No Exit (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Jean-Paul Sartre
- First Published: 1945
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Existentialism
- Time of Work: Eternity
- Setting: Hell
- Genres: Existential literature, Drama
- Subjects: Homosexuality or homosexuals, Murder or homicide, Self, Courage, Communication, Guilt, Lesbianism or lesbians, Adultery, Hell
- Locales: Hell
Characters Discussed
Joseph Garcin, a pacifist journalist from Rio who reached Hell by means of a firing squad, after an attempted escape to Mexico. Garcin affects a macho style and denies his fear of Hell. He is the first of the central characters to survey the set and is the first and the last to speak. As the play progresses, his swaggering façade crumbles. He is exposed in his fear of the judgment of his colleagues on earth and his companions in Hell, because his life was cut off at an ambiguous point. Was he a coward, running away from danger, or a hero on his way to...
[The entire page is 780 words long]
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