Thinking Outside the Box

Plato’s “Allegory of the Caves” and Sartre’s, “No Exit” both show the limitations of human thinking, which is slavery, but also provide solutions. The limitation of “Allegory of the Caves” is that humans have a distorted reality, and they will remain that way unless they are enlightened by philosophy. The limitation in “No Exit” is that people lack confidence to accept the inalienable freedom of defining themselves. The solution implied by Sartre is for people to stop seeking validation from other people, because it will give them peace and freedom from enslavement of other peoples beliefs. Plato and Sartre are similar because they both presented the limitations of our thinking with an allegory, they also presented the solution with a story, and they seem to have hope for humans because they imply ways to escape the chains of mental enslavement.
Both philosophers present the problem of freedom vs. slavery in their stories. Plato’s issue is that the cave slaves have a distorted view of reality, because they know nothing of the world except the wall they are chained to and the shadows that they can see. They are a slave to ignorance. A character is released from the cave and shown a larger slice of the world. He is now free from chains he never knew enslaved him. Because he has seen “the light”, he can never return to the old life he knew.
In comparison, Sartre also presents the issue of freedom vs. slavery on a level that surpasses physical chains. The three main characters in his story are also chained. They were in Hell before death, as well as after death. The source of their discord and discomfort came from the habit of looking to other people to validate themselves. Garcin, the journalist from Rio, struggled most with this because he could not have peace until other people believed he was innocent. He believed that he could never feel mentally free from crime unless other people believed his innocence. This is an issue within himself, not a chemical or physical change that can take place. The two other characters are also chained to the emotional cinder block of finding self-worth and satisfaction from other people.
To conclude, Plato and Sartre’s stories both aim to target the issue of mental enslavement. They try to share their enlightenment with the audience by showing them how silly it is to be enslaved by beliefs and other people. When your happiness or peace-of-mind is determined by other people, you automatically allow yourself to become enslaved by them, hence “No Exit”.