“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!”
I concur with Sartre in saying that “Hell is other people.” When Sartre said this in his famous one-act play, “No Exit”, I believe he meant for it to be interpreted thusly: worldly
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He believed that the greatest thing man can do is exist as a free and responsible person determining his own life through free will. In order to make your life meaningful it must be completely your own life, with no outside influence from society. Responsibilities laid onto man by society, limit his freedom and could potentially affect his choices. You cannot truly be yourself until you void all outside influences and are true to yourself. His belief in existentialism coincides with his quote “hell is people” because they both boil down to the same …show more content…
I am an artist, and have loved creating art ever since I was a child. When I start to create art, it is usually stemming from things I have imagined or been inspired by in my daily experiences. I will start out keeping to myself, but eventually I like to ask others opinions. Whether they give negative or positive feedback their opinion can affect the entire outcome of my piece. If I choose to take their opinions and critiques and alter my piece because of them, then the piece is not one hundred percent mine. It has been influenced by other’s ideas and input. I believe this is also an example of what Sartre was trying to get across when he formed this
Sartre wrote "Anti-Semite and Jew" in France in 1948, before the establishment of Israel. This book is interesting because he spoke with a nationalistic point of view, which means that some of his conclusions don't really apply to America yet still makes meaningful points that we can understand. Also, because he wrote in 1948, the issues of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism disguised as attacks on Israel had not become in vogue yet. In that sense, his work is somewhat dated but many of his findings carry through into today which is quite important in a scholarly book.
...cape her judgment nor argument with her edicts will sway her. Hell is an absolute, and all the more forbidding because of it. Though the violence depicted in these myths varies, the overall story remains unchanged. Disobeying the laws and strictures set forth by the government and religious doctrines will exact a hefty price, perhaps eternally.
His basic idea was this: In any given situation, a person should do what he called "the loving thing" rather than follow rigid rules derived from Divine revelation--or for that matter, any set of rigid rules, even those coming from simple reasoning. This idea is based on the worship of the person! That humankind, in its natural state, is "fundamentally, decent, enlightened, reasonable, and eager to do the right thing".
The third version/style of hell that the characters are being put in is MAN vs OTHER MANS THOUGHTS, which is basically letting other people think about how a person run their life. In this quote by Méra, ”They are ‘naked as new-born babies’ and must suffer to be seen by the others as they really are” , She is saying that a person has to show others who they truly are and cannot put on ‘make-up’ and show them what they want to see (Méra 15). For example, if a person is a murderer, they will have to show people that they are a murderer and cannot hide that with ‘make-up’ and show them that they are some innocent person just because they do not want to deal with the consequences. In this quote by Guicharnaud, ”The acts are in the past and the characters try to evaluate them, emphasis is not put on discovering why, through what determinism of the world and men, the characters happened to commit their crimes”, Guicharnaud is explaining that the characters have to live with their choices and deal with the consequences of their choices just like the last quote from Méra (Guicharnaud 63). Garcin, Estelle, and Inez all
He believes that life is made for living and that you shouldn’t waste your life away and you have to live life to its fullest because you never know what could happen. He like to install the spirit of adventure in life because what’s life without having some adventure in your life or even just some fun. “Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life were all too little, and of one to me little remains; but every hour is saved from that eternal silence, something more, a bringer of new things; and vile it were for some three suns to store and hoard myself, and this gray spirit yearning in desire to follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought. (Lines
Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy is one of the most popular systems of thought in the school called existentialism. Sartre valued human freedom and choice, and held it in the highest regard. To be able to live an authentic existence, one must take responsibility for all the actions that he freely chooses. This total freedom that man faces often throws him into a state of existential anguish, wherein he is burdened by the hardship of having to choose all the time. Thus, there ensues the temptation for man to live a life of inauthenticity, by leaning on preset rules or guidelines, and objective norms. This would consist the idea of bad faith.
is exemplified in No Exit. It is a portrayal that life in Hell is just
Alcorn, John. "Suffering In Hell." Pedagogy 13.1 (2013): 77-85. Academic Search Complete.Web. 11 June 2014.
