Existentialism In Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea

Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea tells the story about a French writer named Antoine Roquentin who starts to question his own existence, and be horrified at it. Thus, he feels nausea constantly. This nausea is not just a sickness. It is so strong that, it almost feels like a panic attack. The novel is written to be looked like Roquentin’s personal diary, and the readers read about his emotional experiences each day. Sometimes, the readers can almost feel Roquentin’s boredom and disgust, because Sartre spends so many details to describe his feelings. And he wants the readers to feel Roquentin’s feeling. Nausea is not only a novel, but also a book of philosophical endeavor. It introduces a philosophical idea called existentialism. For existentialist, …show more content…
It means that, there is no God, and no human nature, nothing that can pre-define or pre-determine a person’s life. In his speech, Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre calls it “the first principle of existentialism” (3). There is no God, so no higher power can decide what is right or wrong for people. Also, there is no human nature, so there is no specific way people should act. People can choose whatever they want to be. That is the freedom people have. And, it terrifies people. Because they do not know whether their choice is the right one, nor can they predict other people’s choices. However, they must take responsibility for their own choices. In Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre also argue that when people make a choice, they do not only take responsibility for themselves, but also take responsibility for all humanity, because people have a certain image of others as they would want them to be (3). For example, when someone choose to act as a muscular man or a feminine woman, the person obliviously thinks everyone should act in this way. For existentialist, there is no right or wrong choice. If the person takes full responsibility for his choice, not only for himself, but for the entire humanity, that is good enough. However, such freedom and responsibility will cause nausea and lead to radical self-inquiry, just like Roquentin does in the novel Nausea. Roquentin feels nausea when he is …show more content…
Teleology suggests that human beings progress over time. However, since there is no definition of good and bad, or right and wrong, there is no way to tell whether a person has become better or worse. In Nausea, Roquentin spends many years to work in other countries. In the end, when he returns to France, he realizes that he has lost his passion, and has accomplished nothing (Sartre 5). That is when he starts to question his own existence. Like Roquentin, people often spend many years trying to accomplish something, so that they can become a better person. However, by what standard, they have become better? Do they not always give up something else in the process? In Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre gives an example of a young man asking his opinion on whether this young man should leave his mother to fight for his country or not. Sartre states that it is the young man’s choice to make, and he needs to take responsibility for his choice (5). In fact, no matter what choice the young man has made, he will regret it in the future. Nevertheless, he must make a choice. Between the two choices, there is no better one, and no matter what, the young man’s choice will not make him a better person. Furthermore, in Nausea, there is a character called the self-taught man. He is very excited when he learns about Roquentin’s experiences, and plans to have his own