Although a number of scholars have noted the presence in Jean-Paul Sartre's fiction of images of insects and crabs, the role of numerous other animal images in La Nausée and their psychological and philosophical suggestiveness have not been fully explored. In the present essay I shall be concerned to study these in relation to its thematics and to draw some conclusions concerning Sartre's early view of nature. (p. 107)

In La Nausée, I count some 77 similes and metaphors in which an object or the human body—usually the latter—is compared in part or in whole to an animal or a part of an animal…. In addition, they are supported by at least 43 instances (excluding those in fixed locations) where names of animals or their characteristics occur in a non-comparative use…. There is thus a notable awareness of, and appeal to, the animal kingdom in this novel, set entirely within an urban setting, in which the main character expresses neither personal nor professional interest in animals. Considering that much of the language of the book is non-metaphoric, we can conclude that the use of animal imagery is noteworthy. The variety of animal forms and behavior offers the novelist a wide choice of metaphoric suggestions.

Since this is a first-person novel in the form of a journal, all the images can be taken to express the hero's own evaluation or reaction; they are supposed to derive immediately from his impressions. They reveal, moreover, a great deal about him—more than about the creatures themselves and often more than about their tenor (if it is not himself). To say that these images signify pure bestiality in the human world would be inadequate. What I should like to suggest, rather, is that the zoological realm contains in La Nausée a concentration of the negative characteristics of all "existants," as Roquentin terms them, especially of human existence, and therefore is particularly loathesome to him. Metaphors and similes derived from zoology are therefore consistently pejorative. At one end of the spectrum of material phenomena according to Roquentin's view is the mineral—that non-human area where hardness prevails and self-coincidence is most strikingly complete…. At the same end of the spectrum is that group of "existants" composed of the purely ideal—the circle, the jazz song, with their necessity, purity, and noncontingency…. Human existence … is on the contrary soft, empty, and lacking in self-coincidence or essence; it can reach neither mineral hardness nor the purity of a geometric figure. In Sartre's view, of course, consciousness is empty, free, and "néant," and the body of man or his facticity, although material and objective (part of the En-soi), is a constant reminder of consciousness's stickiness, softness, and emptiness, first by its distinction from consciousness—man's ineradicable distance from himself—and next by its relative flabbiness (or viscousness) compared with harder forms of existence. All that is physiological, then, is of negative valence to Roquentin. The zoological world represents existence at its most physiological: pure viscous flesh, without even the possibility of revolt against protoplasmic identity. Man's carnal existence is mirrored in animals; for this reason, Roquentin uses them repeatedly as illustrations of certain perceptions, and especially as a correlative for facticity.

Botanical phenomena raise a special problem in this connection. Differing radically, except at the lowest levels, from zoological forms, they seem at first less corrupt…. However, as soon as any plant is subjected to Roquentin's continued attention, it is assimilated to animal forms and processes. (pp. 107-09)

It is noteworthy, however, that Roquentin criticizes the anthropomorphism, or at least the animism, that all these comparisons presuppose…. What he accepts on an imaginative level he rejects on a philosophical level…. So the parallel between botanical and zoological existence is not really denied, and the effect of the various comparisons is to create a disquietingly animate nature, sometimes monstrous…. Moreover, this assimilation of plants to animals brings them close to human beings also by the metaphoric common denominator; we conclude that in Roquentin's imagination virtually all life approaches the animal, apparently the most loathesome manifestation of existence.

In short, animal imagery is used to convey a feeling of nausea inspired in part by the very existence of the organic, and the resulting philosophical pessimism that commentators have noted. Like many other objects in La Nausée, animals are not generally seen as having utilitarian value. Nor do they function in an ecological system. They are quite without the support of any economic framework or general embracing biological view. Any such view would be, for Sartre, artificial—imposed from without. This is consistent with Roquentin's final conclusion that nothing has necessity or justification and that all existence is an absurd excretion. It is also characteristic of his non-scientific view that the underlying question in his reflections on phenomena is not "how" but "why." This separates his view radically from that of the biologist and puts him closer to the theologian and the poet.

