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Free Will In Jean-Paul Sartre's 'No Exit'

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People have free will [BS]. Men have no true meaning, true purpose, or true significance [Parallel]. Men will forever remain in their own hell knowing that they exist in a meaningless universe. To survive, men contain a single gift: their free will. Free will, however, creates evil, crime, and violence. With complete free will men welcome the opportunities to succeed, but these decisions often lead to the destruction of many [BCS]. Jean-Paul Sartre uses his existentialist piece “No Exit” to express that the universe will force men to accept the consequences of their actions, no matter how horrible the consequence may seem. Existentialists realize the inevitability of harm coming from free will. Men have constant opportunities to excel in …show more content…

Each deserves hell’s eternal torture because they each consciously chose to harm others in a variety of ways. In the famous words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “A human being is absolutely free and absolutely responsible. Anguish is the result.” (GILLIS) With free will, men choose what they do to succeed. Men’s greed for power and strength makes them do whatever it takes to rise to the top. However, when facing a decision that could bring harm unto themselves, they find the risk too great. When the door to hell opens, the group becomes uncertain and panics. Estelle threatens to push Inez out of the door because she sees Inez as her main torturer; She cannot gain what she wants as long as Inez’s presence observes them in the room. She would commit another terrible crime to gain a reward: her freedom from that torture. Even though all three had the opportunity to escape their hell together, they panicked and closed the door again. “Which of the three of us will leave? The barrier’s down, why are we waiting… shut the door…” (Sartre 42). Inez expresses their uncertainty when they have the opportunity to leave, but the fear of the unknown forces them to remain [BCS]. These terrible souls refuse to accept their punishment for their behavior on earth even though they have come to realize that, if they make the wrong decision, they will have to face the consequences. They quickly realize that the only people …show more content…

Garcin discussed that he constantly cheated on his wife while alive. She would even make them breakfast in the morning. Although she never stood up to him, Garcin’s wife deserved much better than her trashy husband [PS]. Her trusting and loving nature made her timid in facing her husband and she died loving him. He will suffer in hell through only the remembrance of his terrible personality. “But they won’t forget me, not they! They’ll die, but others will come after them to carry on the legend. I’ve left my fate in their hands,” (Sartre 39). Garcin’s horrible nature through his actions made him infamous in his company and his town. As Garcin beginned life as a simple baby, his decisions made others hate him. His only essence left on earth will remain as a coward and a

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954 Words | 4 Pages

Over the years, opinions on God have changed. Some people believed that God is terrifying and vengeful while others disagreed saying that He is loving and accepting of all. Jonathan Edwards was a Calvinist, who argued that unless one never sins, he or she is most likely doomed to hell. Edwards believed that humans are powerless in comparison to the power of God. In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards, the author achieves his purpose of arguing that in order to be saved from an afterlife in hell, one must ask for forgiveness and accept Christ, through the uses of intense imagery, a terrifying tone, and understandable metaphors.

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Another example of free will in action is the conversation between MacDonald and the Narrator. The Narrator questions MacDonald and asks him if there is really a way out of Heaven. MacDonald replies by mentioning that the people who live in Hell occasionally have the option to visit the river or visit Earth. He states that the people who get to leave hell behind will be in Purgatory, also known as the Valley of the Shadow of Life. “But I don’t understand.

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I mean that each of us will act as torturer of the two others.” Inez realizes the hell she will experience will be from the other two people. Sartre sets up hell as a social torment, contrasting to the biblical version of it. “So this is hell. I’d never have believed it.

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Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” exposes the speaker’s negative opinion of humanity in relation to a worthy Christ and an enraged God. Edwards makes a specific point to explain that he believes anyone that is not a born again believer in christ, will suffer the wrath of God infinitely, in hell and however long their time on earth is. The speaker claims that in the future “... the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them… swallow them up… no end to this exquisite horrible misery.” (Edwards 41). The life and afterlife of christians that have not been born again as described by Edwards consists of infinite agony and inevitable hell with no escape.

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BSTRACT All humans have the idealization of freedom and of choice. The given reason any person has this is their own free will. Giving them the option to say “yes” or “no” to whatever they please. There are no limitations to that, only obstacles and temptations. In Literature throughout history there is proof that free will can be taken away.

