09 July 2010

The Most Famous Thing Jean-Paul Sartre Never Said

By Kirk Woodward

[Once again, I have a contribution from Kirk Woodward, some thoughts on playwright and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his famous and much-discussed play No Exit. ~Rick.]

There are certain things we all know even though we don’t know them. We all know, for example, that Winston Churchill said “blood, sweat, and tears,” even though that wasn’t what he actually said. (He said, “blood and sweat, toil and tears.”) We all know that St. Paul said that money is the root of all evil, even though he actually said that the love of money is the root of all evil. And we all know that Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” But did he?

The line, “Hell is other people,” comes, of course, from Sartre’s famous one-act play No Exit. The original French title of the play is Huis clos; the title is an idiomatic expression literally meaning something like “shut door,” used in the French legal system to mean hearings held in private, or as we say in our jurisprudence, “in camera.” The fact that “huis clos” is basically a legal term is appropriate for the play, because its three main characters have been judged; they are in hell, sentenced to spend eternity in a room they will never be able to leave.

The line “Hell is other people” in French reads “L’enfer, c’est les autres” or “Hell is [the] others.” (The best known English translation of the play, by Paul Bowles, actually renders the line “Hell is just – other people.”) We get a little more of the flavor of the line in English if we read it as “Hell is the Other.” That’s closer to the point, I believe. Sartre says that the Other – that which is not ourselves – is, or can be, a source of our distress. Sartre spelled out this meaning in a talk that preceded a recording of the play issued in 1965:

. . .“hell is other people” has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because. . . when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, . . . we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. . . . But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us.
The Other, Sartre says in the quotation, is that by which we define ourselves, and the punishment of his three characters is that they will only ever be able to define themselves through the distorting mirrors of other people who reflect them badly, while at the same time they see themselves reflected badly in others as well. Estelle says, “When I can’t see myself in the mirror, I can’t even feel myself, and I begin to wonder if I exist at all.” Inez promises to be an accurate mirror for Estelle in order to seduce her. Sartre uses the idea of the mirror to great effect in the play – there are none in hell, and in order to see themselves, as it were, from the outside, the characters have to rely on the way that others see them.

In the sense described here, although a character, not Sartre, speaks the words “Hell is other people,” Sartre actually does say this same thing in his writings. In fact, the concept that our self-knowledge as a product of the way we see ourselves in the Other is a fundamental principle of his philosophy.

I suggest, however, that there is an additional and important meaning of the line “Hell is other people,” a meaning that is central to the play and also a fundamental tenet of existentialism. This meaning is a dramatic one – it is spoken by a character in a drama – and as such does not express Sartre’s position at all. A good way to approach this additional meaning is to start by asking why these people are in hell at all.

Sartre does not really play with traditional ideas about why people might go to hell. There are perfectly good reasons for these people to be there. Cradeau (in some translations called Garcin) admits that he “tortured” his wife, not physically but emotionally, with enjoyment and without remorse. Inez describes how she broke up a marriage so she could gain access to the wife (Inez is a lesbian). Estelle acknowledges that she murdered her baby, not wanting it to clutter up her life, and thereby caused her lover’s suicide.

But Sartre makes it clear that actions alone are not the only reasons the characters of the play find themselves in hell. They are damned in their essences. Cradeau always does anything he can to preserve his own self-interests, an attitude that leads to his collaboration with the Nazis. Estelle is only interested in others to the extent that they pay attention to her. Inez sees other people only as targets for her manipulation. An existentialist might argue whether people have essences, so perhaps it is more accurate to say that nothing we see in their behavior would lead us to think they ever would behave any differently than they do.

But there is even a further element in Sartre’s presentation of hell, one that makes its presence felt at the very beginning of the play – in the set design. We learn that this particular chamber of hell is specifically designed for its denizens, and it resembles, we are told, a not terribly nice dentist’s office, filled with the detritus of middle-class life – a statue of Cupid, a chandelier, a fireplace, furniture that might be fine by itself but doesn’t match. The furniture echoes the dialogue – it feels superficial even when it is ornate.

