Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Delve into the depths of existential thought with Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Nausea,” a novel that questions the essence of existence itself.
- Uncover the unsettling truths of being and non-being—continue reading to explore the existential journey of Antoine Roquentin.
Nausea (1938) is a philosophical novel that explores daily life through the lens of existentialism. The story follows Antoine Roquentin, a solitary historian living in a French seaport town, as he grapples with feelings of alienation, the search for freedom, and the meaninglessness of human existence.
Introduction: A portrait of existential angst – and a sliver of hope
Have you ever struggled to find meaning in the banality of everyday life?
If so, you’re not alone. Nausea plunges you into the anxious mind of Antoine Roquentin, a 30-year-old historian drifting through the fictional town of Bouville. Struggling to make sense of his work and surroundings, Roquentin begins experiencing literal bouts of nausea at life’s utter absurdity.
While Nausea was written in the 1930s, it describes feelings of alienation, listlessness, and depression still familiar to many of us today. Building on these emotions, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre uses his story to outline the core ideas of existentialism – a school of thought that emphasizes freedom, choice, and creating one’s own meaning.
In this summary, we follow Roquentin as he searches for purpose, and use his journey to understand the roots of existentialism.
Antoine’s diary
Before the story begins, Nausea greets us with a fictional editor’s note. We learn that we’re about to read the unaltered diary of a Parisian historian called Antoine Roquentin. The diary entries are from 1932, when Antoine settled in the (fictional) French town of Bouville to complete his history on the (again, fictional) Marquis de Rollebon.
Then the diary begins. Antoine explains that he wants to start journaling because he’s experiencing some unsettling changes in his feelings and perceptions.
He tells us about his lonely life in Bouville. He inhabits a grim hotel room and spends his days in the local library researching. In between, he goes for walks, hangs out at cafés and bars, and has casual sex with women. We learn about the people in his life – an ex-lover named Anny whom he can’t quite forget; his chatty neighbor Lucie; and a peculiar autodidact known as the Self-Taught Man whom he met at the library.
As he goes about his solitary days, Antoine begins noticing odd changes in himself. He experiences moments of inexplicable anxiety and revulsion toward his surroundings. He becomes intensely bored with his research subject and has trouble looking in the mirror. He also feels a strange sense of dread emanating from the physical objects around him. For instance, when he picks up a pebble on the beach, he feels sick to his stomach.
One day, Roquentin goes to a café in hope of running into owner Françoise, his current casual affair. When he learns that Françoise is out of town, Roquentin is seized by a terrible feeling that he describes as nausea. He leaves the café to distract himself with a game of cards and a movie. But even through the fleeting joy of those experiences, the nausea sticks with him.
ANALYSIS
In the opening chapters, Sartre introduces the major existentialist themes that run through the novel. Protagonist Antoine begins to grapple with the meaninglessness of existence, feeling repulsed by the objects and people around him. Sartre’s spare, observational prose establishes a bleak mood that reflects Antoine’s growing alienation from the world.
Antoine’s existential struggle has many parallels to Sartre’s own life. Sartre began writing Nausea in 1932, while living abroad in Berlin on a fellowship. Like his protagonist Antoine, he was supposed to be writing a historical biography. Many of Sartre’s ideas about alienation, freedom, and responsibility stem from his own experience with anxiety and depression during that time.
Later in his life, Sartre explained that he had experimented with the hallucinogenic mescaline shortly before writing the novel. It caused in him effects similar to the nausea Antoine describes.
The Self-Taught Man’s secret
In spite of the nausea that has gripped him, Antoine continues to work on his book. Things are going slowly. The Marquis de Rollebon’s elusive motivations begin to frustrate him.
One day, Antoine wanders around the town square, when he’s gripped by the sight of a statue. Antoine is fascinated by the poise and power of the man depicted. He’s shaken from his stupor only when the Self-Taught Man taps him on the shoulder.
They strike up a conversation. Antoine asks the Self-Taught Man what he’s currently reading. With a puzzling sense of shame, the Self-Taught Man tells him he’s reading two books: one by Larbalétrier and one by Lastex.
Antoine finds these reading choices a little random, but hardly shameful. Later, it hits him: the Self-Taught Man is reading through the entire library – alphabetically!
Suddenly feeling a sense of admiration for him, Antoine invites the Self-Taught Man back to his hotel. While they look at photographs of Antoine’s many travels, Antoine asks the Self-Taught Man what he will do once he’s read through the entire library. The Self-Taught Man replies that he will go on a cruise. Having lived through books for so long, he longs for a real adventure. He asks Antoine if he’s ever had any adventures.
Thinking about it later that night, Antoine finds that he really hasn’t had any. Everything that ever happened to him seems like random, uncontrollable happenstance. Only in hindsight can he twist some of these experiences into meaningful stories. The next day, Antoine is deeply depressed about the arbitrariness and emptiness of life.
He muses about his relationship with ex-lover Anny, remembering her volatile moods and her attempts to chase “perfect moments” of romance. Antoine had a hard time opening up to her. He’s unsure whether he ever really loved her. These feelings are put to the test when he receives a letter from Anny. She will be in Paris soon, and she’s begging to meet up with him.