La Nausée contains a number of metaphoric references simply to animals, without indication of species. Some of these stress general features of animal life and reveal Roquentin's typical attitudes…. Imaginative transformation of inert objects into live animals foreshadows the gradual inclusion throughout the novel of many material phenomena in the category of animate existence, which the hero will find both upsetting and useless. It also identifies animation, or movement, as one of the things most threatening to his psyche. Another element of animal life is utilized in the metaphor "cette bête lymphatique" [that lymphatic beast],… representing humanism. This metaphor has the effect of reducing a major view on mankind to a rudimentary and unpleasant form, and also introduces in connection with animals as well as with a current in thought the category of the "visqueux" [viscous] and the implied reaction of nausea. Elsewhere, the heaviness of an unspecified animal is used to convey the awareness of existence, not quick and mobile in this case but crushing…. (pp. 109-10)

Another associated item is the frequent mention of blood, although blood is not used strictly as a metaphor. While he thinks in one instance of his own "beau sang rouge" [fine red blood] as opposed to "cette bête lymphatique" …, blood is generally repulsive in La Nausée….

The choice of species most frequently mentioned by Roquentin is revealing. The small number of references to many of the higher mammals is noteworthy. Those that are named serve chiefly for characterization and seem not to interest Roquentin in themselves. There is no mention of wild herbivores such as deer, frequently representative in poetry of such qualities as freedom, purity, and the ideal. Farm animals appear rarely…. In these cases, as in a number of others, the animal comparison is essentially an ingredient of the caricature. During the museum scene [for example], sheep appear in a sarcastic reference to the parable of the lost sheep. (p. 111)

In two cases the import of a metaphor naming a higher mammal is more directly ontological rather than characterizing. In a metaphor underlining the difficulty of saving (the word is Sartre's) human existence even by a work of art, Roquentin calls the composer of "Some of These Days" "un gros veau plein de sale bière et d'alcohol" [a fat lout full of squalid beer and alcohol]…. The calf image as well as the dirty beer—not only a liquid, but a repugnant one—pulls the composer back to the level of facticity, in spite of his being "lave du péché d'exister" [washed of the sin of existence]…. The donkey appears in a very important comparison during Roquentin's ride on the streetcar…. In fact the donkey, like the bench it is supposed to resemble, seems less an ordinary creature than a nameless, gross, disquieting transformation. It is significant that when Roquentin is face to face with brute, raw existence,… he should use this animal metaphor, among other types…. But though he cannot name them, they seem like grotesque, obscene creatures. This suggests that the animal is a common denominator of existence; it is crucial in Roquentin's imagination.

Among the animals used in some of the most striking passages are the crustaceans, insects, arachnids, larvae, centipedes, and other lower forms, commonly considered repellent, which are without powers of reflection or memory. Roquentin's predilection for these is striking. Indeed, he is quite fascinated by what is repulsive to him. First, I shall consider the long, slimy, or fuzzy forms—worms, larvae, and centipedes. The initial animal image of the novel is that of a "gros ver blanc" [huge white worm] which the Autodidact's hand resembles…. This comparison, which may suggest his sexual ambiguity (that is, lack of hardness and clear definition), also says something about the human hand. Ultimately, all existence is seen as "cette larve coulante" [this flowing larva] disgusting and without justification…. In his surrealistic vision, he imagines a tongue becoming a centipede which the person must try to tear out with his hands…. Such a vision denies all belief in the orderly processes of nature, since apparent pattern is merely the indolence of organic forms … or possibly of our induction. Moreover, as metamorphosis rather than simile, this vision plants right in the human body the unpleasant animal to which elsewhere the body is merely compared; it is in a sensitive organ—the mouth—where two senses operate and which also functions in speech, associated with what is distinctly human, as well as in feeding.

Crawling and flying insects and arachnids similarly convey both repulsiveness and a frightening vision of the possibilities of being, especially of absorption of consciousness by the En-soi…. The comparison with hands is particularly to be noted, since it figured in the first animal comparison and Roquentin subsequently studies his own hand as "une bête à la renverse" [an animal on its back]…. This image is modified in the crucial public garden passage into a view of all existence…. Here the insect suggests primarily not ugliness or repulsiveness or hostility, as with the spider web, but the awkwardness and futility of existence. Pathos does not attach to it, partly because few readers find pathetic the vicissitudes of an insect's existence, partly because of the adjective "maladroits" [awkward]. The image is thus a metaphoric support for the central plot line of the discovery of contingency.

