Thinking Inside the Blue Box

Create a post for your blog entitled "Thinking Outside the Box" in which you compare how Plato and Sartre describe the limitations of our thinking and imply solutions to the problem.  Be sure to analyze their literary techniques, especially their use of allegory and extended metaphor.

To contrast the two, Plato's view was more all about you. The one individual who broke the chain and walked out of the bane where knowledge was slain. That slave saw a world full of wonder but a-frighted with what he saw decided to blunder on.... anyway. True, that at first it was all a big blur, but by taking the first step he "plundered the stronghold of Troy," as it were. Now in Sartre's hell hole, these people are victims of population control. They were taken by death and sent to a room. A room with a gloom, no doubt to entomb the very essence of their own humanity. In this story we focus on the all, none of them knowing just what will befall should they a step out the door into the residence hall. My rhymings are vexing and pesky, I think you'll agree, but that's what you'd get to spend eternity with me. I think Sartre's stpry was more of an extended metaphor because how much deeper can you go if you're already in Hell. I think the Plato's on the other hand is definitely an allegory.

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? Enter Sartre's space more fully and imagine how it would feel to live there endlessly, night and day.

Wow, this question took me a while to come up with an answer. My hell would be sitting in a room with someone like Mr. Skinpole and then also having to deal with a peacekeeper.

 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?

I don't think that an excess amount of something is hell. It's just annoying. But then again, if I was stuck for all eternity listening to that scratched up parrot sounding sound that's only 1 second long for the rest of my days... I'd want to shoot myself in the head. It's creepy and it's the only sound I have ever heard that makes me not want to go to sleep at night.

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?

When Inez says, "All sorts of little things got on my nerves. For instance, he made a noise when he was drinking-- a sort of gurgle. Trifles like that. He was rather pathetic really," I thought immediately of Screwtape Letters. One of the ways Screwtape suggested his nephew Wormwood get under the skin of everyone in his assigned household was make them loath the tiny tiny things that the other person always does. This tense atmosphere that builds and builds in hatred and loathing for a person you've been hanging around too much. Garcin tells the girls not to talk to one another. Just sit in a corner and think on the past and try to work something out for yourself.