ANALYSIS
After the initial onset of his nausea, Antoine continues to grapple with the random nature of existence. He struggles to find meaning in work, leisure, and love. This reflects Sartre’s philosophical realization that life has no intrinsic meaning. Sartre, however, came to see this as a great chance. Since humans are “condemned to be free,” we have the terrible burden, but also the incredible opportunity, to create our own meaning.
The characters of the Self-Taught Man and Anny represent different attempts to create meaning. The Self-Taught Man seeks it through his disciplined effort to read through the entire library. Anny tried to capture perfect romantic moments to recreate the type of meaning she knew from books and movies. Antoine is fascinated by these attempts, but can’t quite understand them. He hasn’t yet figured out how to create meaning for himself.
Thoughts of death
Antoine seeks refuge in a bar to ponder Anny’s ominous letter. His reflections are interrupted by the arrival of a peculiar man, Monsieur Achille, who stares at Roquentin before being driven off by another patron, the accomplished Dr. Rogé.
Roquentin meditates for a while on the difference between the two men. He decides he has more respect for Monsieur Achille, who at least does not pride himself on conforming so thoroughly to society’s expectations. Yet he also feels a bit of envy at Dr. Rogé’s worldly success. But as he studies the sickly-looking doctor, he realizes that death awaits everyone – no matter their achievements.
Over the next few days, work on the book goes slightly more smoothly. Roquentin even feels rather happy, finding that the writing gives him a sense of purpose. But soon, thoughts of the inevitability of death return to haunt him.
At one of his favorite cafés, Antoine finds the waiter in a state of distress. The waiter has been waiting to hear from the café owner all day, who lives upstairs. He’s worried that something has happened to him, but is too afraid to check. Mischievously, Antoine tells the waiter he heard a choking sound and a thud from upstairs. Then he leaves the café to continue his work at the library.
At the library, however, he soon realizes he won’t be able to concentrate until he knows whether or not the café owner is really dead. But when he returns to the café, no one is there. The next morning, the café owner’s wife reveals that her husband has been sick with the ‘flu.
Antoine recalls his visits to the local museum, where he liked to admire the portraits of Bouville’s former high society. When he goes now, though, he can’t help but feel judged by the powerful, handsome men in the paintings. Compared to them, he feels he has no reason to be alive.
Plagued by these morbid thoughts, Antoine decides to stop working on his book. He thinks his words don’t have any meaning anymore. Sitting at his desk, he stabs his hand with a knife, watching the blood trickle onto the pages of his diary. His diary entry for the next day reads simply, “Nothing. Existed.”
ANALYSIS
As Anny’s visit nears, Antoine’s existential crisis deepens. He begins to develop a morbid obsession with death, struggling to accept its arbitrariness and inevitability. Comparing the oddball and the doctor at the bar, Antoine envies the ease of a bourgeois career path but – much like Sartre himself – is more drawn to a life of nonconformity. But he rightfully wonders how much these choices matter in the face of mortality.
At the museum, Antoine measures his own paltry life against past glories now expired, finding no reason for his existence. His morbid thoughts disturb him so much that he even dabbles in self-harm, perhaps in an attempt to feel what it all means.
Sartre thought that we often live in denial of life’s meaninglessness. Antoine experiences a familiar human anguish when he realizes life’s impermanence. Absent a religious framework to hold on to, he finds himself in free fall.
A profound realization
While Antoine has been busy thinking about death, his meeting with Anny has drawn closer. Their date in Paris is just four days away, and Antoine is getting restless.
At a lunch date with the Self-Taught Man, he tries to share his observations about the meaninglessness of life. The Self-Taught Man accuses him of being a pessimist. He shares his experience as a prisoner of war, explaining that the comradery among the prisoners helped him develop a deep appreciation for his fellow humans. Antoine finds the Self-Taught Man’s humanism “naive and barbaric.” He contends that the Self-Taught Man doesn’t truly love others, just the idea of people in general.
Their philosophical clash intensifies until Antoine is overtaken by nausea and leaves the restaurant abruptly. The other patrons stare as he departs.
As he wanders around Bouville, Antoine’s mind fixates on the meaninglessness of words. He realizes that things have names like “bus” and “seat,” but these are only smoke and mirrors. In reality, things only exist or exist not.
Finally, Antoine seems to have a moment of revelation, though it’s unclear what he has grasped. The day after, he shares his realization with his diary. He believes that the nausea isn’t coming from outside of him – it is him. It’s part of him.
He thinks about what it has taught him: Everything comes into existence without a reason, continues existing because it doesn’t know any better, and stops existing at random. With this, Antoine feels like he’s understood all there is to understand about life.
He makes a decision to leave Bouville for good and move to Paris. Waiting at the train station, he feels a long-awaited sense of adventure.
ANALYSIS
Antoine’s impending reunion with Anny brings his existential angst to a head. In a tense debate, he defends his nihilist worldview against the Self-Taught Man’s humanist critique. Antoine dismisses the Self-Taught Man’s humanism as naive. To him, existence has revealed itself to be utterly meaningless.
