animated, articulate, helen shakes her head in amused disbelief even as she laments her parents' visit. she invited them over for pasta, and her mom insisted, over helen's repeated objections, on "being no trouble" by bringing over chinese food. her dad cracks jokes that her mother doesn't get; then her mother complains that everyone's making fun of her. her mother offers to take her 10 year-old granddaughter, sarah, to the movies, but helen cautions that, no, sarah has to go to soccer practice, she can go to the movies on the weekend. unable to please both her mother and her grandmother, sarah starts to cry. her grandmother purports to offer comfort - "don't be upset, we'll do whichever you like" - while actually further trapping the girl between the conlicting wishes of 2 adults.
jean-paul sartre sets his play, no exit, in hell. 2 women and a man awaken shortly after death to 
find themselves in a pleasant room. they have good health, no pain, no hunger. the only problem is that their companions are subtly but pervasively unpleasant. each of the 3 was in life vain, exploitative, unkind, cruel enough to drive a lover to suicide. now, at the same time, each of the 3 is sharp enough to foil any attempt at flattery, seduction, posturing, and to puncture any attempt at lecturing or grandstanding. each of the 3 loves to talk, but none likes to listen. none of the 3 has a shred of compassion. frustrated that neither woman will reassure him that he was noble rather than a coward, garcin, an army deserter, exclaims near the end of the play ,"l'enfer, c'est les autres."
when i read commentaries saying sartre was proposing that "hell is other people," i protest. (non, non, non!) sartre is not talking about our "true," or natural state. how could he be? he's an existentialist; he's the one who wrote that our preferences lead to our actions and thus determine our lives; we have to discover and face our own choices and attitudes. it seems to me that sartre must be wishing instead to open our eyes to the fact that certain people - or perhaps all of us at certain occasions - are self-absorbed, unable or unwilling to engage in genuine dialogue or collaboration. for such people, or at such times, others do not add value; they are in the way. garcin's not a hero, not sartre's everyman; garcin's a louse. other people are hell for garcin, not for sartre.
just as others are in the way for garcin, it is also hell for others to be around those who are self-absorbed and impenetrable. garcin feels he has nothing to learn from his companions. helen's mother has no confidence in helen's schedule or menu.
i recall that my mother was bright and entertaining and loyal, but she could at times talk without leaving much room for others. once, when joey, the kids, and i went to visit, we listened in conspiratorial awe as she ended sentence after sentence with a "but" or an "and." for close to 2 hours, we waited in vain for an opening to respond as she continued on, no "period," no pause.
sartre is not postulating some absolute truth; he doesn't even believe in absolute truths. rather he is describing, phenomenologically, our exact experience. he's portraying the visit we call the "weekend from hell."
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