Book Jean-Paul Sartre Nausea Essay

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Nausea

The Depleted Life

"Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea." Bang! At this point I wanted to tell Antoine Roquentin that he is not alone in his misery. That I too have been afflicted with "the Nausea."

Perhaps it would be best to describe exactly what "the Nausea" is, or at least how this humble reader has apprehended it. First I should probably state that "the Nausea" isn't misery. Misery is its own condition. However, misery can be precipitated by "the Nausea." And, yes, "the Nausea" also carries with it the same physical manifestations of the literal term 'nausea,' i.e. vertigo, sweating, upset stomach, etc.

But to better explain what "the Nausea" really is, let us turn back to the book, Antoine Roquentin writes in his journal, "I have no taste for work any longer, I can do nothing except wait for night." In one sense "the Nausea" is utter indifference to the world, a sort of depression, fugue-like state of mind. And what seems to be the worst part of feeling this way, is not the fact that one no longer cares about the world -- it's the fact that one cannot care about the world. The will or desire to care is there, but the capacity to care is gone, which suggests that "the Nausea" is not self-imposed, it's not intentional apathy.

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Rather, 'the Nausea" is a disease, a disease that is brought about by sustained exposure to the idea (or the plain reality) that life is void of meaning.

I've known other people who have been afflicted with this disease. F. Scott Fitzgerald had it. In his essay The Crack-Up, Fitzgerald discussed his version of "the Nausea," he wrote, "So there was not an "I" anymore -- not a basis on which I could organize my self-respect -- save my limitless capacity for toil that it seemed I possessed no more. It was strange to have no self -- to be like a little boy left along in a big house, who knew that now he could do anything he wanted to do, but found that there was nothing that he wanted to do."

All of Fitzgerald's vitality slipped through a crack in his very being. He was, at one point, a happy man, a vibrant man, but like Antoine he began to confront the things around him, the people, the material world, and soon found that there….....

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