...s is related to his philosophy about doing the right thing and about a being a good person. But it goes beyond this. He spoke often about having true compassion. It isn’t enough to help those in need, but we must truly care about them, to take a good look and see how they got that way. He asked us to examine how we as a society can change the conditions that led them to be there in the first place. Doing this makes us better as people. I have found that it also makes me feel better. Never give up on your dreams. While his life was cut tragically short, he died in pursuit of his dream and in spite of everything he faced, he never gave up on it. He faced obstacles I could never imagine having to face, and still persisted. This reminds me that the small things in my life that often seem insurmountable, are just my excuses for not taking action and are not obstacles.
Dante Alighieri's The Inferno is a poem written in first person that tells a story of Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hell after he strays from the rightful path. Each circle of Hell contains sinners who have committed different sins during their lifetime and are punished based on the severity of their sins. When taking into the beliefs and moral teachings of the Catholic Church into consideration, these punishments seem especially unfair and extreme.
“No Exit,” by Jean-Paul Sartre, is a play that illustrates three people’s transitions from wanting to be alone in Hell to needing the omnipresent “other” constantly by their sides. As the story progresses, the characters’ identities become more and more permanent and unchangeable. Soon Inez, Garcin, and Estelle live in the hope that they will obtain the other’s acceptance. These three characters cannot accept their existentialist condition: they are alone in their emotions, thoughts and fears. Consequently, they look to other people to give their past lives and present deaths meaning. Forever trapped in Hell, they are condemned to seek the other for meaning in their lives; even when given the chance to exit the room, the characters choose to stay with each other instead of facing uncertainty and the possibility of being detached from the stability of their relationships with the others. Without other people, the characters would have no reason to exist. Each characters’ significance depends on the other’s opinion of them; Garcin needs someone to deny his cowardliness, Inez yearns for Estelle’s love, and Estelle just wants passion with no commitment. This triangle of unending want, anguish and continual disillusionment because of the other is precisely Sartre’s definition of pure Hell.
“We are left alone, without excuse. This is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free” (Sartre 32). Radical freedom and responsibility is the central notion of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy. However, Sartre himself raises objections about his philosophy, but he overcomes these obvious objections. In this paper I will argue that man creates their own essence through their choices and that our values and choices are important because they allow man to be free and create their own existence. I will first do this by explaining Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote, then by thoroughly stating Sartre’s theory, and then by opposing objections raised against Sartre’s theory.
John Paul Sartre is known as one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He wrote many philosophical works novels and plays. Much of his work is tied into politics. The essay Existentialism is a Humanism is just one of his many works. Existentialism is a Humanism is a political essay that was written in 1945. Its purpose was to address a small public during World War II in Nazi occupied France. This essay stressed the public not to conform. Sartre introduced a great number of philosophical concepts in Existentialism. Two of these concepts are anguish and forlornness. They are simply defined, as anguish is feeling responsible for yourself as well as others and knowing that your actions affect others and forlornness is realizing that you are alone in your decisions. These two concepts are interwoven throughout the essay and throughout many of Sartre's other works. Sartre's view of anguish and forlornness in Existentialism is a Humanism addresses his view of life and man.
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!” (No Exit, 45). Hell is other people in many situations. There are seven billion and counting people on earth, all with an incomprehensible amount of freedom. This infinite amount of freedom varies from person to person, one may have a different view on freedoms that one should have, depending on many factors, and because of this many things are viewed differently, this causes hell. These varying in freedoms and what one views as right and wrong can be affected by those one gives authority, such as Garcin and Estelle. Those who are similar to Inez, that face their actions, are seen as ones that creating hell, because they refuse to conform. Within existentialism, the reason why hell is other people is because of
Inferno, the first part of Divina Commedia, or the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, is the story of a man's journey through Hell and the observance of punishments incurred as a result of the committance of sin. In all cases the severity of the punishment, and the punishment itself, has a direct correlation to the sin committed. The punishments are fitting in that they are symbolic of the actual sin; in other words, "They got what they wanted." (Literature of the Western World, p.1409) According to Dante, Hell has two divisions: Upper Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of incontinence, and Lower Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of malice. The divisions of Hell are likewise split into levels corresponding to sin. Each of the levels and the divisions within levels 7,8, and 9 have an analogous historical or mythological figure used to illustrate and exemplify the sin.