I'm not naming this "Thinking Outside the Box" because that's too inside the box

I recently set my Facebook status to "If I had three rats, I'd name them Inez, Estelle and Joseph Garcin. And then I'd laugh and say 'Welcome to hell.'"

This amused me.

It also evidently warranted a marriage proposal...to which my mother accepted for me.

So it goes.

I had heard of "No Exit" before I actually read it. The idea intrigued me, mostly because of the completely character driven staging. The set is simple, and no one enters or exits during the entire show. 

There's an episode of Family Guy where they use this concept and set it entirely in a bank vault where Brian and Stewie's dialogue carries the entire episode. 

Oddly enough, this episode's back and forth could be argued to even reflect the idea that hell is other people.

Which reminds me, there was supposed to be a point to this blog post right?

Something about Plato and Satre and how they relate.

The way I see it, in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, the idea of "hell" is ignorance and being shut out from the world. Hell is not being able to see what is real and tangible, much like the prisoners can not see or touch the things they see silhouetted on the wall.

By contrast, in "No Exit", hell is being forced to see reality. 

There's a scene between Inez and Estelle where Estelle is looking desperately for a mirror because there is none. Before she got to hell, she comments that mirrors became her reality and how she saw the world was through her reflection. 

Inez then tells her that she will be her mirror, which is a blatant metaphor for the three of them being put together to have to face the reality of what they really are. The reflections are similar to the prisoner's shadows, they are not real. 

In "The Cave" when the prisoner steps into the sun, it is uncomfortable and burns. Not unlike when the three characters in "No Exit" are with each other. In both of these stories, having to face reality is uncomfortable, but in the end necessary. And there is no going back once it is established. 

This can relate to life because sometimes you need to take off your rose colored glasses (or whatever that adage is) and see things how they really are before you can "find the exit" and deal with reality. It might not be pretty, but the gods will offer you chances and all that.

Know them, take them...the gods wait to delight in you.