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No Time for Nausea
01 November 1998
Jean-Paul Sartre was, like so many of us, mortal. This mortality is based on the incessant ticking of time. With each passing second, another moment joins the parade of moments past, and the infinite number of future moments becomes one less. Existentialism concerns itself with the moment in between, when the past has not yet seized the moment but the future is quickly losing its grip. It is this fleeting moment of the present that provides the cornerstone of existential though, because things can only exist in the present. As such, Sartre concentrates heavily on the element of time in his book Nausea, focusing on the indelible quality of the present as Antoine Roquentin's nascent awareness of existence slowly ripens. Roquentin's emotional journey through suffering and solitude reflects three characteristics of time: the continuous movement of time, the manifest importance of the present, and the inability of humans to seize upon the present. All of these characteristics contribute to the suffering of the human condition.
An old clich� says that time stops for no man. This is true simply because time never stops at all. From the moment that time began, there has been an inexorable rush to the future. Time never slows, never stutters. It remains constant. "There are no beginnings," writes Roquentin. "Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable monotonous addition" (39). Roquentin sees no hope for the future; to him, the passing moments are not chances to redeem one's life or do good works. Instead, time is an obstacle to man, enveloping him in its infinite duration. "Time is too large, it can't be filled up," Roquentin writes (21). This deadly march of time seems to validate the pessimism that Roquentin often feels. With the constant onslaught of time, just existing is not enough. At one point, Roquentin notes that his existence is based on his writings of Rollebon; later, it is only to see Anny that he lives. It seems as though there is nothing in him that warrants existing, and that the sum total of the moments of his life is worthless. "You suddenly feel that time is passing, that each instant leads to another, this one to another one, and so on; that each instant is annihilated, and that it isn't worth while to hold it back," he writes (56). There is suffering in the continuum of time; each passing moment means a moment closer to death. Roquentin is painfully aware of this; it seems as though the specter of Father Time follows him everywhere: "I would like to see the truth clearly before it is too late (6)...I would like to tell someone what is happening to me before it is too late (9)...I had no time to lose (77)...When I would turn around, suddenly, it would be too late" (78). It is notable, then, that at the moment of Roquentin's greatest epiphany, when he at last consciously understood the existence of the cherry tree, he wrote, "Time has stopped" (131). Indeed, in that moment before a moment becomes part of the past, it seems as though time has lost its hold on the world and that the present - what is now - is too strong to be conquered by the future.
Things only exist in the present. In the past, they existed. In the future, they will exist. It is only at the moment of being that an object can actively exist. It is in this way that existentialism is rooted in the present. Roquentin recognizes that existence means "passing from one instant to the next" (176). On page 96, Roquentin writes more about the present: "The true nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, and all that was not present did not exist." Yet he tries without success to maintain his ties with the past, both physically and emotionally. After a five-year absence, Anny reenters his life only to emphasize the futility of trying to resurrect the past. Roquentin had hoped to find to find solace and warmth in his reunion with Anny but, as so often happened in his life, the present did not live up to past expectations. "I am cast out, forsaken in the present: I verily try to rejoin the past: I cannot escape," writes Roquentin (38). Roquentin's awareness of the present comes in stages. At first, the immediacy of his own reflection in the mirror startles him. Then he finds himself caught in the present while writing his last words about Rollebon. On page 95, Roquentin writes, "I looked anxiously around me: the present, nothing but the present." Finally, the nausea comes in full force when Roquentin visits the cherry tree. The awareness that life is lived in the present is an important facet of Roquentin's idea of existence. Roquentin acknowledges the importance of the present when he ceases his passion for Rollebon. Roquentin realizes that Rollebon is in the past, that even the words that he had written about the man belong in the past, and that "the past did not exist" (96). At the end of the book, Roquentin is more at ease with his position in the present. "I know that I exist, that I am here," he writes (170).
Unfortunately, acknowledging the importance of the present does not preclude an ability to seize the present. Roquentin actually has a history of this; Anny accuses him of forever failing to fulfill his roles in her perfect moments. But Roquentin is not alone in this respect. As he is strolling down the street on a Sunday morning, he observes the people around him, noting that "they felt the minutes flowing between their fingers" (52). Anny is a classic case of this. Her privileged situations and perfect moments show the utmost respect for the living in the moment. By losing her belief in these, by losing all of her grand passion for life, she loses her ability to seize the present. "I live in the past," (152) she told Roquentin. For Anny, the time had never come for her perfect moments. Indeed, it is the "slipping, the rustling of time" (37) that is the source of perhaps the greatest suffering of Roquentin. "This is time, time laid bare, coming slowly into existence, keeping us waiting, and when it does come making us sick because we realize it's been there for a long time," (31) he writes. Perhaps it is redundant to write that the present is ever-present, but it is that quality of always being there that makes it so hard to grasp. The moment grasped belongs to the past. Roquentin echoes this sentiment on page 40: "I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch life by the tail." These attempts to do more than just exist are in vain. This underscores the importance of just being content to exist and bear the burden of existence. Conceding defeat to time is an important aspect of existentialism; even Nietzsche's overman was mortal. Roquentin does just this in his parting lines: "And I might succeed - in the past, nothing but the past - in accepting myself" (178).
Jean-Paul Sartre's book Nausea deals with several important themes of existentialism. One of the most important deals with the concept of time. Through the writings of Antoine Roquentin, several characteristics of time are revealed. These include time as a continuum, the importance of the present, and the humans' inability to seize upon the present. As existing beings, humans are mortal and prone to the effects of time. It is not without irony that Roquentin wrote, "After all, you have to kill time" (111).
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