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Teachers & SchoolsMadness
Antoine is falling down the rabbit hole, but unfortunately there's no Cheshire Cat to tell him that "we're all mad here."
Our man spends the first quarter of Nausea wondering if he is going insane, since even the most normal day-to-day activities fill him with disgust and paranoia. It's like the whole world of objects (like chairs and tables) is closing in on him, ready to destroy him. Yikes.
It's not until later in the book that Antoine realizes that his feelings of disgust aren't madness after all, but rather a sign that he has figured out the truth of all existence.
We'll leave it to you, Shmooper: is Antoine a philosopher or a nutjob?
There's no getting around it: Antoine Roquentin suffers from a deadly cocktail of paranoia, self-loathing, and antisocial thoughts. The authorities should get him off the streets ASAP.
In Nausea, Sartre shows us that it's perfectly possible for one person to be sane in an insane world.