If for Sartre there is no hell, what is Hell in No Exit?

Hell is many things in Sartre's play. It is the drawing room into which the three principal characters are taken. It is the inability to sleep that will afflict them - the prospect of staying awake forever, tormented by the sins of their pasts. It is a "hell of the mind," and it is, finally, "other people." In the various definitions of hell Sartre and his characters propose, a pattern emerges: hell is intrinsically tied to existence and to one's idea of oneself. The key element of "hell" in the play is therefore the absence of mirrors or reflective surfaces. The characters must rely on each other to create their identities; thus Estelle asks Inez to describe her beauty, while Inez begs Estelle to love her and Garcin begs Inez to tell him he is no coward. Though they claim at first to want to be alone, the characters need each other; the play is essentially a map of their thwarted desires, of their inability to control their own image. It is this inability that paves the way for the climactic paradox: when finally free to leave, Garcin refuses to do so. It is because of Inez, he claims, that he must stay. Unable to live with each other and unable to live without each other, the characters are trapped not just physically, but emotionally and morally. Hell is both within them and outside of them, and either way, there is no exit.