Huis Clos

No Exit
Cover of the Vintage edition
Written by	Jean-Paul Sartre
Characters	Joseph Garcin Inès Serrano Estelle Rigault Valet

No Exit (French: Huis Clos, pronounced: [ɥi klo]) is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The original title is the French equivalent of the legal term , referring to a private discussion behind closed doors. The play was first performed at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in May 1944. The play begins with three characters who find themselves waiting in a mysterious room. It is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked into a room together for eternity. It is the source of Sartre's especially famous and often misinterpreted quotation "L'enfer, c'est les autres" or "Hell is other people", a reference to Sartre's ideas about the look and the perpetual ontological struggle of being caused to see oneself as an object from the view of another consciousness.

English translations have also been performed under the titles In Camera, No Way Out, Vicious Circle, Behind Closed Doors, and Dead End.

Three damned souls, Joseph Garcin, Inès Serrano, and Estelle Rigault, are brought to the same room in Hell and locked inside by a mysterious valet. They had all expected torture devices to punish them for eternity, but instead find a plain room furnished in the style of the Second French Empire. At first, none of them will admit the reason for their damnation: Joseph says that he was executed for being a pacifist, while Estelle insists that a mistake has been made; Inès, however, is the only one to demand that they all stop lying to themselves and confess to their moral crimes. She refuses to believe that they have all ended up in the room by accident and soon realizes that they have been placed together to make each other miserable; she deduces that they are to be one another's torturers.

Joseph suggests that they try to leave each other alone and to be silent, but Inès starts to sing about an execution and Estelle vainly wants to find a mirror to check on her appearance. Inès tries to seduce Estelle by offering to be her "mirror" by telling her everything she sees, but ends up frightening her instead. It is soon clear that Inès is attracted to Estelle, Estelle is attracted to Joseph, and Joseph is not attracted to either of the two women.