While these are not strictly images in the technical sense, it is essential to recall in this connection the post-coital dream of a garden, foreshadowing the surrealistic revery and the episode in the public park. In addition to the hairy leaves …, Roquentin sees ants, centipedes, and moths running everywhere; then unnamed creatures…. He then imagines the Velleda of the public garden pointing to its sex; this brings together food, insects, and sexuality, themselves all associated elsewhere with existence at its most monstrous and repellent. (pp. 111-13)

In the category of insects, it is worthwhile noting a few additional items. In the public garden, the wind is compared to a large fly landing on the tree…. Here a gaseous (i.e., mineral) phenomenon is animated and thus included in the needless organic activity the hero is deploring. In comparison to traditional literary renderings of wind, which often suggest awesome natural force, or the movement of a natural or supernatural spirit, the image is pointedly unfavorable….

Precisely because insects do inspire repugnance, they are used by Roquentin to convey protest against the reigning bourgeois values of Bouville. (p. 114)

While the crab metaphor has been examined by others, a short summary and further remarks can be useful…. In La Force de l'âge, Simone de Beauvoir relates Sartre's mescaline-induced hallucinations in the 1930's of octopuses and crabs and his subsequent visions of eyes and jaws, owls, and a lobster. The crab appears in a variety of Sartrean works, where Fields takes it to be chiefly a Freudian symbol signifying return to water and the pre-natal life, and also to stand for "l'idée de malfaisance" [the idea of evildoing]…. Boros, who takes issue with her, considers it "une transcription mythique du malaise profond qu'il était en train de vivre intensément" [a mythic transcription of the profound uneasiness that was living intensely]. She notes several instances, including two in La Nausée, of the crab seeming to symbolize enclosure and imprisonment, objectification by the look and also alienation from reality. More important for our purposes is that it suggests "une sorte de hantise de la chose figée, de l'homme devenu chose" [a sort of obsession with the fixed thing, with the man who had become a thing]…. Prince likewise takes the image to symbolize "la suppression de la liberté humaine, l'immobilisation de toute transcendance par autrui" [the suppression of human liberty, the immobilization of all transcendence through others]…. Crab-like qualities are connected [also] with solitude—a social aberration—but also with the processes of thought. Subsequently, Roquentin associates the crab with himself…. Doubtless Boros … is right to see it as symbolizing Sartrean fear of being engulfed by the En-soi…. Thus the crab has … been associated with both consciousness and body or facticity. (pp. 114-15)

One last crab image, not discussed by previous commentators on the question, is associated not with humankind but with nature in one of its most mysterious and awesome manifestations, the ocean…. Roquentin imagines the sea as inhabited by a monster of a vaguely crustacean nature…. The crustacean images lead us easily to those of other marine life: fish, polyps, mammals. Fish are not seen as food or in a marine system but are used rather as visual illustrations for human characteristics. (pp. 115-16)

Several other sea creatures furnish metaphorical vehicles in La Nausée. The chestnut root, for instance, has the hard and compact skin of a seal. (p. 116)

Although they do not receive the considerable imaginative value that some lower forms have, dogs and cats—which I have chosen to treat separately from the other quadrupeds such as the donkey—are mentioned frequently by Roquentin. Their use is frequently humorous or sarcastic. As with many other animal comparisons, the effect is reductionist….