In other words, the characters are in hell because they are trivial, pretentious people. This is Sartre’s satiric point: they are in hell because they are petty-bourgeois. Their concern for the world goes only as far as the extent to which the world services their needs. When it doesn’t adequately cater to their desires, they blame the world and the people in it – that is, they say that “hell is other people.” Au contraire, the people in No Exit are in hell because they themselves made the decisions that put them there.

In blaming “other people” the characters in the play, Sartre says, are pointing fingers in the wrong direction. Why should the world be responsible for the actions of any of us? Who should I blame for what I am except myself? Ultimately No Exit doesn’t say that hell is other people; it says, with Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, that “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.” We construct a hell for ourselves, Sartre says, when we refuse to take responsibility for our own actions, leaving us at the mercy of the opinions of others.

“Hell is other people” is the expression of damned souls who will remain in the hell they created until – the play does offer the occasional very dim ray of light – until they learn to own up to their own behaviors, and until they begin to choose to help each other – to put someone else’s good ahead of their own. In the sense I am describing here, “Hell is other people” is exactly what Sartre does not say. A character says it, because he steadfastly refuses to see that that he and he alone is responsible for his own behavior. The characters have built hell with their own hands; they are the ones who will have to take it apart again.


[Kirk’s most recent contribution to ROT is his “King Lear Journal,” published here on 4 June. A playwright as well as a director and teacher, Kirk’s writing is available through his website, http://spiceplays.com.]

37 comments:

  1. Woody Allen had his protagonist in Midnight in Paris suggest to another character in the movie, artist/photographer Man Ray, an idea of a room with no exit. Since the movie setting predates Huis clos, I wonder if there is a connection between Sartre and Man Ray. I am somewhat illiterate of art history, but curious.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Erics,
      The protagonist in Midnight in Paris does not say this to Man Ray but to Luis Bunuel, which was a reference to the film The Exterminating Angel (1962) by Bunuel.
      Also, note that GIl Pender says "at a dinner party", not "in a room".
      For further reference, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exterminating_Angel_(film).
      -Abubakar.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for your continuing interest, Mr. Mehmood. I'll be sure Kirk knows about your remarks.

      ~Rick

      Delete
    3. Just found this thread. Yes, the comment of 6/10/15 is correct. It seems s the Bunuel character he is speaking to and it is unquestionably regarding Exterminating Angel. The gather also includes Adrian Brody who plays Salvador Dali which is cheeky since he and Bunuel did the ultra well known surrealist film Le Chien Andalu (The Andalusian Dog).

      Satire, Dali and Bueneul all lived and worked at the same time (which covered the span of WW1 and WW2). It’s hard not to imagine they were dramatic affected by those and other wars in their lifetimes.

      Incidentally the author of the No Exit / Shut Door did an excellent job. I was not aware of the misunderstanding of Satre’s phrase and context of mirrors in the play

      Delete
    4. I've brought your Comment to Kirk's attention. Thanks for your in-put.

      ~Rick

      Delete
  2. Erics: I'll be sure Kirk knows about your remarks. Thank you for leaving the comment; I'm sure he'll be interested.

    ~Rick

    ReplyDelete
  3. Erics: Thanks for the comment. I appreciate your question about Sartre and Man Ray, but I don't know the answer. I'll see what I can find out. Kirk

    ReplyDelete
  4. Erics: I have seen references to the influence of the surrealists on Jean-Paul Sartre, including on his novel "Nausea" (1938). (He nevertheless turned against the surrealists in 1947.) I haven't been able to find any direct evidence that Man Ray and Jean-Paul Sartre knew each other, but it seems highly likely. They hung out at the same bar, the American Bar at La Closerie de Lilas. Sartre refers to Ray in "Witness to My Life." They both ate breakfast at La Coupole, and they were both friends of John Latouche and attended the salons he held. Ray and Sartre were mutually close friends of Salvador Dali. Finally, I suppose this doesn't indicate acquaintance, but they are buried in the same cemetary, in Montparnasse. Kirk

