Sartre, Nausea. AI

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Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

Nausea (original French title: La Nausée) is Jean-Paul Sartre's first novel, published in 1938. It's widely regarded as a foundational work of existentialism, blending fiction with philosophical inquiry in the form of a diary written by the protagonist, Antoine Roquentin.

Plot Overview

The story is presented as the recovered diary of Antoine Roquentin, a solitary, independently wealthy historian in his early 30s living in the fictional French port town of Bouville (a stand-in for Le Havre). Roquentin has settled there to research and write a biography of an 18th-century figure, the Marquis de Rollebon. As the diary progresses through January and February (set around the early 1930s), Roquentin begins experiencing increasingly intense, inexplicable episodes of profound disgust and disorientation toward the world and his own existence.

What starts as fleeting, unsettling sensations—such as the "sweetish sickness" from touching a wet stone or the inability to pick up a piece of paper—escalates into full-blown "Nausea." This isn't ordinary physical nausea; it's an overwhelming, visceral confrontation with the sheer fact of existence itself. Objects lose their familiar meanings and appear absurd, contingent, and gratuitous. Roquentin observes everyday things (like a chestnut tree root in a park, café patrons, or his own hand) as stripped of purpose, revealing a raw, viscous, meaningless reality beneath human-imposed order and categories.

He interacts with a few people, including:

The Autodidact (a self-taught man who reads books alphabetically in the library), His former lover Anny, and various townspeople whose bourgeois routines he finds nauseatingly inauthentic.

The novel builds to a climactic revelation in a public garden, where Roquentin confronts the absolute contingency of existence: things simply are, without necessity or reason. This realization is both horrifying and liberating [note parallel to Nietzsche on amor fati]. Toward the end, he finds temporary relief in art (particularly a jazz record) and decides to abandon his historical project to instead write a novel—suggesting that creating meaning through art might be a way to transcend the absurdity.

Key Philosophical Themes

Sartre uses the novel to dramatize core existentialist ideas, most famously:

Existence precedes essence — The central tenet: Humans (and things) exist first, without inherent purpose or predetermined nature. Meaning or "essence" is something we must create ourselves through choices and actions. Roquentin realizes people hide from this freedom by clinging to roles, pasts, or illusions of necessity.

Contingency and absurdity — Existence is radically unnecessary and gratuitous. Nothing has to be the way it is; there's no deeper reason or divine plan. This leads to the nausea: the overwhelming awareness that "to exist is simply to be there," without justification.

Freedom and anguish — Humans are "condemned to be free." Roquentin experiences this as terrifying rather than empowering at first, as it strips away comforting illusions.

Bad faith (mauvaise foi) — People deceive themselves to avoid facing freedom and absurdity (e.g., the bourgeois citizens of Bouville who live mechanically).

Alienation and the body — Roquentin feels detached from his own body and the world, which appear alien and viscous.

A famous passage captures this:

"The essential thing is contingency. I mean that, by definition, existence is not necessity. To exist is simply to be there; what exists appears, lets itself be encountered, but you can never deduce it... contingency is not an illusion... it is absolute, and consequently perfect gratuitousness. Everything is gratuitous, this park, this town, and myself. When you realize that, it turns your stomach over and everything starts floating about... that is the Nausea."

The novel is dense, introspective, and often unsettling—Sartre draws partly from his own mescaline experiences (which involved crab visions, echoed in Roquentin's hallucinations). It's not a light read, but it's profoundly influential for anyone interested in existentialism, phenomenology, or the philosophy of existence.

If you're reading it, the diary format makes it feel immediate and personal. Have you read it already, or are you looking for recommendations on where to start with Sartre?

What Sartre has in common with Nietzsche

Jean-Paul Sartre and Friedrich Nietzsche share significant common ground, particularly as precursors to and key figures in existential thought. Although Nietzsche (1844–1900) predates Sartre (1905–1980) by decades and never used the term "existentialism," Sartre openly drew inspiration from him, and many scholars group them together as atheistic existentialists who radically rethink human existence, meaning, and morality in a godless universe.

Here are the main points they have in common:

Rejection of God and traditional metaphysics

Both proclaim the "death of God" (Nietzsche explicitly in The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra) and deny any transcendent source of meaning, objective truth, or divine order. Without God, the universe lacks inherent purpose, leading to a confrontation with nihilism — the potential meaninglessness of existence.

Existence precedes essence (or the radical contingency of being)

Sartre's famous slogan in Existentialism is a Humanism states that "existence precedes essence": humans have no predetermined nature or purpose given by God/nature/essence; we exist first and must define ourselves through choices.

Nietzsche anticipates this by insisting humans are not fixed beings with an eternal soul or telos; we are becoming, driven by drives and interpretations. Meaning is not discovered — it is created. Radical human freedom and responsibility

Both emphasize that individuals are condemned to be free and must bear full responsibility for their lives and values.

Nietzsche: We must overcome herd morality and create our own values (the "transvaluation of all values").

Sartre: Every choice defines not only ourselves but implies a model for humanity ("in choosing myself, I choose man").

In the absence of external guides, we are responsible for inventing meaning.

Critique of traditional/Christian morality as inauthentic

Nietzsche attacks "slave morality" (Judeo-Christian values of humility, pity, equality) as life-denying and resentful.

Sartre condemns bad faith (mauvaise foi) — self-deception where people flee freedom by hiding behind roles, determinism, or social norms (similar to Nietzsche's "herd" mentality).

The creation of personal values and self-overcoming

Nietzsche urges the Übermensch (overman) to affirm life, embrace eternal recurrence, and will power creatively.

Sartre sees authentic existence as a project of continual self-creation, where we transcend facticity (our given situation) through freedom. Both view humans as fundamentally strivers or project-makers (Sartre echoes Nietzsche's "will to power" in his emphasis on freedom as a dynamic force). Affirmation of subjectivity and the individual

Both start philosophy from the individual's lived experience rather than abstract systems. They reject universal, objective ethics in favor of personal creation and commitment.

Despite these strong overlaps, they diverge in tone, emphasis, and conclusions:

Nietzsche is more affirmative and life-celebrating (amor fati, Dionysian joy, eternal recurrence), often seeing nihilism as a transitional stage to be overcome with vitality.

Sartre is more anguished and phenomenological (nausea, absurdity, anguish), focusing on radical freedom as burdensome yet inescapable.

Nietzsche criticizes humanism and universal ethics harshly; Sartre (especially in Existentialism is a Humanism) defends a form of humanistic responsibility toward others.

In short, Sartre builds directly on Nietzsche's demolition of old certainties and his call to create meaning in a meaningless world — but he systematizes it into a more explicit philosophy of freedom and responsibility. Nietzsche lays much of the groundwork for existentialism; Sartre makes it a movement.

If you're exploring this further (perhaps after Nausea), Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Beyond Good and Evil pairs well with Sartre's Being and Nothingness or his lecture Existentialism is a Humanism.