Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer horrified by his own existence. In the form of an impressionistic diary, he ruthlessly catalogs every feeling and sensation he experiences regarding the world and the people around him.
His thoughts culminate in a pervasive and intensely powerful feeling of nausea that “spreads at the bottom of a thick pool, at the very depths of our era, the age of purple suspenders and broken armchairs; it is made up of broad, soft moments, spreading to the edges, like an oil stain.”
Roquentin’s attempts to come to terms with his life—his philosophical and psychological struggles—provide Sartre with an opportunity to dramatize the tenets of Existentialist belief.