How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue. We used the translation by S. Gilbert found in No Exit and Three Other Plays, published by Vintage International in 1989.
Quote #1
VALET: Sorry, sir. No offense meant. But all our guests ask me the same questions. (22)
Yet Inez does not, as we later see. What is so different about her? Why doesn’t she have the same concerns as Garcin?
Quote #2
No eyelids, no sleep; it follows, doesn't it? I shall never sleep again. But then – how shall I endure my own company? (31)
Right…Garcin doesn’t exactly have it figured out yet. If only his own company were the worst he had to endure!
Quote #3
VALET: Oh, the management can cut off the current if they want to. But I can't remember their having done so on this floor. We have all the electricity we want. (46)
Moments like this one keep No Exit steeped in a sort of dark humor; hell is other people, but it’s also bureaucratic nonsense.
Quote #4
GARCIN: And suppose I took that contraption on the mantelpiece and dropped it on the lamp – wouldn't it go out?
VALET: You can't move it. It's too heavy. (49-50)
It’s as though the props in Sartre’s hell are specifically designed to torture the inhabitants – as much from their lack of ostensible meaning as anything else (that is, the characters torture themselves trying to figure out what the purpose of the bronze statue is, the purpose of the paper-knife, and the other furniture in the room.)
Quote #5
GARCIN: I beg your pardon. Who do you suppose I am?
INEZ: You? Why, the torturer, of course. (67-8)
It is both comic and absurd that Inez’s original misconception actually gets at the truth. Sartre wrote about the difference between knowing something and being conscious of it – and this is a great example of that distinction.
Quote #6
INEZ: I'm always conscious of myself – in my mind. Painfully conscious. (215)
Indeed, Sartre believes that consciousness is painful. He claims that we spend much of our time with unreflected consciousness, but occasionally foray into reflective consciousness (consciousness that is aware and thinking of itself, as Inez is here). This awareness is always fleeting, since it is too painful to be experienced continually.
Quote #7
INEZ: To forget about the others? How utterly absurd! I feel you there, in every pore. Your silence clamors in my ears. You can nail up your mouth, cut your tongue out – but you can't prevent your being there. Can you stop your thoughts? I hear them ticking away like a clock, tick-tock, tick-tock, and I'm certain you hear mine. It's all very well skulking on your sofa, but you're everywhere, and every sound comes to me soiled because you've intercepted it on its way. Why, you've even stolen my face; you know it and I don't! And what about her, about Estelle? You've stolen her from me, too. (262)
It is Inez who so incisively articulates Sartre’s ideas of competitive subjectivity. Again we see that she is the character who most embodies the author’s perspective.
Quote #8
[Estelle presses the bell-push, but the bell does not ring. Inez and Garcin laugh.] (319)
In "What’s Up With the Ending" we talk about laughter in No Exit. Is laughter a sadistic response in this play?
Quote #9
GARCIN: Of course. Well, Estelle, am I a coward?
ESTELLE: How can I say? Don't be so unreasonable, darling. I can't put myself in your skin. You must decide that for yourself. (447)
Estelle is very much correct here. According to Sartre, Garcin should look to himself for judgment, not to others.