"Hell is Other People": Interpreting "Queer" in Terms of Existentialism

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and small town life. Most people in Winesburg, Ohio are depicted as grotesques by the author and viewed as grotesques by the readers. However, in most stories those grotesques don't sense that they are weird or unusual, although in fact they are living very strange lives and keeping very strange beliefs. In this sense "Queer", makes itself distinct from other stories in the book, because the character here, Elmer Cowley, the junior member of Cowley & Son's store, knows exactly that he and his father are queer. More specifically, he assumes that people in Winesburg consider his father and him queer. He regards George Willard as the representation and spirit of the town. As a result, the town's judgment and opinion is by no means George Willard's judgment and opinion. Although all his suspicion is ridiculous and false, he has already built a cage to lock himself in. To Elmer Cowley, George Willard is the Hell. "Hell is other people" is a famous quotation from Sartre's ...

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we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, ... we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else's judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else's judgment enters. ... But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us.?

The long passage tries to clarify the true interpretation of Sartre's famous philosophy about human relationship. Self consciousness needs the "Other" (often denotes ...

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