Antoine feels that he must keep a diary to keep track of something that is imperceptibly changing within himself. The first three pages contain undated entries while the remainder of the novel proceeds in daily entries starting on Monday the 29th, 1932. Nausea begins with a note from “The Editors,” a fictional editorial team who has found Antoine’s diary and presents it to the reader. The novel also contains racist stereotypes and language as well as references to sexual assault. Pagination may vary in other editions of the book.Ĭontent Warning: Nausea depicts pedophilia, suicidal ideation, self-harm, fatphobia, and ableism. This guide uses the 2007 New Directions Books printing, translated by Lloyd Alexander. These themes include Existence Versus Essence, The Loneliness of Freedom, and History and Memory.
As the novel explores this radical meaninglessness through the character of Roquentin, it touches on some key themes of existentialist philosophy. Sartre concluded that there was no meaning inherent in existence. Taken personally, it asks why “I” exist at all. Briefly put, the problem of contingency asks why there is something rather than nothing. It was written at the suggestion of Simone de Beauvoir as a way for Sartre to work out his thinking (and his feelings) about the problem of contingency. However, the novel also stands as a powerful work of fiction. It is a philosophical novel, perhaps the philosophical novel par excellence, meaning a novel written to explore philosophical ideas.
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