Nausea (novel) - Characters

Characters

• Antoine Roquentin — The protagonist of the novel, Antoine is a former adventurer who has been living in Bouville for three years. Antoine does not keep in touch with family, and has no friends. He is a loner at heart and often likes to listen to other people's conversations and examine their actions. Even though he at times admits to trying to find some sort of solace in the presence of others, he also exhibits signs of boredom and lack of interest when interacting with people. His relationship with Françoise is mostly hygienic in nature, for the two hardly exchange words and, when invited by the Self-Taught Man to accompany him for lunch, he agrees only to write in his diary later that: "I had as much desire to eat with him as I had to hang myself." He can afford not to work, but spends a lot of his time writing a book about a French politician of the eighteenth century. Antoine does not think highly of himself: "The faces of others have some sense, some direction. Not mine. I cannot even decide whether it is handsome or ugly. I think it is ugly because I have been told so." When he starts suffering from the Nausea he feels the need to talk to Anny, but when he finally does, it makes no difference to his condition. He eventually starts to think he does not even exist: "My existence was beginning to cause me some concern. Was I a mere figment of the imagination?"

• Anny — Anny is an English woman who was once Antoine's lover. After meeting with him, Anny makes it clear that she has changed a considerable amount and must go on with her life. Antoine clings to the past, hoping that she may want to redefine their relationship, but he is ultimately rejected by her.

• Ogier P., generally referred to as "the self-taught man" or the Autodidact — An acquaintance of Antoine's, he is a bailiff's clerk who lives for the pursuit of knowledge and love of humanity. Highly disciplined, he has spent hundreds of hours reading at the local library. He often speaks to Roquentin and confides in him that he is a Socialist. By the end of the novel, he is caught making advances on a teenage boy at the library and strictly prohibited from setting foot in the building again.