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
GARCIN: Well, well, I dare say one gets used to it in time. (5)
This is one of Garcin’s first lines of dialogue. Given his last line in the play, "Well, well, let’s get on with it," does it seem like he has "gotten used" to the status quo here in hell?
Quote #2
INEZ: I know. And you're another trap. Do you think they haven't foreknown every word you say? And of course there's a whole nest of pitfalls that we can't see. Everything here's a booby-trap. (366)
Inez and the others are tormented by their suspicions (of each other, of the bureaucratic management) as much as anything else. This is what Garcin means when he calls their hell an "agony of the mind."
Quote #3
GARCIN: There's no more hope – but it's still "before." We haven't yet begun to suffer. (90)
If Garcin correct? If so, at what point in the play do they begin to suffer?
Quote #4
GARCIN: Whew! How hot it is here! Do you mind if – (134)
The stifling heat seems to be the one typical characteristic of traditional hell that Sartre maintains in his play. Why this one? What does the heat have to do with the suffering these characters experience?
Quote #5
INEZ: I only know they're waiting.
ESTELLE: I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite.
INEZ: Well, do it. Do it if you can. You don't even know what they expect. (166-8)
This is a kind of torment, too –the thought that the three of them are stripped of free will, that "they" have planned out their every action and word.
Quote #6
GARCIN: That won't be difficult; each of us has plenty of material for self-communings. I think I could stay ten thousand years with only my thoughts for company. (203)
Garcin is trying to work through his guilty conscience by spending all this thinking time alone.
Quote #7
INEZ: [singing]:
What a crowd in Whitefriars Lane!
[…]
Come, good folks, to Whitefriars Lane,
Come to see the merry show!
The headsman rose at the crack of dawn,
He’d a long day’s work at hand,
Chopping heads off generals,
Priests and peers and admirals (209)
It’s probably not an accident that Inez sings a song about public executions (and how much fun they are to watch). Yet another hint that we’re dealing with a sadist here.
Quote #8
ESTELLE: Oh, how I loathe you! [She sobs tearlessly]
GARCIN: Nothing doing. Tears don't flow in this place. (338-9)
How is the inability to shed tears another form of torture?
Quote #9
GARCIN: Well, I, anyhow, can feel sorry for you, too. Look at me, we're naked, naked right through, and I can see into your heart. That's one link between us. Do you think I'd want to hurt you? I don't regret anything, I'm dried up, too. But for you I can still feel pity. (369)
Garcin thinks compassion – or "human feeling" as he calls it – is what he and the others share – the common ground between them. In fact, No Exit shows that the need to torment others is what they share.
Quote #10
ESTELE; You haven't a coward's chin, or a coward's mouth, or a coward's voice, or a coward's hair. And it's for your mouth, your hair, your voice, I love.
GARCIN: Do you mean this? REALLY mean it?
ESTELLE: Shall I swear it?
GARCIN: Then I snap my fingers at them all, those below and those in here. Estelle, we shall climb out of hell. (474-9)
Is Garcin genuinely relieved of his "agony of the mind" at this point, or is he lying to himself again?