    ReplyDelete
  5. but now many people including Kevin Delaney at the New York Times are quoting this Sartre quote magnet item as being "Hell is other people at breakfast!" -- google and see all the references to this NEW updated and FaUX quote that even punked the NY Times. amazing how the internet spreads inaccurate quotes. I am eamiling NYT and kevin now to tell him he erred and he is in Hell now, quote hell.... can you imagine, people really trhink Sarte said HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE AT BREAKFAST,..when did this meme start and where? how stupid can people be?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dan--

      Thanks for your comment. I appreciate responses and I'm sure Kirk does, too. I've let Kirk know of your remark and I'm sure he'll check in soon.

      I can tell you from experience that false quotations are very frustrating. I've spent months on occasion trying to track down statements attributed to well-known people only to conclude finally that the attribution was inaccurate.

      ~Rick

      Delete
  6. Wiki even says: ''Sartre and literatureSartre's views were counterposed to those of Albert Camus in the popular imagination. In 1948, the Roman Catholic Church placed his complete works on the Index of prohibited books. Most of his plays are richly symbolic and serve as a means of conveying his philosophy. The best-known, Huis-clos (No Exit), contains the famous line "L'enfer, c'est les autres," usually translated as "Hell is other people at breakfast."[43]''

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Hell is other people at breakfast" faux-quote goes viral

    [by dan bloom] march 18 2012

    This is how things work in the Internet Age. A witty writer in Boston
    sets up a fake quote from the late Jean-Paul Sartre back in 2003 in an
    article about introverts and
    extroverts that was published in the Atlantic Monthly online and
    almost ten years later the fake quote -- "Hell is other people at
    breakfast" -- is still going strong on
    blogs, emails and bonafide websites. Very few people have bothered to
    check if the quote is correct, since the correct quote from Sartre's
    famous play "No Exit" as
    "Hell is other people." In French, Sartre wrote it out as "L'enfer,
    c'est les autres."

    But Rauch's 2003 tongue-in-cheek witticism flew right past most of his
    readers then, and it is still flying past most people on the Internet
    now.
    Worse, the New York Times Weekly edition, a 12 page insert that goes
    into 36 foreign newspapers around the world, recently put that fake
    quote
    in a front page article, without fact-checking it or doing any
    newsroom research.

    Kevin Delaney, writing for the Times insert, which appeared in my
    local Chinese-language newspaper here in Taiwan, noted on a front page
    story titled "The Yin and Yang of Personality": "As Sartre said: "Hell
    is other people at breakfast." And Delaney also told readers that the
    quote appeared in a "recent" article by Jonathan Rauch in the Atlantic
    Monthly. Oops. Fact-checkers, where are you?

    Delaney isn't alone. The manufactured Sartre quote has been picked up
    over the past few years by hundreds of bloggers and readers around the
    world who now believe that Sartre actually said that. He said no such
    thing. Google the quote to see it's real origins, and how it has
    morphed countless times into the Rauchian witticism, without most
    readers knowing it. The fake
    quote has now taken on a life on its own, thanks to the speed at which
    people read online and the power of the Internet to spread false facts
    and quotes.

    And ''caveat emptor''. That means "be careful what you eat for
    breakast" -- in Latin. Kurt Vonnegut said that.

    ReplyDelete
  8. http://movies.yahoo.com/news/10-years-later-fake-sartre-remains-viral-even-172611658.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. The original French title is ''Huis Clos'', the French equivalent of the legal term ''in camera'', referring to a private discussion behind closed doors and the play is the source of one of Sartre's most famous quotations("Hell is other people after being eaten for breakfast.") -- LOL

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dan--

    I notified Kirk of your comments and tho' he can't respond directly (computer problem), he's said thank you for keeping us up to date on the latest iterations of Sartre’s famous phrase.

