Think about the place you have chosen as your hell. Does it look ordinary and bourgeois, like Sartre's drawing room, or is it equipped with literal instruments of torture like Dante's Inferno? Can the mind be in hell in a beautiful place? Is there a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment?
My hell would be somewhat a mixture of both ordinary and torturous. Though I like to consider myself exempt of showing it, there are two things I fear greatly; failure and loneliness. My hell would be similar to a small white room. No windows or door, no ability to grow and transcend. The only thing this room would contain is a television stuck on replay. It would play nothing but my past mistakes and failures. The room would be so small that I would be unable to escape, having to consistently watch my self fail time and time again. Voices would echo throughout the room but none of them would be able to hear me. I'd be all alone, no source of comfort or refuge. Forever confined to isolation and failure until the day I died. It's ordinary because my hell is so simple but torturous due to the amount of pain it would inflict on me, having to endure it every single day with no sense of relief. I suppose you could say that the mind could be hell in a beautiful place considering that hell is different for everyone. "The mind is a beautiful place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." (John Milton). We go through day to day life thinking that certain things are hellish and unbearable and never stop to look at the beauty in every struggle. Every struggle makes us stronger regardless of how weak we may feel at the moment. I feel like their is peace in a hellish physical environment depending on the extremity of the hell. For example, let's say someone's version of hell would be having to work out and diet almost all day every day. Physically, their body is going to feel like they are being tortured, but once they find a way to escape this hell, won't they have come out stronger? Not only would they be physically conditioned but mentally as well. Learning to endure and press through the pain of physical and mental beings is a very valuable when it comes to overcoming a challenge.
Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess,' whether it be cheesecake or ravenous sex?
Most definitely, too much of anything is considered to be dangerous, let alone compared to hell. There needs to be a balance in everything that one does. Some high school students like to describe finals week as a form of hell because they all know that they will be spending the previous week cramming and studying without proper breaks.If most students studied throughout the year in moderation, would studying for finals really be so bad? Eating massive amounts of cheesecake without time to regroup is something of the sort that would make someone never want to eat cheesecake again. Just as having excessive amounts of sex could tire or hurt a person to the point where just the mere though of it would be pure torture. Keeping a balance and variety is what keeps us sane. If you keep a pot of water over a burning flame, would it not too burn into nonexistence?
How does Sartre create a sense of place through dialogue? Can you imagine what it feels like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place? How does GARCIN react to this hell? How could you twist your daily activities around so that everyday habits become hell? Is there a pattern of circumstances that reinforces the experience of hell?
The dialogue is somewhat descriptive, it gives a sense of setting when Garcin and the Valet talk about the room and what it's like to stay in it. It actually sounds somewhat similar to my hell, no escape. Though the staying awake part sounds quite dreadful, my imagination on being confined is very colorful. Garcin reacts much better than I would. At least he managed to calm down. I can honestly say my life is already curbing to into hell. I'm home alone quite frequently and a majority of my friends live in different regions of California. I have a car but nowhere to go, I'm confined in a box with no exit. Though being in school for the entire day would also be considered hellish on my part, I cannot sleep or roam in my box freely when I'm at school. Repetition reinforces hell. Without change we can not develop and without development we are stuck.
No comments:
Post a Comment