Nausea

by

Jean-Paul Sartre

The Self-Taught Man Character Analysis

The Self-Taught Man is an unnamed patron of the Bouville library, although an editor’s footnote that begins the novel identifies him as a bailiff’s clerk named Ogier. Roquentin often sees him in the reading room. For seven years, the Self-Taught Man has been working toward his ultimate goal: to read every book in the library from A to Z. In Roquentin’s early conversations with the Self-Taught Man, he learns that the Self-Taught Man admires Roquentin’s experience abroad. Despite all the books he’s read within the confines of the Bouville library’s reading room, the Self-Taught Man longs for “adventure.” He also looks up to Roquentin’s work on his book, and over their shared lunch, it appears that the Self-Taught Man struggles to write his own lines without thinking of what other authors have already written. In fact, the Self-Taught Man tells Roquentin that he doesn’t want to write anything original, but would rather write something he knows is “true” because someone else has already expressed it. As Roquentin learns over lunch, The Self-Taught Man served in the French army during World War I and became a prisoner of war in a German camp. While captive in crowded conditions, he fell in love with humanity, ultimately coming to identify as a humanist and a socialist. Throughout Nausea, Roquentin tends to see the Self-Taught Man as an innocent, almost childlike figure. As a result, Roquentin sympathizes with the Self-Taught Man when the Corsican guard catches him in the act of groping a young male student. To Roquentin, the Self-Taught Man is a victim of his own unconventional “love” and loneliness.

The Self-Taught Man Quotes in Nausea

The Nausea quotes below are all either spoken by The Self-Taught Man or refer to The Self-Taught Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Existence vs. Essence Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4: Tuesday, 30 January Quotes

There are still about twenty customers left, bachelors, small-time engineers, office employees. They eat hurriedly in boarding-houses which they call their “popotes” and since they need a little luxury, they come here after their meals. They drink a cup of coffee and play poker dice; they make a little noise, an inconsistent noise which doesn’t bother me. In order to exist, they must consort with others.

I am alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11: Friday, 3.00 p.m. Quotes

I have never had adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. It isn’t a question of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something to which I clung more than all the rest — without completely realizing it. […] It was ... I had imagined that at certain times my life could take on a rare and precious quality. There was no need for extraordinary circumstances: all I asked for was a little precision. There is nothing brilliant about my life now: but from time to time, for example, when they play music in the cafes, I look back and tell myself : in old days, in London, Meknes, Tokyo, I have known great moments, I have had adventures. Now I am deprived of this. I have suddenly learned, without any apparent reason, that I have been lying to myself for ten years. And naturally, everything they tell about in books can happen in real life, but not in the same way. It is to this way of happening that I clung so tightly.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man, Anny
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20: Friday Quotes

I suddenly understood: the cloak! I wanted to stop it. It would have been enough to cough or open the gate. But in my turn I was fascinated by the little girl’s face. Her features were drawn with fear and her heart must have been beating horribly: yet I could also read something powerful and wicked on that rat-like face. It was not curiosity but rather a sort of assured expectation. I felt impotent: I was outside, on the edge of the park, on the edge of their little drama: but they were riveted one to the other by the obscure power of their desires, they made a pair together.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25: Wednesday Quotes

“Perhaps you are a misanthrope?”

I know what this fallacious effort at conciliation hides. He asks little from me: simply to accept a label. But it is a trap: if I consent, the Self-Taught Man wins, I am immediately turned round, reconstituted, overtaken, for humanism takes possession and melts all human attitudes into one. […] He has digested anti-intellectualism, Manicheism, mysticism, pessimism, anarchy and egotism: they are nothing more than stages, unfinished thoughts which find their justification only in him. Misanthropy also has its place in the concert: it is only a dissonance necessary to the harmony of the whole. The misanthrope is a man: therefore the humanist must be misanthropic to a certain extent.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man (speaker)
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32: Wednesday: My last day in Bouville Quotes

[The Self-Taught Man] must be walking at random, filled with shame and horror—this poor humanist whom men don’t want. To tell the truth, I was hardly surprised when the thing happened: for a long time I had thought that his soft, timid face would bring scandal on itself. He was so little guilty: his humble, contemplative love for young boys is hardly sensuality—rather a form of humanity. But one day he had to find himself alone. Like M. Achille, like me: he is one of my race, he has good will. Now he has entered into solitude—forever.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man, The Corsican Guard
Page Number: 160
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Self-Taught Man Quotes in Nausea

The Nausea quotes below are all either spoken by The Self-Taught Man or refer to The Self-Taught Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Existence vs. Essence Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4: Tuesday, 30 January Quotes

There are still about twenty customers left, bachelors, small-time engineers, office employees. They eat hurriedly in boarding-houses which they call their “popotes” and since they need a little luxury, they come here after their meals. They drink a cup of coffee and play poker dice; they make a little noise, an inconsistent noise which doesn’t bother me. In order to exist, they must consort with others.

I am alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11: Friday, 3.00 p.m. Quotes

I have never had adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. It isn’t a question of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something to which I clung more than all the rest — without completely realizing it. […] It was ... I had imagined that at certain times my life could take on a rare and precious quality. There was no need for extraordinary circumstances: all I asked for was a little precision. There is nothing brilliant about my life now: but from time to time, for example, when they play music in the cafes, I look back and tell myself : in old days, in London, Meknes, Tokyo, I have known great moments, I have had adventures. Now I am deprived of this. I have suddenly learned, without any apparent reason, that I have been lying to myself for ten years. And naturally, everything they tell about in books can happen in real life, but not in the same way. It is to this way of happening that I clung so tightly.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man, Anny
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20: Friday Quotes

I suddenly understood: the cloak! I wanted to stop it. It would have been enough to cough or open the gate. But in my turn I was fascinated by the little girl’s face. Her features were drawn with fear and her heart must have been beating horribly: yet I could also read something powerful and wicked on that rat-like face. It was not curiosity but rather a sort of assured expectation. I felt impotent: I was outside, on the edge of the park, on the edge of their little drama: but they were riveted one to the other by the obscure power of their desires, they made a pair together.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25: Wednesday Quotes

“Perhaps you are a misanthrope?”

I know what this fallacious effort at conciliation hides. He asks little from me: simply to accept a label. But it is a trap: if I consent, the Self-Taught Man wins, I am immediately turned round, reconstituted, overtaken, for humanism takes possession and melts all human attitudes into one. […] He has digested anti-intellectualism, Manicheism, mysticism, pessimism, anarchy and egotism: they are nothing more than stages, unfinished thoughts which find their justification only in him. Misanthropy also has its place in the concert: it is only a dissonance necessary to the harmony of the whole. The misanthrope is a man: therefore the humanist must be misanthropic to a certain extent.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man (speaker)
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32: Wednesday: My last day in Bouville Quotes

[The Self-Taught Man] must be walking at random, filled with shame and horror—this poor humanist whom men don’t want. To tell the truth, I was hardly surprised when the thing happened: for a long time I had thought that his soft, timid face would bring scandal on itself. He was so little guilty: his humble, contemplative love for young boys is hardly sensuality—rather a form of humanity. But one day he had to find himself alone. Like M. Achille, like me: he is one of my race, he has good will. Now he has entered into solitude—forever.

Related Characters: Antoine Roquentin (speaker), The Self-Taught Man, The Corsican Guard
Page Number: 160
Explanation and Analysis: