Nausea is a slow realization; a journey through the familiar to the essential strangeness of reality. It is the story of Roquentin’s awakening to the realization of his absolute freedom, and it is born of the slow demolition of everything he thinks he is. This is called despair. In Roquentin’s case, he is conscious of his despair. He loses everything he thinks he is: his book, his history and, eventually, Anny. All of this is lost because he sees the contrast between himself and the Other. The familiar faces, their familiar attitudes, and the insurmountable gulf between them and him.
Roquentin, in the beginning of the novel, doesn’t talk, doesn’t think, and in fact his very thoughts are in a mush. Throughout the book he is confronted with the masses; how they talk in order to realize that they happily agree with each other, (pg. 8) and hide themselves in the chaos of everyday life. A prime example is that of Lucie in the alley. The woman he thought he knew is something else; something she could not have been in the “quiet, pink streets” (pg. 27). Is this extension of feeling possible in a crowded room? Is raw emotion possible in the world of preset desires and concrete opinions?
The Self-Taught Man is another case in point. He is the thorough reader of other people’s opinions; a lover of humanity (perhaps too much) and all of its accomplishments. He is so completely unsure of himself, unsure that he may have the wrong opinions. He is a sad lonely person with nothing to his name except all the books from A-L. Such circumstance are usually conducive to the Nausea, or to some sort of awakening, but the Self-Taught Man finds solace in something larger; in a humanity that he cannot touch. He is a man like Rollequin, but one who tries to find his way into the steady stream of humanity, if not in actuality, then at least in ideology. He is like a drowning cat; he’s wet and useless but he’s still mewling.
Rollequin himself loses everything one by one. He discovers the facticity of time, and the falsehood of his past. His past can no longer comfort him; his woman is not the same as she was before. Who is it that exists in other people’s minds? It is not him. His consciousness is there, he cannot deny, but for no a priori purpose. Consciousness is superfluous, and the Nausea is just the projection of this onto his physical surroundings. Following this train of thought to it’s logical conclusion he discovers that he is only what he is at this very moment. He discovers freedom. He does not hide from this thought; there is nothing behind which to hide, but he decides to live and to write. This is the only form of true optimism. After going through the very depths of despair to emerge, not to a rosy world, but to reality.
