficult to approach, for his reputation rests heavily upon the work BEING AND NOTHINGNESS: AN ESSAY ON PHENOMENOLOGICAL ONTOLOGY--an extremely complex work that many regard as the single greatest work of 20th Century philosophy and which is largely beyond the grasp of everyone but the most gifted philosophers themselves. Fortunately for the rest of us, Sartre translated his vision of the world into more accessible forms. Although his novel NAUSEA is widely known, he is more likely to be known for his plays--and for one in particular, the celebrated NO EXIT. This collection includes that play (in French titled HUIS CLOS), THE FLIES (LES MOUCHES), DIRTY HANDS (LES MAINS SALES) and THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE (LA PUTAIN RESPECTUEUSE.) Each of these plays in some way revolve around ideas of self-determination, freedom of choice, and responsibility to one's self, addressing issues that are at the heart of French existentialism.
Unlike many European dramatists of his era, Sartre was not an absurdist author per se, and while his plays sometimes make use of an unexpected premise, they are generally naturalistic in tone. NO EXIT, first played in 1944, is easily the most famous: a man and two women, none of them of any great moral or intellectual worth, are led into a small room. It gradually transpires that they are dead--and that they are completely incompatible. This is hell: humans determined to impose their wills and ideas and visions upon unwilling others, working without ceasing to undercut each other in a vain effort to gain individual advantage. Written in a single act and requiring about ninety minutes to perform, it is easily one of the most intense plays ever seen on stage, a combination of intellectual and emotional ferocity beyond easy description. It is truly one of the great masterpieces of western drama.
The other titles are less well known to English-speaking audiences. Of them THE FLIES is the most widely performed. Pre-dating NO EXIT by a year, it is a full-length drama based on the ancient Greek ORESTIA, in which Orestes returns to his home--but unlike the original he has no intention of avenging his father's murder until he realizes that he can freely elect to do so as long as he freely embraces the consequences of his actions. As in most of Sartre's works, much of the play revolves around the necessity of the individual to define himself for himself, and often in rejection of the manipulative status quo, and the play possesses tremendous theatrical sweep. The characters are elegantly and powerfully redrawn from the Greek revenge tragedy, and the overall play itself has the power of its ritualistic orgins.
DIRTY HANDS debuted in 1948 and proved extremely controversial, albeit for reasons that Sartre himself may not have foreseen. In general terms, it is the story of a World War II communist party worker who, on party orders, commits murder and who is afterward shocked to find how utterly meaningless his act has been--ideas and issues that are very typical of Sartre's work. But the play's story pitted one faction of the communist party against another, questioned how effectively any person could define themselves within a political system, and in doing so thoroughly outraged half the nation. Almost three decades had to pass before it was once more performed in France. This said, it is easily the most problematic of the four plays; it seems unduly long, unduly dry, a bit awkward in construction, and very obvious in its statements.
Like NO EXIT, THE 1946 THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE is a one act, and although it does not rise to same artistic level as NO EXIT or THE FLIES it has unique sting nonetheless. The play, somewhat surprisingly, is set in a small town in the deep south of the United States, where a newly arrived prostitute finds herself caught up a drunken murder that gives rise to a double killing calculated to cover up the first crime. Again, issues of self-determination arise, but on this occasion with an unexpected twist: the central character, the prostitute, is a woman of no particular intelligence. She is just smart enough to know that she has been duped and manipulated, but not smart enough to sort out the implications and ramifications of her situation as it unfolds. The play has an undeniable power, but Sartre is writing outside his direct knowledge here, and although technically accurate, his portrait of southern racism does not ring entirely true.
Whenever I review plays I like to note that plays are not really written to be read. They are intended to be seen and heard on the stage, and many readers find it difficult to envision how a particular script will play out before an audience. The fact that each of these four plays has considerable philosophical depth may add to the difficulties involved. NO EXIT is a masterpiece, no doubt about it, and I think most people will find it highly readable--and I think most people will find THE FLIES not far behind. THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE is flawed, and it may leave some readers wondering at the point, but it is short and worth the effort. DIRTY HANDS is probably best left to those who are more interested in Sartre's overall work than those who just want to read a good play. Recommended overall, and given five stars on the basis of NO EXIT and THE FLIES, with RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE rated at four stars and DIRTY HANDS at three.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
No Exit and Three Other Plays Feature
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No Exit and Three Other Plays Overview
4 plays about an existential portrayal of Hell, the reworking of the Electra-Orestes story, the conflict of a young intellectual torn between theory and conflict and an arresting attack on American racism.
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Customer Reviews
To see ourselves as others see us - Wilf Gehlen - Cambridge, MA USA
Sartre's play, "No Exit," has a well-known premise--Garcin, Inez, and Estelle are an eternal triangle, captive in a small drawing room of hell, an endless merry-go-round of mutual torture for their sins. Another premise can be read, the major premise, actually--there is hope even in hell (contrary to Dante's epigram and Sartre's minor premise). And if there is hope in hell, there is even more hope for those who have not yet arrived.
