From 1938 onward, readers would continue to associate it with the 'pain of existence' that Sartre explored through the story of Antoine Roquentin. Instead of having people misread the term nausea, Sartre succeeded in redefining this word for the twentieth century. In the end, though, it seems like the publisher made a good call. Sartre didn't like the word because he felt that people would associate Antoine's illness with something physical, like real nausea, rather than the philosophical pain that Sartre was trying to explore. Jean-Paul Sartres First Published Novel, Nausea Is Both An Extended Essay On Existentialist Ideals, And A Profound Fictional Exploration Of A Man Struggling. It wasn't his choice, but his publisher liked it. The title was no doubt ironic, since Nausea is often boring and meandering on purpose, in order to make its point about the pain of being alive.Įventually, Sartre agreed to the title Nausea. In this case, he must have been joking, since Nausea doesn't contain anything remotely close to an adventure. After all, we don't want readers thinking that they're about to read 170- pages of whining despair do we? Oh, wait…Īfter his manuscript was rejected a first time, Sartre decided to rename his book, The Extraordinary Adventures of Antoine Roquentin.

He originally titled the book Melancholia, but his publisher felt that it didn't enough oomph to get people's attention.

More specifically, the term describes the sickness that Antoine Roquentin feels when he realizes that beneath all of the pretty words he uses to describe the world, there's just brute, naked existence that doesn't care about him or anything he does.Īs iconic as the title Nausea went on to become, though, it wasn't actually Sartre's first pick. Since its publication in 1938, Nausea has become a central term for describing the pain associated with existential philosophy.

Novel nausea