    (I apologize for the indirect communication. Forces beyond our control, as they say.)

    ~Rick

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi, why do you mention a character named Cradeau (instead of Garcin)? Is there another version of the play I'm not familiar with?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. tbd:

      A web search shows that both names are used in English versions of the play. In the translation I used, (c) 1945 by Paul Bowles (the novelist, composer, and translator) and (c) 1958 by Jean Paul Sartre and Paul Bowles, the character's name is Vincent Cradeau. I don't have the French text in front of me, and don't know why both names are in circulation. If you know the character as Garcin, it's the same one. Kirk

      Delete
    2. tbd:

      I checked my French edition of "Huis clos" and found that the character's name is given as "Garcin," as it is in my English translation (by Lionel Abels, Vantage Books, 1955). I, too, have found no explanation for the alternative names. (The 1946 Broadway production, directed by John Huston, used the Bowles translation and therefore the same character names as Kirk used.)

      ~Rick

      Delete
  12. Great article, thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kirk Woodward and I both say, "Nice! Thanks!!!"

      ~Rick

      Delete
  13. One of the best articles, and comments, I've ever stumbled upon.

    I am totally inadequate and uneducated to make an in-depth comment other than to say I enjoyed it immensely even though I do not speak French!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'll let Kirk know of your remarks. I know he'll be pleased. As am I . . . .

    ~Rick

    ReplyDelete
  15. PhilipH,

    I can only say, "Merci!"

    Best,

    Kirk

    ReplyDelete
  16. Well said. I found this after using the "Hell is other parents" gem. I haven't read that either but I suspect, as with the situation I faced, the experience is self-imposed.

    I suppose a corollary might be another of his famous quotes "To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe." Perhaps only to the extent that the semantics are gordian.

    Short of reading the full play, the broader context of the quote is illuminating:

    GARCIN: 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 wonder if the torture is more or less depending on the number and types of others...

    ReplyDelete
  17. I'll let Kirk know of your comments, Mr. Topping. I'm sure he'll respond.

    ~Rick

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi Mark - I love your concluding comment. I have a suspicion what Sartre would say! Best, Kirk

    ReplyDelete
  19. Personally - and regrettably - I've been using this "quote" incorrectly for quite some time. Living in a tempestuous city like San Francisco can sometimes inspire the commonly misused meaning of the phrase (it's easier to deflect blame, unhappiness or strife on the "Others" as - like in many, more populated cities - these Others can be quite cruel and callous).

    Thankfully I was curious enough to know the truth and am pleasantly surprised that the "truth" is actually much more meaningful to me. In my quest for self-betterment through introspection (among a host of other things!) I find that seeing Others as a "mirror" (thus reflecting that which is you, back to you) is profoundly eye-opening and much more rich of a takeaway from Sartre's famously infamous line.

    Very awesome that this is still gathering reactions a full lustrum later - good work and many thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for leaving a comment. I've told Kirk about your remarks and I'm sure he'll be interested in your thoughts. (He's away right now, so I can't promise a speedy response.)

      ~Rick

      Delete
    2. Thanks so much for your comment. I feel the same way - the line is much more meaningful to me as I realize it's about me, not about "them"!

      Delete
  20. I personally don't think the phrase “Hell is other people” was not said! The headline is itself a dualistic non-truth - as the line was said in the play.

    In terms of clarity of meaning, the quote from Sartre spelled out 1965 does nothing of the kind.

    Hell is Dualistic. It is symbolically the most abstract and absurd deep there can be in terms of "place". Joseph Campbell mocked this in one of his public lectures - that the modern French believed in Hell but not heaven.

