Reading Order
No Exit Reading Order
No Exit (1944) by Jean-Paul Sartre is the most performed existentialist play in the repertoire — three people (Garcin, Inès, and Estelle) are locked together in a room that turns out to be Hell, where they will torment each other forever. The play is the theatrical demonstration of Sartre's principle that 'hell is other people' — not in the popular misreading (other people are hell because they are annoying) but in the technical philosophical sense: that our existence as conscious beings who are being-observed is defined by the presence of the Other, and that the hell of the three characters is that they are permanently exposed to each other's consciousness, unable to be alone with themselves or to escape the judgment of the others' gaze. Sartre wrote the play during the German occupation of France and directed it himself; the first production starred Michael Vitold as Garcin, Gaby Sylvia as Estelle, and Tania Balachova as Inès at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris.
Where to start
No Exit (1944) — the complete text. Best Sartre reading order: No Exit → The Flies → Being and Nothingness → Nausea → The Words.
Complete No Exit Book List
- 1Buy
No Exit
Jean-Paul Sartre·1944·The complete play — Garcin, Inès, and Estelle in the room. One of the most performed plays of the twentieth century; the first production was directed by Raymond Rouleau under the title Huis Clos and starred Michael Vitold, Gaby Sylvia, and Tania Balachova - 2Buy
The Flies
Jean-Paul Sartre·1943·The companion Sartre play — Orestes returning to Argos and his confrontation with Jupiter. The companion in Sartre's existentialist mode: where No Exit investigates the Hell of other people's consciousness, The Flies investigates the Hell of guilt and the possibility of freedom from it through a radical act of will - 3Buy
Being and Nothingness
Jean-Paul Sartre·1943·Sartre's companion philosophical masterwork. No Exit is the theatrical demonstration of the philosophical arguments: the being-for-others, the look, the bad faith — all dramatized in the relationship between Garcin, Inès, and Estelle - 4Buy
Nausea
Jean-Paul Sartre·1938·The companion Sartre novel — Roquentin in Bouville and his discovery of the absurdity of existence. The companion investigation of the same existentialist subject from a different formal angle: where No Exit dramatizes the relationship between consciousness and the Other, Nausea dramatizes the encounter between consciousness and the sheer contingency of existence - 5Buy
The Stranger
Albert Camus·1942·Camus's companion novel — Meursault after the murder on the beach. The companion investigation of the same philosophical territory (postwar French existentialism and absurdism) from a different perspective: Meursault and Garcin are companion figures, both men who are trapped in a situation (a murder trial; Hell) that reveals the gap between human consciousness and the meanings imposed on it - 6Buy
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett·1953·The companion in the postwar European tradition of the existentialist situation — two figures stuck. The companion investigation of the same philosophical territory from a different theatrical tradition: where Sartre's room in No Exit is an explicitly designed Hell with a purpose, Beckett's country road is an existential landscape without any purpose at all - 7Buy
The Chairs
Eugène Ionesco·1952·The companion in the Theatre of the Absurd tradition — the empty chairs and the undeliverable Message. The companion theatrical investigation of the same subject from the absurdist rather than the existentialist tradition: Ionesco's investigation of the gap between meaning and its transmission - 8Buy
Between Past and Future
Hannah Arendt·1961·Arendt's companion philosophical essays on the human condition. The companion philosophical text to No Exit as an investigation of what it means to be a political animal — a being whose existence is constituted by the presence of others — and what happens when the space of political appearance is destroyed
No Exit — Frequently Asked Questions
What does 'hell is other people' mean in No Exit?
'Hell is other people' (in French: L'enfer, c'est les autres) is the most famous line in No Exit and the most frequently misunderstood. It does not mean that other people are annoying or that we would prefer to be alone. It means, in Sartre's technical philosophical sense, that our existence as conscious beings is defined by the presence of the Other — that we cannot know ourselves except through the consciousness of others who observe us — and that this necessary exposure to the Other's judgment is the structure of Hell. In No Exit, the three characters torment each other not through cruelty but through the sheer fact of their consciousness: Garcin cannot escape Inès's judgment of him as a coward; Estelle cannot escape Inès's refusal to act as her mirror; Inès cannot get what she wants from Estelle. Each is the other's Hell by being what they are.
Who are the characters in No Exit?
The three characters in No Exit are Garcin, a journalist and pacifist who was shot for desertion (or perhaps was a genuine coward — the play refuses to resolve this); Inès, a postal worker who seduced her cousin's wife and drove both her cousin and her lover to death; and Estelle, a high-society woman who drowned the baby she had by her lover to avoid scandal and whose lover then killed himself. All three are in Hell, and the play is organized around the mechanism by which they torment each other: each needs something from one of the others that the third one's presence prevents them from getting. There is also the Valet who brings them to the room at the beginning, but he is not a developed character.
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