The ugly and distasteful bronze ornament that sits on the mantelpiece in the drawing-room of hell represents Garcin’s shifting conceptions of what, exactly, hell is. When Garcin first arrives, he calls the sculpture an “atrocity” and says, “I suppose there will be times when I stare my eyes out at it.” This statement indicates how eager Garcin is to anticipate the nature of his torture, though it isn’t until the end of the play that he truly understands what it will be like for him in hell. In the final moments of the play, he realizes that hell is “other people,” a realization he makes while “strok[ing]” the bronze ornament and saying, “This bronze. Yes, now’s the moment; I’m looking at this thing on the mantelpiece, and I understand that I’m in hell. I tell you, everything’s been thought out beforehand. They knew I’d stand at the fireplace stroking this thing of bronze […].” In this brief monologue, he finally grasps that he has no control over his environment. Everything in hell, Garcin understands now, has been thought out before his arrival, and the fact that he has this epiphany while staring at the ugly bronze sculpture suggests that the ornament itself symbolizes his newfound powerlessness. The ornament is too heavy to move, just as Garcin’s fate is also impossible to change.
The Bronze Ornament Symbol Timeline in No Exit