Sartre would likely judge Antoine harshly here – he was an existentialist, not a nihilist. While he thought that life was without an innate meaning, he believed that humans can, and must, create their own meaning through their choices and actions over time. In Sartre’s view, this also includes a certain moral obligation toward others. Antoine still fails to grasp his obligation, instead wallowing in despair. His growing nausea signifies his inability to find purpose. Instead of recognizing his duty to create meaning from life’s absurdity, he flees to Paris.
The existentialist promise
In Paris, Antoine visits Anny in her hotel room. He’s taken aback by how much she’s aged, but it also dawns on him that he really has loved her all along.
However, Anny has no plans to rekindle their romance. She tells Antoine that she used to love him passionately, but that’s over now. She’s now dating an old Englishman, who’s taking her around the world to fancy hotels. She’s given up her acting career for the life of a kept woman, and no longer hunts for perfect moments.
When Antoine shares his depressing theory of existence, she dismisses him as “selfish.” He wants the universe to care about him and his work, but fails to care about other people.
As their time ends, Antoine grabs Anny in a passionate embrace, but she refuses to reciprocate, telling him he’s learned to care for her too late. She then shuts the door on him and their expired love.
Back in Bouville to collect his things, Antoine realizes all of his reasons for existing – Anny, his book, his past travels – are now gone. He’s completely free.
When he goes to the library to return his books, Antoine finds the Self-Taught Man engrossed in a conversation with a Boy Scout. The Self-Taught Man appears nervous. Suddenly, he begins stroking the boy’s palm. The librarian appears, shouting at him. He bans the Self-Taught Man from the library, thus ending the latter’s attempt to read everything in it.
At the train station café, Antoine says goodbye to the patrons, including his lover Françoise and the waitress, Madeleine. He asks her to play his favorite old jazz record. Hearing the record, Antoine realizes the musicians have created a work that transcends their existence. This sparks an idea: he could write a novel to make sense of his life.
As he heads to the train station, Antoine feels on the cusp of a new beginning. He imagines looking back at this hour as the start of his book. He leaves Bouville full of resolve, a sense of possibility – and a sliver of hope.
ANALYSIS
In the final part of the book, Antoine finally wakes up to the core tenet of existentialism and recognizes the emptiness of life as an opportunity. Sartre thought that humans don’t have just a right but also a duty to create their own essence through meaningful choices.
Antoine’s meeting with Anny confronts him with the consequences of failing to do so: Anny has given up on finding meaning and resigned herself to letting someone else decide her fate.
After she shuts the door on him and their story, Antoine decides to seize his new, radical freedom. His decision to write a novel is an unsubtle metaphor: he’s beginning to write his own story. It also reflects Sartre’s own attempt to create meaning through writing. Just like Antoine, Sartre abandoned work on a historical project to start writing Nausea.
Sartre would approve of Antoine finally seizing freedom, even if Antoine has not yet grasped his moral responsibility to the world. As Sartre’s own nausea evolved, he moved from early ideas about radical freedom toward emphasizing ethical engagement with the world. He argued that freedom also comes with responsibility. The Self-Taught Man demonstrates a type of misdirected freedom – it seems he harms others for his own pleasure, ultimately foiling his attempt to create meaning.
Antoine has not yet grasped his moral obligation. But his resolve to create meaning in his life gives us hope that he will find the right path.
Conclusion
Nausea chronicles the existential crisis of historian Antoine Roquentin as he tries to complete a book project in the fictional town of Bouville. Through the protagonist’s diary entries, we follow his daily drift through the library, cafés, and museums of his bourgeois surroundings.
Upon realizing life’s absurdity, Antoine is gripped by a terrible nausea. Confronting peculiar characters like the Self-Taught Man and his ex-lover Anny, he grapples with the inevitability of death and meaninglessness of existence. He reflects on his own boredom, loneliness, and lack of connection.
Finally, Antoine decides to write a novel to justify his existence. This decision suggests that he has embraced the core tenet of existentialist philosophy and accepts his responsibility to create his own meaning in a meaningless world.
About the Author
Jean-Paul Sartre
Genres
Philosophy, Society, Culture, Fiction, Classics, French Literature, Literature, Existentialism, Modernism, Psychological Fiction, Cultural, Historical
Review
“Nausea: Explore and Question the Very Essence of Existence” by Jean-Paul Sartre is a seminal work of existentialist literature. The novel is presented in the form of a diary written by the protagonist, Antoine Roquentin, who is grappling with the profound and unsettling feeling of existential nausea. Roquentin’s nausea is a metaphor for the realization of the absurdity and randomness of existence, leading him to question the very nature of reality and his place within it.
Sartre’s novel is a deep dive into existential philosophy, exploring themes of alienation, freedom, and the search for meaning in a world that seems inherently meaningless. The narrative is rich with psychological insight and philosophical depth, capturing the essence of existential angst and the struggle to find authenticity in one’s existence.
The book has been praised for its vivid and impressionistic portrayal of the protagonist’s psychological state, as well as its influence on the development of existentialist thought. However, some readers may find the fragmented narrative and abstract themes challenging.