The key to this interpretation is Joseph Garcin. He stands apart from Inez and Estelle who are both complicit in murder/suicide. Garcin is no murderer but a self-accused coward, a deserter in time of war. Cruelty to his wife is the ostensible reason for his damnation, but Garcin is troubled by that not at all, "I have no regrets." He is extremely troubled by his reputation as coward, among his living colleagues, among his present, eternal companions.
Garcin is obsessive in his need for vindication. He is totally a "being-for-others," to use Sartre's own terminology from "Being and Nothingness." He defines himself exclusively as he is seen by others. He is Kafka's Joseph K. ("The Trial") in the next phase of existence. Garcin would do better to emulate either of Joseph Heller's characters, Yossarian or Orr ("Catch 22"), or to take the meaning of Hillel's, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?"
Estelle in life would talk to others while watching herself in the mirror, "seeing myself as the others saw me," in an echo of wee Rabbie Burns. To escape his hell Garcin must see himself _not_ as others see him. There are no mirrors in the drawing room to distract him. This may be an inkling of a way out, encouragement from the landlords. For Garcin's prospects "no exit" may be too pessimistic, the original "huis clos" possibly more apt.
Bad Faith is destined to shadow man's existence (whether in Heaven or Hell) - Herbert L Calhoun - Falls Church, VA USA
Sartre explores and "projects" some of his deepest existential themes (freedom, consciousness, and acting in bad faith) through this short play, written immediately after his magnum opus "Being and Nothingness." The plot centers around three people (Garcin, Inez and Estelle) all condemned to serve out their sentences in hell together. Mostly due to their own self-hatred and embarrassment for having ended up in hell in the first place, they predictably all hate each other, but nevertheless proceed trying to convince each other (and themselves) that they are worthy individuals, unjustly condemned to their stations in Sartre's metaphorical hell.
In Sartre's view, apparently this tableau of struggling with "bad faith" in hell is just a mirror image of what goes on outside it; as in both cases humans are continually acting towards one another in mutual "bad faith." Almost as a psychological imperative, they are always busy "fronting each other off;" pretending not to know that they are as much moral criminals and criminals of conscience as they are "real criminals:" all of whom got exactly what they deserved. But as the plot unfolds, we discover that they all also are indeed "real criminals," justly sentenced.
Despite this, in each case they shrink not only from the reality of their crimes and from the reasons why they ended up in hell, but more importantly, they also shrink from the primary responsibility of their own freedom, and from who they are and to their humanity. As a result, the reader gets to see that these criminals are not condemned to hell just for their moral crimes, but also for crimes of conscience: their cowardice and "bad faith" as human beings. In this, they see their cowardice through the eyes of their cellmates, their eternal torturers.
The tension of the play is created by and is centered on the interplay of the dialogues between different dyadic pairings of the couples. In each, they all struggle in their own idiosyncratic way to some how convince themselves and their respective partners (using the partner as mirrors), that they are better than the reality they each "fail to own up to." In short, they are all trying to "end run" their own "bad faith" creating a "false reality" by using their cellmates as a positively distorted reflection of themselves. In this very act, they lose the right to construct an authentic reality and an authentic self.
The question the play begs: is how, writ large, do human beings deal with the "bad faith" of their own existence, and its corresponding failure to create a reality where the authentic self can thrive. That is how can they still come out on the other side of their conscience with their humanity and self-image authentically intact, as mature, responsible and heroic human beings?
Sartre, with his own experience as a captured prisoner of war in France during WW-II intruding into the play as an important backdrop in the subtext (While under Nazi torture, Sartre admitted to seriously considering betraying France), assures us that there is no clear answer to this question, and thus no safe exit out of his metaphorical jail into a pristine and heroic world where the problem of "bad faith" is either an easy decision, or does not exist at all. The challenges presented by "bad faith" it seems are in our hands, completely independent of the domain of our humanity: Wherever he goes, "Bad faith" is destined to shadow man's existence.
Three stars
Jean-Paul Sartre "No Exit & 3 other plays" - J. Brown - Norwich, Norfolk UK
No Exit and Three Other Plays
An enjoyable & easy way to get into Sartre's Existentialism. "No Exit":3 people locked in a hotel room forever;Hell as other people:the last lines indicate how we can survive. "The Flies": The Electra story reformed; one can revolt against Fate and choose ones Destiny. "Dirty Hands":a free-thinker tries to find his own answer to the conflicts and pressures of others who have him caught up in their own political/moral/ethical prejudices;what price to stand alone? "The Respectful Prostitute": Power, racism and manipulation in 1950's Deep South USA;a naive/courageous prostitue escapes problems in New York to find herself at the centre of local racial bigotry and state encouraged murder;her decision could save or destroy all of those involved.
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