Dorm Life: Sartre's Sometimes Open Door
In the play, No Exit, Hell consisted of Second Empire furnishings and other people. There too was a door that sometimes opened and the symbolism there within was revealed.
Here in the dorms, however, the middle man is cut away entirely, the allegory stripped by the mediocrity of life without the guidance of a writer's pen. To put it simply, when the door opens information streams forth. Girl comes in, waves her cell phone, incoherent babble flying out from her lips. Door slams shut, door opens next door, screaming can be heard from the hall as my roommate opens the door to join them. Conclusion: girl has successfully received the phone number of the football player upstairs. She fancies him. She recently broke up with her boyfriend.
I've done no work at all to retrieve this information. All I required was the data delivered via door, which I passively kept track of from the comfort of my bed and without the exertion of forced socialization. My roommate wants to explain to me the monumental occurrences of the day. Why bother? I learn all there is to know simply through the closing and opening of doors, embarrassingly thin walls, and the echoing single bathroom confessions.
And although the information is usually unforgivably dull, I find the practice itself enjoyably perverse.
Just like Hell should be.