Throwing the book NAUSEA by a man named Jean-Paul Sartre against the wall, the reader screams: “What is he talking about?” Picking up the book from the floor, he finds himself beginning to think like Antoine Roquentin, its main character. “I am holding this book. This book exists. I have an ‘odd’ feeling holding this book.” Again, but this time with more anger, he hurls the book NAUSEA against the wall, his mind becoming a tumor of existence.
This reaction I have just described should be typical of any reader who takes what he reads seriously; for not only does NAUSEA relate Antoine Roquentin’s feelings of “I exist,” but it causes a nausea within the reader himself.
“I WAS the root of the chestnut tree. Or rather I was entirely conscious of its existence,” Roquentin tells us. The question the reader must answer is what to do with such information?
The entire book centers itself on the “horrid” question of existence; and throughout the book, one is left empty, reaching out as if waiting for something to grasp in order to sustain one’s very being! But it is the question of existence that horrid? Certainly, Roquentin is one man among many. Could it not be considered that what we find within these pages is merely one man’s viewpoint of existing (perhaps, a psychotic point of view)? Surely not everyone thinks as this one man?
I shall begin, therefore, with an assumption, since one must begin somewhere in the attempt for clarity, if any clarity is even possible within this novel. The assumption, though somewhat simple, is: All men think like Roquentin, only they tend to forget it. The proof of this assumption will be the very analysis of the book.
Roquentin, or so he tells himself, exists to write about the Marquis Rollebon. Thus, when he stops writing he asks himself, “What am I going to do with my life?…How can I, who have not the strength to hold to my own past, hope to save the past of someone else?” (pp. 94-95). The change he undergoes begins here: his journey to Nothingness (and Nausea). One might argue, now, that this is an extreme example; that not all men base all that they are on a single action of writing about someone’s past. It follows, therefore, that Roquentin is not a typical example of men; and, consequently, not all men think like him.
On the other hand, one must also consider the subject which Sartre is dealing with: existence. Existence, or isness, though an abstract term, is the concept underlying each of our lives: we are. Roquentin explains: “I exist…I see my hand spread out on the table. It lives — it is me. It opens, the fingers open and point…I feel my hand.” (pp. 98-99). Existence, then, is common to all men who are. In other words, all men who are have existence common to them.
Roquentin, therefore, is not the extreme example he appears to be, for writing on someone’s past is not his major concern. Furthermore, he may even be considered something of a universal person, since all people either are or are not. Roquentin is and has something common with all who are: existing.
Naturally, I am not denying that he is different; to deny that would be to deny individuality. Considering the concept of “self” in a relative universe, the opposite of having anything in common with others is true; to be constantly evolving is to be constantly changing, thereby staying different from each other at any given point.
But the subject-matter here is not that I have individual differences such as Roquentin’s pursuit of Rollebon’s past; on the contrary, it is the very fact of evolving, of changing. Existence is change, for if you are, you change. It is a condition of which one has no choice. Roquentin discovers this and experiences nausea for the simple reason that he cannot catch up to himself as long he exists: “The letters I had just inscribed on it were not even dry yet and already they belonged to the past.” (p. 95). There is no present when one speaks of existence. Roquentin undergoes a process of awareness; and these thoughts lead him to the conclusion that he exists — he is.
I have already pointed out that Roquentin has “existence” common to him and all men (and women). It follows, then, that if all men think and Roquentin is a man, all men are capable of undergoing a similar thought process which would lead them to the conclusion: I exist.
Before turning to the proof of the second half of the assumption, that all men tend to forget that they think like Roquentin, it is necessary to consider why existence per se is such a horrid realization. For example, why did everything stop when Roquentin stopped writing about the Marquis? The answer can be found in his diary.
The past did not exist. Not at all. Not in things, not even in my thoughts. It is true that I had realized a long time ago that mine had escaped me. But until then I believed that it has simply gone out of my range…we have so much difficulty imagining nothingness. Now I knew: things are entirely what they appear to be — and behind them….there is nothing. (p. 96).
If the past does not exist and he can never catch up to the present, what is left? Nothingness, and the nauseous feeling. Existence, the fact that he is, becomes absurd and without purpose. “M. de Rollebon was my partner; he needed me in order to exist and I needed him so as not to feel my existence.” (p. 98). But once he admitted the fact that past does not exist, he is able to feel his existence and all of the absurdity along with it: nausea.
Roquentin’s “experience” with the chestnut tree should also be noted in considering his realization of existing. I would like to call this experience “religious,” but since in the absurd world there is no God, the term “religious” might be misleading. On the other hand, perhaps we can come back to the term after examining Roquentin’s experience.
The experience itself can be considered in terms of what he called “void” — where objects around him disappeared and simply blended into a whole existence.
