Essay Comparing Change in The Stranger and Nausea

Comparing Change in The Stranger and Nausea

Existentialists 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.