Nausea (Characters)

Characters

Anny

Anny is an English actress with whom Roquentin was in a relationship for three years. They broke up about six years before the events of the story take place and have not seen, written, or talked to each other in about four years. One day, Roquentin unexpectedly receives a letter from Anny, stating that she will be passing through Paris in a week and asking him to come visit her while she is there. Roquentin goes to visit Anny in her hotel room in Paris with the hope that she will want to get back together with him. He and Anny have a long conversation in which she explains to him that she had always wanted to experience "perfect moments" in life but that she now realizes there are no perfect moments, and so she no longer expects to have them. Roquentin tries to explain to her his own thoughts about the Nausea, but Anny does not seem interested in what he has to say. She tells him that she is living as a "kept" woman, meaning that she is being supported as the mistress of a wealthy man whom she does not love and whom she is not going to marry. Anny rather abruptly tells Roquentin to leave, because a young man (presumably a lover) is coming to visit her. She tells Roquentin that she no longer has any use for him. Later, at the train station, Roquentin sees Anny board a train with a tall, Egyptian-looking man who is presumably the man by whom she is being "kept." Although Anny sees Roquentin from her window on the train, her face remains expressionless, and she does not acknowledge him. In visiting Anny, Roquentin had hoped that the answer to his internal struggles would lie in renewing his love relationship with her. However, when he realizes that this is not possible, he is once again left to grapple alone with the significance of his existence.

The Corsican

The Corsican is the man who serves as a security guard for the library in Bouville. Toward the end of the novel, he sees the Self-Taught Man making sexual advances at a young schoolboy. The Corsican immediately walks over to the Self-Taught Man and yells at him and then punches him in the face, causing his nose to bleed profusely. The Corsican then orders the Self-Taught Man to leave the library and never come back.

Francoise

Francoise is the manager of the Railwaymen's Rendezvous café, and also works as a prostitute in an upstairs room of the café. Roquentin maintains a purely sexual relationship with Francoise, although she does not charge him for sex, as she does with her customers. During his last few hours in Bouville, Roquentin sits in the café. He had hoped to be with Francoise one more time before leaving town, but she is entertaining another male customer and does not have time for him.

Madeleine

Madeleine is the waitress at the Railwaymen's Rendezvous café. During Roquentin's last few hours in Bouville, while he is sitting at the café, Madeleine offers to play a record of the jazz song "Some of these Days." Although he has listened to the song many times before, he finds on hearing it this time that it helps him to realize that he wants to write a novel.

Ogier P.

SeeThe Self-Taught Man

Antoine Roquentin

Antoine Roquentin is a thirty-year-old man who begins keeping a diary in January of 1932. Roquentin has spent several years traveling throughout the world. He is supported by a modest family inheritance, so he does not have to work to make a living. For the past three years, he has been living in the small seacoast town of Bouville, France, while doing research and writing a history of the Marquis de Rollebon, an eighteenth-century French political figure. Roquentin begins his diary in order to record the subtle changes he has been experiencing in his perceptions of himself and the world around him. He finds that he has been experiencing a "sweetish sickness," which he calls the Nausea. The Nausea, which is both a physical and a mental sensation, comes over him at moments when he is feeling overwhelmed by a sense of disgust at the absurdity of existence.

Roquentin eventually decides to abandon his book about the Marquis de Rollebon because he feels that the project is meaningless. One day, he receives an unexpected letter from Anny, an English actress with whom he had a relationship for several years. Roquentin and Anny broke up about six years ago, and they haven't seen or heard from one another for several years. Anny's letter states that she will be passing through Paris in a few days and begs him to come visit her while she is in town. Roquentin realizes that he is still in love with Anny, and he hopes that they will get back together again. He imagines that this love will be the answer to his confusion over the nature of his existence and the significance of his life. However, when he goes to visit Anny in her hotel room in Paris, she makes it clear that she has no interest in getting back together with him, and she rather coldly informs him that she no longer has any use for him.

Toward the end of the novel, Roquentin decides that he is going to move to Paris and work on writing a novel. He feels that this creative process will serve as some kind of resolution to his struggles over the meaning of his existence.

The Self-Taught Man

Roquentin meets the Self-Taught Man during his daily visits to the Bouville library. The Self-Taught Man sits at the library reading during his free time, and Roquentin figures out that he is trying to read all of the books in the library in alphabetical order. The Self-Taught Man explains that he began this project about seven years ago and expects that he will have read them all within another six years. Although they have often exchanged pleasantries while at the library over the past three years, Roquentin and the Self-Taught Man have never socialized together outside of the library.

The Self-Taught Man asks to see Roquentin's picture postcards from his world travels, and Roquentin reluctantly invites the man up to his room to see them. He gives the Self-Taught Man a handful of postcards to take home with him, and the man then offers to take him to lunch sometime, to which Roquentin reluctantly agrees. When Roquentin and the Self-Taught Man meet for lunch, the man tells him that he is a communist and a humanist. Although the Self-Taught Man seems to expect that Roquentin holds these same values as well, Roquentin is disdainful of these views.

On Roquentin's last day in Bouville, while he is at the library, the Self-Taught Man is caught making sexual advances toward a young schoolboy. The Corsican also sees this, and he yells at the Self-Taught Man and punches him in the face, causing his nose to bleed profusely. The Corsican tells him to leave the library immediately and never come back again. The Self-Taught Man takes this punishment passively and quietly leaves. Roquentin offers to help him, but the Self-Taught Man refuses to accept his help and walks off down the street.