Antoine Roquentin, the main character of Sarte’s Nausea, is a 30-year-old adventurer who is settled down in a town called Bouville. He seems to be a antisocial type; in fact, from his earlier meditations on his diary, he seems to be a quietist. Roquentin’s struggle to cope with others’ existence and also his own is shown throughout the book. Roquentin is in a pursuit of meaning of existence, if there is any. On the process of observing himself and the surrounding people, he definitely beholds distinct difference between him and the others. “All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other.” While only thing one needs is to be “lonely enough to get rid of plausibility,” people are so bound to one another and society that they don’t actually know of their self-individuality. (8)
Then strange sensation, which seems both physical and mental, plagues Antoine Roquetin immensely. Although it seems to involve physical feeling, it is not like repulsive motion sickness or acid indigestion. It is nausea. He feels nauseated because of his observation that life is absurd. Fortunately we have freedom to create our own essence of existence. Although nausea, like fear of Spinoza’s theory, never goes away; our created essence of existence is capable of prevailing the nausea. “I receive nothing and give nothing” (6). Everything is so absurd that existence of things that is outside of our body is meaningless and yet we have nothingness within ourselves.
Meaning of existence for people is to be defined by others and define others. Yet he cannot even grasp the reason to exist: “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance” (133). In spite of that, people all think that they are “necessary, causal being[s]” (131) and; therefore, their existence also is necessary. However, in fact, existence is contingent. It is true that we, the human beings, exist but we exist with absence of necessity. The fact of our existence insofar is being so without having to be so, the absurdity is the fundamental principle of life. Our existence doesn’t justify that we have reason to exist.
