Name : Abdul Aziz

NIM : E1D020002
Class : 5TC-2
Subject : Drama
Analysis Drama No Exit by Jean Paul Starte

The analysis of Existentialism on Drama No Exit by Jean Paul Starte

1. Introduction
No Exit (Huis Clos) is one of Sartre's finest plays; it is produced and studied more
than any of his other dramas. The setting is Hell even though it resembles the real world
around us. Three characters come together in this microcosm of Hell in a way which shows
their indispensability to one another: They become inextricably involved in each other's
stories, and they represent the fundamental idea of the play-namely, that other people are
torture for us. The question of "the others" is integral to the works of Sartre; he describes over
and over how other people can condemn us, define us, withhold love from us, murder us —
in short, take the power away from us to live life as we wish.
Sartre's attempt to make sense of the moral and metaphysical implications of the
German occupation of France during World War II inspired No Exit and the ideas that
inspired it. Sartre was born in Paris in 1905, the only son of a naval officer who died when he
was only 15 months old. His mother, a second cousin of the ologian, musicologist,
humanitarian, and Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer of German origin, raised her son with the
assistance of her grandparents. Charles Schweitzer, a German professor who educated his
grandson and encouraged Sartre's love of literature and intellectual ambition, was one of
Sartre's earliest intellectual influences. The central trauma of Sartre's childhood occurred in
1916, when his mother remarried to a man.
Existentialism is a philosophical school of thought that holds that everyone must find
meaning in this ambiguous, chaotic, and seemingly empty universe. Existentialism is derived
from the words ex and existence, which mean "going out" and "standing," respectively
(derived from the verb sisto). As a result, the term "existence" is defined: humans stand as
themselves by emerging from themselves. Man is aware of his own existence. Soren Aabye
Kierkegaard is regarded as the founder or father of existentialism (1813-1855). Other
philosophies, such as phenomenology from Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900),
Edmund Husserl (1859-1941), Nicolas Alexandrovitch Berdyaev (1874-1948), Karl Jaspers
(1883-1969), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905—1980), and modern metaphysics, had an impact on
existentialism.

