Theology and ethics
pp. 81-119
in: , Theology and contemporary critical theory, Berlin, Springer, 2000Abstract
The world of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism is a world without God and a world in which human dignity is suspect. In Huis Clos (translated as No Exit or In Camera) three people, two women and one man, are locked in an elegantly apportioned room following their deaths. We discover they are also locked in a circle of never-to-be-gratified sexual desire. One of the women, Inez, is attracted to the other, Estelle, while Estelle is attracted to the man Garcin. Garcin only wants Estelle if she can support his failing self-esteem, but he needs the presence of Inez because as a suicide she has known cowardice and it is cowardice as an aspect of narcissism which has been his own abiding vice. Inez offers the possibility to Garcin, then, of understanding or sympathy. The three characters are in Hell and as Garcin knows "Hell is … other people!" Each tortures and toys with the others, making and breaking promises, one constantly begging another for trust, love, "just a spark of human feeling". No such spark is evident or offered. At their most naked, their stories having been confessed so that each sees the others clearly and without illusions, they all recognize that "Human feeling. That's beyond my range. I"m rotten to the core … I"m all dried up can"t give and I can"t receive. How could I help you?" Each then is alone while realizing "Alone, none of us can save himself or herself."