Thinking Outside the Box

Both Plato's and Sartre's stories held an import message behind all the symbolism used in the stories themselves. In the allegory, the prisoners represented ignorance in a pure state, for they did not know what is real, and only believed the few things they knew to be what the world was. Sartre's play's message was summarized very well in a quote from Garcin "Hell is other people." At first glance, neither literary work seems to have much in common with the other. But after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that both had to do with the mind. Our mind is the ultimate thing that will make us suffer or help us progress. The prisoner's minds were closed to the thought of a world outside the cave, even when one of their own told them. The three prisoners in No Exit were also suffering by their own mind, allowing themselves to feel tortured by each other, and the emptiness that the room had to offer. Plato's solution was a bit more easier to decipher: you either have to open your mind to rid yourself of ignorance, or let others drag you out of it. As for Sartre... his solution was a bit harder to find. I think the only thing you can do when dealing with a personal hell is to embrace it. Not in a warm way, but just acceptance of what is happening is the first step in dealing with a situation such as that. And at the end of the play, the three characters did come to realize that they would be stuck together.