2. Disscussion
Existentialism does not discuss human essence in the abstract; rather, it discusses
human nature and specifically examines the concrete reality of humans as they are in their
world. Existentialism seeks to reveal human existence as experienced by the human himself,
for example, as the individual's experience, rather than the essence or substance that lies
behind human appearance. Essence or substance refers to something general, abstract, and
static, while concrete, individual, and dynamic are not. Existence, on the other hand, refers to
concrete, individual, and dynamic things. That is because an individual learns from their
experiences based on the facts. And it was only he who had this experience.
Sartre studied philosophy at the École Normale Superieure, where he met fellow
philosophy student Simone de Beauvoir, with whom he would maintain a lifelong personal
and intellectual relationship. Sartre spent much of the 1930s teaching philosophy and
studying the works of German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, who,
along with Friedrich Nietzsche and Sren Kierkegaard, foreshadowed many of existentialism's
key concepts. Sartre's prewar philosophical writings reflect Husserl's phenomenology and are
concerned with the workings and structure of consciousness. Sartre's first novel, La nausée
(1938; Nausea), depicts a man's reaction to the absurdity of existence, and his story collection
Le mur (1939; The Wall) offers a variety of explorations of relationships, sexuality, insanity,
and the implication of human action—scenarios that foreshadow an existential crisis.
Startean Existentialism is the philosophy he has presented either orally or in writing.
As Webber puts it, "existence precedes essence, abandonment, absolute individuality and
absolute freedom, subjectivity of values, responsibility for choice, anxiety, despair, the self,
and bad faith." Sartre argues in 'Existentialism and Humanism' that his aesthetic
existentialism is more consistent. For him, God does not exist, and a human must shape his
own destiny because the mind is a blank slate in a blank state.
Through our experiences, we discover the essence of our existence, the reason for our
birth, and the reason for which we have been 'dropped' in this meaningless universe. Sartre
observes that man first exists: he appears in the world, encounters himself, and only then
defines himself (Sartre 2007: 21). That is, when he comes across something, he begins to
unravel the mysteries and untangle the tangled knots of meaninglessness. His first principle is
stated in his book 'Existentialism and Humanism.' He scribbles, "...there is no human nature
because there is no God to conceive of it." Man is not only what he imagines himself to be,
but also what he wills himself to be, and because he imagines himself only after he exists,
just as he wills himself to be after being thrown into existence, man is nothing other than
what he makes of himself."
When I read these lines of his, the first thing that comes to mind is that man becomes
what he imagines himself to be, as well as what he believes himself to be. This also implies
that no one exists to write for man his life and how he will find meaning in what he has been
given. What applies here is Nietzsche's concept. He writes, "God is dead," which leads us to
many inferences and inductions about who will decide for us and how we will live this life,
which is replete with the absurdity of the human condition.
Furthermore, He divides the things that exist into three categories: humans, artifacts,
and naturally occurring objects. He explains what comes before what for everyone. He writes
that for humans, existence comes before essence. He writes that for artifacts, essence comes
before existence, whereas for naturally occurring objects, existence and essence coincide. The
object's concept is also required for the object to exist. His is a Phenomenological Approach,
in my opinion. As Husserl points out in his theories, our consciousness gives meaning to how
and what things are. In this case, essence comes before essence because there is an answer to
the question posed, 'What is it?' And even before that, there's 'is it?' The existence of naturally
occurring objects, such as stones and trees, does not reveal what they are. In the case of
humans, Sartre means that there is no predetermined human essence and no humannature
fixed prior to human existence. Existentialist thinkers like to use words like "anguish,"
"despair," and "abandonment." Human 'experiences' are represented by these terms.
Sartre defines "abandonment" as the fact that people are either bound to be free or
condemned to be free. Overall, being for oneself is at the heart of this term of his. We the
people are free to make choices in the absence of any higher or external power or source, but
we are not free from the consequences of those choices. We are obligated to own what we do
because there is no higher being guarding us or defining our paths for us. He also writes that
because we have been abandoned here, "it is we ourselves who decide who we are to be"
(Sartre, 2007: 34). He writes in his book 'Existentialism is a Humanism' that Dostoyevsky
once said, "If God does not exist, everything is permissible." This is existentialism's starting
point. Indeed, if God does not exist, everything is permissible, and man is thus abandoned,
because he has nothing to rely on — neither within nor without. Sartre defines Despair as the
existentialist's attitude toward the recalcitrance or obstinacy of aspects of the world beyond
our control or forces over which we have no control, which includes 'other people' as hell.
 Sartre's existentialism is based on the concept of a human being. His understanding of
freedom is that one is condemned to exist eternally beyond one's essence, beyond the causes
and motives of one's actions, and that one is condemned to be free, as I have already stated.
Without a doubt, freedom is an inward thing and a choice. For Sartre, this also means that
there are no limits to one's freedom. He also believes that man cannot be both free and slave;
he must be completely and permanently free or he is not free at all. One of Sartre's many
claims in 'Being and Nothingness' is that we are aware of our freedom and the responsibility
that comes with it, but we try to hide it.
It is well known to us that the pressures and demands that the world presents to us are
the result of the ways in which we see and engage with things, including ourselves, and that
this is the result of our changeable personalities rather than any fixed natures. This creates a
great deal of anguish within us. To avoid it, we refuse to accept responsibility for everything
that happens within and because of us. This is what Sartre refers to as "bad faith." Heoffers us
multiple definitions to be more precise and exact. We are in bad faith if we rely on the
opinions of others. Heoffers us multiple definitions to be more precise and exact. We are in
bad faith if we rely on the opinions of others. That is, believing in other people's perceptions
of us and living with them after accepting them limits the freedom we can have without their
opinion. This also produces bad faith.
Sartre also introduces two types of "beings." Being-for-itself and being-in-itself are
two examples. Being-for-itself is roughly equivalent to subjective-being. And objective being
is being-in-itself. Being-for-itself is a type of being that is concerned with one's own
existence. Being-in-itself is the way the world exists outside of one's own reality. Being-for-
itself necessitates the existence of consciousness, as well as consciousness of oneself. It
entails the directedness towards the world that consciousness entails, which is known as
"intentionality." Being -for-itself is liberating, but it implies a lack or nothingness. Being-in-
itself, according to him, is opaque, objective, inert, and entails a massive fullness or plenitude
of being. Being-in-itself is uncreated, which means that while it exists, it never began to exist,
and there is no cause or reason for it to exist.
According to Sartre (in Webber (2009), the road to power is love that grows from the
human soul, which includes the ability to be self-aware, free to choose one's own destiny,
freedom and responsibility, anxiety as a basic element, the search for unique meaning in the
world meaninglessness, being alone and in relationship with others finiteness and death, and
tendencies to self-actualize. As a result, Existentialism rejects the notion that humans are
merely innate or environmental products, as previously thought by positivists and ecologists.
 3. Conlcusion
So, in this drama it can be seen that the theory of existentialism greatly influences
how a person is. Seen from the three characters who are together in one room without a
mirror. There the three characters stare at each other and find out what the characters of those
people are. So that in this theory explains every movement or every view given has meaning.
Of course, every time the presence of people there affects the reactions of the people present.
That's how the connection between the famous words in this drama namely "hell is the other
people" is described. Because every attitude, word and self- treatment is in accordance with
the attitude, treatment or action given by others.

References
Ensiklopedia. Existentialism.
http://ensiklopedia.kemdikbud.go.id/sastra/artikel/Eksistensialisme. Cited on November 2022

Literariness. https://www.google.com/amp/s/literariness.org/2020/08/07/analysis-of-jean-
paul-sartres-no-exit/amp/. Cited on November 2022