Sartrean Existentialism

Jean-Paul Sartre is often regarded as one of the most intriguing, influential, and famous French existentialist philosophers of the 20^th century. He produced an enormous volume of philosophical and literary works that continue to influence fields of study such as philosophy and sociology in today's world. One of, if not the most famous work in his arsenal is simply entitled Nausea which was published in 1938. The philosophical work is often considered many different things, such as a political work, a psychological work, or a philosophical work, which all have grounds and reasoning to be held true.

The work is about Antoine Roquentin, a depressed researcher who returns to the town of Bouville after doing a great amount of travel to research the life of an important political figure. Beginning around the winter of 1932, Roquentin becomes sick and has to take himself away from his work, he calls this sickness nausea. Sartre writes, "The Nausea is not inside me: I feel it out there in the wall, in the suspenders, everywhere around me. It makes itself one with the café, I am the one who is within it." Roquentin becomes disgusted with his life and it drives him insane and he begins to drift away from his work and focuses on finding out the meaning of all the things in his life he had done and most importantly he wants to know if he had lived a full life and if everything in his life is worth being fulfilled.

One of the most important and controversial characters in the work is the "Self-Taught Man." The Self-Taught Man is a friend of Roquentin's and searches for knowledge and the love of humanity. He is as disciplined as a soldier and he is often at the library where he continues his search for knowledge but he is caught making inexplicit advances towards a young boy and is banned from the library for good.

Sartre does an excellent job of showing his readers his views on meaninglessness of all objects by staking the claim that if a person is conscious of an object that does not necessarily mean that the object permanently exists. In Nausea, Antoine Roquentin has no attitude or stake in any of the objects around him and he finds himself drifting away from the world. He believes that the objects, whatever they might be, are useless in a line of events that is futile. When Roquentin discovers and applies this knowledge, he begins to question his own existence. This basically means that innate objects in themselves are meaningless, but they can be assigned a meaning by humans, and if a human can assign a meaning to an object, he can assign a meaning to his own life, and he can then become liberated.

Some of the most important concepts displayed in Nausea and that are key in Sartrean existentialism are the ideas of being for itself and being in itself. The concept of being for itself is well characterized by Antoine Roquentin, in that he is mindful and aware of his own identity and the fact that he truly does exist and has meaning. Being in itself is a little more complex, in that it is shown through all of the inhuman and innate objects of the known world. This concept shows that an object has a definable and inclusive fundamental nature but does not in fact have power over of a consciousness and cannot be aware of its own being. Sartre shows in this work that whenever being for itself and being in itself collide, being for itself becomes nauseated by being in itself.

The question that Sartre seems to want to pose to his readers is if you are confronted with the feeling of nausea, how are you supposed to reprieve yourself from it? Sartre does not state directly in this work how it can be done but does leave inferences throughout. Most notable is works of art, either by creating a wonderful piece or by simply taking in the glow and the aura of a work of art can provide a small reprieve from the feeling that plagues Roquentin.

On a more macro level of examining Sartre's philosophy through this work are the ideas of consciousness and self reflection, and the nature of existence. Nausea is written as a diary and it shows that Antoine Roquentin is indeed consciousness of his own awareness of himself and people around him. He realizes at a certain point, after he tries to keep himself from thinking, that that same thinking along with self consciousness actually defines his existence. Sartre pulls a page from the philosophy of Decartes in a way, stating at one point, "I exist because I think," where in the philosophy of Decartes, he states "I think therefore I am." A diary then, is a clear and concise form of self reflection and several times during the course of the work, Roquentin examines himself for extended amounts of time in the mirror, studying his own face, but in reality Sartre used this idea as a metaphor for evaluating all of humanity.

The main goal of Jean-Paul Sartre that he wanted to get across to the readers and philosophers of the world through the work of Nausea is questioning the nature of existence. As stated previously, Roquentin often contemplates and usually comes back to the idea of his own existence and the existence of the objects that surround him in the world. There is one main point in the work when he actually comes to the understanding that there is nothing more to life than elemental existence. He is the thing, he exists.

In conclusion, the philosophical works of Jean-Paul Sartre are all clear yet complex, easy to read and not too difficult to understand. Nausea is one of the foremost novels on existentialism ever published and remains in the hands of those who choose to move on to study a numerous number of concentrations in philosophy and out. His other works, such as Being and Nothingness are also well known and highly regarded among the philosophy community, but Nausea just brings out the essence of what Sartre believed in and sets a basis for understanding and appreciating all his work. Nausea dives into the ideas of being in itself, being for itself, things in themselves, consciousness, self-reflection, meaning and existence.