Rating: 
Summary: Hell is other people
Review: This is the play from which that line comes from. A great tale of human relations from an existential perspective. One of the top three plays of the century. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a mirror of most people
Review: To hold to a view of hell as being in a room without mirrors forever can be characterized as an excess of narcissm. The characters in this play are all cursed with this (rare) affliction, born as it is from total lack of self-confidence. When one of them, Estelle, cannot see herself, she doubts her existence. This (characteristically European) existential insecurity is remedied in the short term by patting herself, but a mirror is ultimately what is needed to set her mind at ease. But these optical guarantees of existence are nowhere to be found. Self-reflection will thus have to take place in consciousness only: definitely the severest punishment of all for Garcin, Estelle, and Inez. Their anxiety, their punishment for wrongdoing, their hell, consists of having to depend on others for the interpretation of their appearance, of having to rely upon the taste of others. Hell of course is in the eye of the beholder, and others might think that being locked in a room with two women forever might actually be more like heaven. The key idea in all visions of hell though is that it lasts eternally, just like heaven. But eternal life in bliss is just as bad, perhaps more so, than eternal life in hell. After all, in heaven one can put off goals for as long as one wants. Time constraints become meaningless. All one need do is to perhaps think about what one can do, and of course, the goals will always be successful (one cannot be frustrated in heaven). To find hell in other people, as Garcin did, might make his sojourn with Inez and Estelle much more palatable. After all, he has an infinite amount of time to adjust. His narcissm might have a short decay time compared to infinity. Estelle might get creative and invent a mirror: unending time permits much innovation, regardless of its boredom. Inez might eventually be successful in her advances towards Estelle: Inez has plenty of time for seduction. It might be very difficult to be optimistic facing the prospect of eternal life as these characters do in the play. The certainty of existence is painful: to be happy one needs uncertainty, or rather, the possibility of failure. But of course one could find a way to embrace this prospect of eternal life. Imagination and creativity would find the answers. An optimistic individual, i.e. an individual not engaging in a self-reflecting narcisstic excess of introspection would, paraphrasing Garcin's last line in the play, get on with it.
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