Huis clos ou comment ‘s’apprivoiser’ à l’enfer. Jeux intertextuels dans le labyrinthe de la torture sartrien

Abstract

Huis clos by Sartre is the linguistic representation of a mental maze where three characters wrap themselves up, line after line, like in a trap. Such an architectural frame essentially consists of words, only escape route in a hell where exit doors are shut. In this claustrophobic condition, nothing but “the other” inside the same room and the dialogue with him or her will be the mirror of each character’s consciousness. Words are combined using a “rhetoric of negativity”, characterised by a hidden link with the social and historical reality in which Sartre and the French lived during German Occupation.