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Elizabeth gets her revenge by her husband being arrested and for him to have lost all of the peoples respect but she still loves him by telling him that she's pregnant. The final example of a women being more dangerous than hell itself is the character Ann Putnam who due to super natural means has lost many things and people in her life that she soon seeks revenge for. In the Paper, The Crucible quotations and analysis, we see that Mrs.

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Victor’s feelings of both “anguish and despair” reflect the severity of the emotional and mental turmoil that Victor is enduring due to the monster. “Despair” means the loss of hope. “Hell” is where there is an absence of God. Both “Hell” and “despair” reflect Victor’s stray away from religion, hope, and humanity because of his own creation. The consequences of Victor’s actions are not only the death of the people he loves, but also involves Victor’s guilt, and the feelings that result out of his guilt.

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However, in hell the Estelle and Inez shift the power dynamics, disrupting the typical power balance Garcin experienced on earth. This changes how he acts. Instead of possessing superiority and abusing women, he transitions into a “peacekeeper” in hell. However, his real insecurities eventually come to the surface. Thus, while Garcin seemingly redeems himself in hell of his emotionally abusive behavior on earth, he ends up revealing his true, insecure nature.

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“Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place”(128). The mind tricks one to believe in what they think, though wrong, which leads to their choices. Free will is only an illusion, and fate already has control of the universe’s destiny. The mind itself could be an illusion, but the events that happen naturally from fate can be changed by free will, or, in other words, the unconscious control from the mind can be changed by the conscious mind resulting in free will to exist. “There is that one moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only.

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That is, they have consciousness and goals. Sartre cannot even begin to explain this “upsurge,” since it is absurd, not being grounded in a Creator and Designer. An existentialist is a humanist, says Sartre, in the sense that he does not judge man but sees him as

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Are you willing to go to hell and burn with the devil and his angels?”(Virginia EDU, 1) Mather believes that people whom sin deserve all the cruel and harsh punishments that god has to offer.

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Estelle’s first example of bad faith is her desire to hide from the consequences of her action’s where she can not admit she is dead. While Inez and Garcin and relatively quick to confess their sins, it takes Estelle over half the play to admit her crime and why she is in hell. Estelle courted a boy similar to her age and when they had an illegitimate child together, she drowned the baby while the father helplessly watched from a balcony. Later he ends up shooting himself in grief. Estelle knows of her crime and acknowledges hell and whom she thought to be her lover when she states, “I know what you're hid-ing with your hands. I know you've no face left” but instead it was Garcin hiding his face with his hands.

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Garcin’s approach towards Estelle for intimacy is spurred on by Garcin’s desire to spite Inez. Yet, with intimacy of body comes intimacy of mind, and reveals Garcin’s terrible doubts. In the middle of intimacy, Garcin tells his story, the story of a man who upheld his ideals, the story of a coward who ran away, the story of a man who made his choices and came to doubt them. He pleads for Estelle to understand him and to judge him right. Estelle merely indulges him.

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This particular piece, No Exit, was written while Sartre was involved in World War II. Sartre was originally drafted into the French army as a meteorologist, but was later captured by German troops and was held prisoner for nine months. While he was held captive, Sartre wrote No Exit, which portrayed what Sartre had lived through during his encounter with the German army. Sartre wrote this iconic piece in order for his readers to interpret and to understand that the idea of Hell can come in all different forms - that Hell is not always the usual fiery pits and brimstone type of Hell like one is traditionally led to

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The argument Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher, presents on existentialism helps to prove the foundation which is “existence precedes essence”. Existentialism is normally understood as an ideology that involves evaluating existence itself and the way humans find themselves existing currently in the world. For the phrase existence precedes essence, existence’s etymology is exsistere or to stand out while the term Essence means “being” or “to be” therefore the fundamental of existentialism, literally means to stand out comes before being. This can be taken into many different ideas such as individuals having to take responsibility for their own actions and that in Sartre’s case the individual is the sole judge of his or her own actions. According to him, “men is condemned to be free,” therefore “the destiny of man is placed within himself.”

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