The root, the park gates, the bench, the sparse grass, all that had vanished: the diversity of things their individuality, were only an appearance, a veneer…All things, gently, tenderly, were letting themselves drift into existence like those relaxes women who burst out laughing and say, ‘It’s good to laugh,’ in a wet voice. (pp. 127-128)
What Roquentin states here recalls to mind Hermine and her goal of teaching Harry Haller to laugh in Hesse’s Steppenwolf. I choose to term his experience “religious” only if religious means undergoing something within oneself that allows one to see the whole of what is around him. Throughout time, mean have undergone similar experiences. Some were called Romantics while others, like Emerson, for example, were labeled transcendentalists. But these people saw “God” in nature, whereas Roquentin sees existence. “Religious,” however, can be applied in both cases; for in Roquentin’s words, “To exist is simply to be there,” (p. 131) and what is God or has been considered as God except “presence?” Calling this a religious experience, then, merely allows the reader a better opportunity to understand what really went on within Roquentin’s mind. And after all, undersatnding is our main goal whether we pursue existence, God or the book NAUSEA.
Roquentin is trying, then, to understand why he is. He writes during his religious experience of the chestnut tree: “A movement, an event in the tiny coloured world of men is only relatively absurd: by relation to the accomparying circumstanees.” (p. 129). This is the key to understanding, in turn, Roquentin’s change; for if an event is only “relatively” absurd in its relation to accompanying circumstances, then it follows that it ceases to be absurd if one gives it meaning. In the absurd world of the relative, one must, by oneself, put an end to the absurd; and by giving meaning to one’s existence, as in the case of Roquentin, the event (his existence) by accompanying circumstances (the meaning) is no longer meaningless. “Existence,” says Roquentin, “is not something which lets itself be thought of from a distance: it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless east — or else there is nothing more at all.” (p. 132) This is his religious experience — this and the fact that “existence is without memory; of the vanished it retains nothing — not even memory…existence — which is limited only by existence…existence is a fullness which man can never abandon.” (p. 133).
Essential to personal identity is memory; yet according to Roquentin, existence is without memory. Consequently, when the experience of “I exist” comes over him, his not being able to recall his past is justified because in reality, there is no past. In other words, if there is no memory concerning whatever exists, there is no past; and if there is no past, no memory of anything with which to base oneself on (personal identity vanishes), there is Nothingness: nausea. “There were those idiots who came to tell you about will-power and struggle for life. Hadn’t they ever seen a beast or a tree?” (p. 133). There is, then, no system which Roquentin can fit himself into; no category that will give him a start in establishing his “identity” except existence; and, existence, as I have pointed out, is without reason and absurd. It is Nothingness.
It is now possible to examine and prove the final part of the assumption “All men (and women) think like Roquentin, only they tend to forget it.” The proof rests in the decision of Roquentin at the end of the novel: he must give meaning to his existence. “And I might succeed — in the past, nothing but the past — in accepting myself.” Since there is no present, and since there can never be any present as far as existence is concerned, this giving meaning into his existence would enable him to accept himself: to accept his “exist-ing.” But to understand why all of us forget we think like this, one must consider, along with his decision, the concept of time. The concept of time will also explain how the paradox of Roquentin accepting himself in the past when he has already established that the past does not exist, is in actuality true.
For the moment, consider what it would be like if there were no time — if, in fact, there were no clocks in the world. If there were no clocks, there could be no early or late because the basis of early and late is gone. Disregarding divisions based on sun-rising or sun-setting, it follows, then, that if there no early or late, there is no today, tomorrow or yesterday because there is no concept of “day.” This, I believe, is something like Roquentin’s experience; for if there is no yesterday, today or tomorrow, there is no past, present or future: everything exists or does not exist. Men forget the fact that they have given meaning to clocks and consequently, to “day” or “tomorrow “and “past-present-future.” Some go to the extent, such as we have seen in Joseph K. with THE TRIAL, to base most of their existence on the concept of time. Take away their clocks, however, and naked existence is left — an existence with no meaning whatsoever until you yourself give it one. Take away the clocks and we have an idea of Nothingness. Men realize this, but involve themselves in something in order to forget. Involvement keeps their minds from turning to their condition. Many, again like K., only realize what they had already known when they are dying (facing non-existence).
If Nothingness, which means there is nothing absolute, is what we have come to realize, what is left? There remains one and only one solution: Roquentin’s solution of giving meaning to Nothingness. And though he might argue the point as he did with the Self-Taught Man, Roquentin is a humanist in the highest sense: for in giving himself meaning or purpose he is giving a more higher form of meaning to those around him: concern, and concern is what men who attach absolute meaning to “time” lack or tend to forget. Once naked existence is confronted and meaning given, the only result possible is concern. Should all men and women who think like Roquentin tend NOT to forget this, we would all be concerned about each other and our meaning, which previously given as individuals, would be universal: a concern, a genuine love of the “neighbor” — which in itself would no longer be a concept or dream but something real, something exist-ing.
(Written in 1969)