Similarities Between No Exit And Huckleberry Finn

We can explore all we want, and research for eons, but there will still be things that we may never know, and can never prove nor disprove. Many of those things reside within us without answers, including human nature itself. Are we able to change? Empirical data doesn’t exist to explain this, but people have often used literature to put forth microcosms of theories to attempt to see what different answers would mean for us. Works of fiction such as No Exit and The Mysterious Stranger claim that life has no meaning because humans have no hope to change, but The Kite Runner presents the idea that people possess the ability to change, and more importantly, for the better. People oftentimes say that they don’t like people, but don’t necessarily mean it about everyone; stress and the world weigh one down and cause them to say that out of frustration. In Jean-Paul Sartre’s eyes, saying such a thing would be entirely justified. In his play, No Exit, he pits
three people against each other to drive one another insane for eternity in his version of Hell. Sartre choses to say that, “Hell is other people”, to suggest that people are terrible by default, and have no way to rise up from that. No Exit serves to further the philosophy that humanity is its own worst enemy, and there is absolutely no chance for redeeming one’s self. Reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one wouldn’t easily suspect that the author, Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) was a cynical person, but look to a work published after his death, and it becomes obvious.
The Mysterious Stranger is a surreal tale of Satan revealing himself to children, and ultimately wreaks havoc on villagers through seemingly generous acts. In the short story, Twain uses Satan to show his disillusioned view of the world, by making him say that humans are no better than animals; worse in fact. He then says that the world is nothing but a dream, and nothing is real, making his story, “an example of individualism that insists the outer world is only an extension of the inner world: the individual creates the universe, God, and nature out of a dream center within himself” (May 345). This paints a bleak portrait of the human condition, one in which people would not only be incapable of overcoming their repetitive evil tendencies, but there would be no reason to do so
anyway. Amidst all of the turmoil in Afghanistan, a more hopeful message prevails through the voice of Khaled Hosseini in his novel, The Kite Runner. While many writers and artists find themselves in dark tortured places, leading to pessimistic views on the world, Hosseini crafts a story in which the opposite is expressed. Amir, the protagonist, is told “there is a way to be good again”, setting up a, “novel of sin and redemption, a son trying to redeem his father’s sin” (Noor 45). Hosseini manages to explain that as he sees it, people are not beyond help, but rather have the ability to change their course and strive for redemption. Amir’s journey to rescue Sohrab from Assef, the very person he let take advantage of Hassan, his friend and half-brother, helps illustrate redemption in action, arguing that it is possible. The world is a both a cesspool of terrible intentions, but it is also a place filled with eternal hope. One simply has to decide which way they want to look at it. Many people, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Mark Twain were disenchanted with the state of human nature, believing that people were of relentless wrongdoing and ill-intent by definition. Each writer used expressed this in their works, No Exit and The Mysterious Stranger respectively. Khaled Hosseini insists in The Kite Runner that while people can be cold and calloused, they are able to redeem themselves. While they present incredibly polarizing ideologies, all of these literary works have merit in their creative strides into the unknown; into humanity.