Who Said “Hell Is Other People”?

This statement is made by a character in Jean-Paul Sartre's play "Huis Clos" (usually translated as "No Way Out.") In this play, a man and two women have died and find themselves in hell. Since hell is a comfortable, well furnished room, at first the "sinners" think they will be able to stand it, but they soon find they have been thrown together because they are guaranteed to drive each other mad. The play explores the philosophy of Existentialism developed mainly by Sartre (1905-80.) In Sartre's view, we make ourselves and must take responsibility for what we do; the greatest crime is to be guilty of "bad faith", which means to delude ourselves that we have no choice, or to see ourselves as something that we are not.

The characters in "Huis Clos" are all in hell because they are lying to themselves about who and what they are, not because of any specific acts they have committed (Sartre didn't believe in an afterlife; his "hell" is the misery that comes from a life lived falsely and without authenticity.)

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