    "Well, you know, ninety-five percent of the people in the United States believe in God. I read that in France thirty-five percent believe in God, but sixty percent believe in Hell. Now, I can’t work that out—except that France is the place, you know, of the existentialists for whom life is hell. And whenever the concierge or your hotel servant speaks to you, they say “La vie est dûr”—and so life is tough there. And they believe in hell, but not in God. That’s a great one." (Campbell, 1974)

    How can you say:

    "Hell is Other people" or, as you presented, English-translated variations “Hell is [the] Others” without seeing the dualism in both sides of the equation!

    "Half of Dualistic is Half of Dualistic" is the only proper understanding of the concept in any language.

    I know people seem to think there is some profound issue with interpretation "hell is me blaming other people" vs "hell is what other people do to me"... but that's not understanding anything at All. You are just elevating your self to creator of the universe, literally.
    Is the interpreter seriously implying that they are the center of the universe - and that only harm comes from their attitude toward other people. That it's not possible for Me/I to witness Stranger A murder Stranger B for the money in their pocket?

    "standing on a whale fishing for minnows" is gong on here. People focused on the right side of the equation. The "Other" being your own attitude outward toward humans - or the behavior of "Other" inward toward you.

    The real irony is the left side of the statement "Hell", is itself a dualistic half - an "Other" - which far predates the entire play and it's origin.

    The play is about death and funerals and recent departures locked into endless eternity. So Duality abounds in all this play.

    Let's go back to the very root of this Western imported Levant concept of Hell. Focus on the sequence of events:

    1. God existed first
    2. God created Devil - and Hell
    3. God created Eden, then Adam and Eve

    But wait, you don't need to get as far as #3 at all. Just stop at 1. First there was God and zero hell. As soon as he created the "other" (an Angel) - he created hell. It's fractal deep - as Myths, as the same paradox is there inside every human (made in the image of the God).

    And for clarity - I am not talking about a literal god. I'm talking about fiction story telling here. Genesis and the Bible doesn't have to be non-fiction to be understood. Arguing over the fiction and non-fiction aspect of The Bible is another absurd "Dualistic is Dualistic" equality that people seem to enjoy. People seem to enjoy fighting (favoring misunderstanding).

    Other than the nice sounding of it - why does this quote even sustain in a world when people's concept of "Hell" has no depth of meaning in 2016? Maybe just because it is famous.

    The play itself has a lot of great artistic truth in the Troubadour sense of Truth. But this line as a takeway? Seems to reveal that audience had am improper half sided view of Hell (without "Other" Heaven) in the first place. There are so many other better lines in this play.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Gutknecht:

      I thank you for writing in and I'll make sure Kirk Woodward sees your Comment. As I understand Kirk's point, he's asserting that while the play says "Hell is other people," the playwright himself didn't say that--one of his characters does. The distinction, I think, is that it's a notion to be considered but that Sartre himself doesn't necessarily subscribe to it and we shouldn't conflate the two possibilities.

      As I'm sure Kirk would point out, George Bernard Shaw includes a great many ideas in his plays, mouthed by one or another of his characters, that are contentious--and which Shaw didn't himself espouse. Yet we tend to say, "As Shaw said . . ." or "As Satre wrote . . .," attributing the idea to the playwright directly.

      If Kirk responds for himself, we'll see if I'm right.

      ~Rick

      Delete
  21. Stephen, Rick has summarized what I at least meant to say. Thanks very much for your comment.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I don't think Garcin collaborates with the Nazis in Huis Clos. He flees from his pacifist group and Rio by train, but I don't think he went that far...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for commenting, Mr. Ross. I'll be sure Kirk knows about your remarks so he can reply himself if he wishes.

      ~Rick

      Delete
  23. Thanks for the compliment. I'll forward it on to Kirk and perhaps he'll respond on his own as well.

    ~Rick

    ReplyDelete
  24. Replies
    1. You're welcome. And thanks right back, Brainchild.

      ~Rick

      Delete