Nauseated Strangers Essay Research Paper Nauseated StrangersExistentialists

Nauseated Strangers Essay, Research Paper

Nauseated StrangersExistentialists mean that we can’t rationalize, since we can’t explain human fear, anguish, and pain. To rationalize is absurd, because in the final analysis, we will find nothing. Life is absurd. This leads to the term Nothingness. Thus, since we can’t find a meaning of life more than what we attempt to create by ourselves, we anguish. Living in the same era, Camus and Sartre individually helped to form the school of existentialism. Of course there were others: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, etc. But I have chosen Camus and Sartre because of the closeness in the publication of their first novels. Camus published his first novel, The Stranger, in 1942, while Sartre published his first novel, Nausea, in 1938. I am interested in the way they look at change in The Stranger and Nausea. In The Stranger, the main character is Mersault. His mother dies and he travels to her home for the burial. The day after the funeral, Mersault gets together with a woman, Marie. He becomes friends with Raymond, a neighbor. Raymond is having an argument with some Arabs. Mersault is then pulled into the dispute between Raymond and the Arabs. Finally, on a sunny afternoon at the beach, Mersault kills one of the Arabs, even though he really has nothing against him. Mersault is put on trial and sentenced to death. Nausea is the journal of Antoine Roquentin; Nausea is the resulting disorientation Roquentin feels from having his existence revealed. Through a self analysis, Roquentin discovers that his existence is meaningless. He has been living for the past three years in the French town of Bouville and is working on a history book. Mersault is characterized by an indifference to change. At one time, Mersault gets an invitation to move to Paris by his boss, but he declines. Mersault says that “people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine at all.” (Camus, p. 41) Mersault is content with what he got. He has his work, his home and his girl: it’s all he needs. He lives, like Roquentin, in solitude, reflecting upon the actions of others. But he never gets involved since it doesn’t matter to him. He neither feels happy nor sad. It is as if all emotions were drained from his body. But he is not melancholic: he laughs and enjoys the beauty of the beach, and his girlfriend. He quickly adjusts back to his normal routine after his mother dies and solemnly reflects:It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed. (Camus, p. 24)Roquentin starts to discuss change when his friend, the Self-Taught Man, asks Roquentin if he ever had any adventures. Roquentin thinks “I never had any adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures.” (Sartre, p. 37) He then defines that an event happens when there is a landmark, a drastic change. There must be a beginning for change to occur. “Something is beginning in order to end: adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makes sense when dead.” (Sartre, p. 37) It’s only when he looks at the event afterwards, when it is “dead,” that he realizes he has been through an adventure. Each moment is unique, yet fragile. The following day, Roquentin partly rethinks his conception and states that “Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that’s all. There are no beginnings….neither is there any end.” (Sartre, p. 39) Roquentin denies the possibility of real change. The world around us seems to alter, but the change is just an endless circle leading nowhere. But he seems to change that view when he says “Nothing has changed and yet everything is different. I can’t describe it; it’s like the Nausea and yet it’s just the opposite.” (Sartre, p. 54)In order for Roquentin to even say “Nothing,” he must acknowledge the possibility of something-change. It is a rather strong contradiction. He goes on to define this standpoint by stating that we lure our perception into believing that we really see change, when we in fact don’t. You see a woman, you think that one day she’ll be old, only you don’t see her grow old. But there are moments when you think you see her grow old and feel yourself growing old with her: this is the feeling of adventure. (Sartre, p. 57)For Roquentin, change is only in our mind. Reality never changes. Could change be defined as stable. If time is broken down infinitely into smaller time frames, change would be so small that it appears as if nothing happens. Take a roll of film and let each frame represent an event. If we run the frames fast enough, a string of event will flash before us, which appears to be change. But if we look at each frame individually, all we would see is static events. Another explanation for Roquentin’s position could be that we change internally in symbiosis with external objects. This would explain Roquentin’s view: when two things (objects, human mind etc.) change concurrently, nothing seems to happen. If two trees are growing taller at an equal rate, they appear not to have changed relatively to each other. Roquentin is driven by his anxiety and anguish to believe that change might happen. There is something out there waiting for him. It is his existence. This is so powerful that it scares him. Sometimes, my heart pounding, I made a sudden