"Thinking Outside the Box"

In Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit” and in Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, both reveal the limitations of the human mind. Both pieces show how a narrow or closed mindset will enslave the soul and in the case of “No Exit” torture the soul and both show that a little courage or faith in the unknown can overcome that obstacle.

In Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit", the souls were brought to a waiting room of sorts where each soul thought they would be awaiting for future punishment. They all knew they were condemned to suffer for eternity and this mindset helped bring them closer to that conclusion. At first they thought they were randomly placed in the room but as the play progressed and as the more they talked to each other, the more they realized that they were each others torturers and that the room was not actually a waiting room but the room of torture itself. Once accepting this fact, Garcin, who had the door to other passage ways and rooms before him, could not leave the room because he told himself that he was damned and that he wouldn’t be able to escape regardless. By this very act the play makes it clear that Hell doesn’t always have to be fire and brimstone if you are already suffering and already imprisoned in your mind. As long as your mind is suffering and you are trapped inside, you could be in heaven or any physical place you desire on Earth and still feel like you were in the deepest pit of Hell. If however Garcin did step outside, he would encounter a new situation, a reprieve of the room with Estelle and Inez, and this could at the very least give him hope that he had some control of the consequences of his actions in life. Although it’s not much, this would make his personal Hell less effective because as long as one has hope, one can never truly suffer.

In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, none of the prisoners suffered but they were still enslaved by their own perception of reality. The one prisoner who was able to escape and tell the others about the world outside was put to death by the other prisoners because it was easier, simpler, and less bothersome to kill the one man than to have their perception of reality shaken or questioned in the least and disrupt their contentment. This killed any actual want to question what was being shown to them, any want to question the reality that they lived in and live in the cave that was preordained for them. If however one of the prisoners took him up on what he said however, he would see that the world is different and quite possibly convince the rest of the prisoners to walk free as well.

Both characters in Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit” and in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” were trapped by their narrow mindsets allowing no hope for change to occur in their existence. This was shown in “No Exit” by Garcin never being able to walk out of the open door because he “knew” that he was in Hell and in “The Allegory of the Cave” by having the other prisoners kill the one freed prisoner who saw things differently. The possible only solution laid in the open door/entryway for both stories and that all the characters needed was a little courage or a leap of faith to get them out of the situation they were in.