Thinking Outside the Box

Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit" and Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" are both allegories that describe the limits of the mind.  Parallels can be drawn between the two in regards to both their ideas of torture and the methods for liberation.

Although Plato's cave no doubt seems far harsher than Sartre's drawing room, the idea behind both locations is the same.  The prisoners are not explicitly being physically harmed.  Their torture is purely psychological.  It is also significant that neither the cave prisoners nor the occupants of the drawing room are initially aware of their own suffering.  In "Allegory of the Cave", the prisoners are not aware of any world beyond the shadows cast on the walls, which leaves them without anything to compare their existence to.  While the characters in "No Exit" certainly know a world outside the room, the fact that it is so apparently mundane causes them to ignore the threat at first.

Plato proposes that mental imprisonment is a product of our own cowardice, while Sartre rather bluntly states that "Hell is other people".  This creates an interesting dynamic when the allegories' characters discover the way out.  In "Allegory of the Cave", the focus is on an individual who breaks free from the imprisonment and reaches enlightenment.  However, he is not able to convince his fellow prisoners to strive for freedom as well.  His enlightenment is as personal as the torture he endured.  The characters of "No Exit", on the other hand, are never shown escaping.  Garcin reaches the open door, but turns back, presumably because he is afraid of the unknown (a theme shared with Plato).  In a way, what follows reveals what might have happened in Plato's cave had the prisoner not escaped.  Much as the prisoners would become delirious with only their own minds, the drawing room occupants turn on each other when left to themselves.  It gets to the point where (another) murder is attempted, but given that they are already dead, it does not work.