Why did the characters in "No Exit" agree to torment each other?

Question

Once the characters in *No Exit* realized that they were placed there to torment each other, why didn't they refuse to do so? When Joseph says "eh bien, continuons" ("very well, let's get on with it") at the end, is he implicitly consenting to participate in this? What's the significance of his agreement (or at least lack of refusal) in Sartre's overall philosophy? In the context of the story (and Sartre's philosophy), could the characters *possibly* have refused and what might have happened if they had?

Answer 1

In the story, the characters did try to stop torturing each other. At one point in the play, Estelle and Garcin tried to not talk to each other, but the experiment didn't last long. Why? Because it is in their personalities, their DNA, so to speak. They are so different from each other; that is why they are put together in the first place, Sartre says in the play that "Hell is other people". So the "eh bien, continuons..." is the acknowledgement by Garcin that they can't stop, that this is going to go on forever. It's not a matter of will or refusal. It was the realization of what each character did that put him/her in that room, that no matter what their thought process or intentions were while they were alive, but what they actually DID that put them in hell.