The canine species is particularly associated with humanism, Roquentin's bête noire and, in most of its forms, his creator's. (p. 117)

Birds appear in several significant images. Swans and a white owl are mentioned, the latter as the dictation topic written on the muddy paper Roquentin cannot pick up …, the former as a simile for papers on the ground…. Here the whiteness and shine of the paper—which to some degree may represent consciousness (at least as it would wish itself to be), especially since paper can be connected with writing, thus with language and thought—are already subject to attack from the sticky earth; Roquentin's swans are not inviolate…. (p. 118)

Domestic fowl, used to convey physical features, as in "ce cou de poulet" for the Autodidact … and the young woman in the restaurant (object of the man's admiration) whose open mouth is like a "cul de poule" [backside of a fowl] … make the human beings unattractive, somewhat ludicrous…. The museum episode indicates that, for Roquentin, bourgeois leaders are really exploiters of the people whom they claim to protect; the eagle eye contributes to this impression by its suggestion of keen sight for the purpose of identifying and devouring victims…. Concerning humanism, Sartre makes what is perhaps an allusion to Baudelaire's L'Albatros when he says that the humanist's love for man expresses itself awkwardly…. In another passage, an obscene vision of the male genital organs, Roquentin sees birds flying around these and attacking them with their beaks to the bleeding point…. Such aggression turned against the organs of human reproduction … suggests on the thematic level hostility to physical life as well as a most unusual psychic makeup in Roquentin. Elsewhere, birds convey the quality of consciousness…. A reflection on seagulls similarly conveys an ontological meaning. Watching them fly over the seawall, he thinks of them not as birds but as existing phenomena…. The bird partakes here of the individual, non-categorized existence that Roquentin finds in nature. When he adds that the water of the garden fountain flows into his ears and makes a nest there …, the metaphor stresses the receptivity of consciousness, its obligation to be conscious of something exterior to itself.

Snakes appear in several comparisons in La Nausée, where their traditional symbolic value is less important than the graphic suggestiveness of their form and their threatening nature…. In the most clearly Cartesian passage of the novel—though perhaps a parody—the snake image has an entirely different value when the hero thinks of his awareness of his own existence as "le long serpentin, ce sentiment d'exister" [the long snake, this feeling of existence]…. The comparison between the length of the snake and human thought depends chiefly on its physical form; it may involve as a mediating factor the form of the intestines, since Sartrean awareness is in considerable part awareness of facticity. We may be reminded also of the Biblical serpent of knowledge, especially self-knowledge. Subsequently, the serpentine form is associated with the En-soi instead of the Pour-soi when Roquentin calls the chestnut tree root "ce long serpent mort à mes pieds, ce serpent de bois" [this long snake dead at my feet, this snake of wood]…. By this image which both animates ("serpent") and deanimates ("mort"), Sartre again draws botanical phenomena toward zoological ones, although ambiguously. Moreover, by virtue of the shared image, both Roquentin's thought and material existence are brought into the same category of phenomena—a crucial point in La Nausée, if Roquentin is to convince us that all existence is subject to the same contingency and lack of value, and thus strike down the Christian and humanistic views of mind as superior to matter. (pp. 119-20)

Animate nature viewed by Roquentin, with its general unpleasantness is far from that of the romantics…. Moreover, what we might call pattern, as well as fraternal meaning, is missing. The many heterogeneous forms and types of behavior seem to be without relationship to each other. But in these Roquentin sees an image of human features, thought, and action. And since this means complicity, he, and Sartre—to the degree that his hero spoke for him in the 1930s—reveal what is in some ways a romantic view of the world, which, like much Romanticism, is somber, pessimistic, tending toward the fantastic. By contextual implications, adjectives, and analogies, he projects onto animal forms the meanings he wishes to give them, and at the same time lets them retroact on him—a stance that Robbe-Grillet would call "tragic." This extends beyond the species themselves, for the animal world comes to taint other phenomena, in some degree—plants, human beings, wind, ocean.

Animals thus interest the Sartre of La Nausée not for themselves—a position that tends toward the scientific, and which Gide, for instance, had—but as reflections and symbols of men. General attitudes toward them are, however, discernable. By their near absence, such qualities as bravery, fidelity, and independence, which a certain humane view has tended to identify in some animals, are denied them. Indeed, most behavioral qualities and roles (though not aggression) are simply ignored. It would seem to be their forms, their physiology, and often their supposed closeness to the viscous (as well as men's attitudes in the case of canines) that lead Roquentin to mention them. Part of "cette ignoble marmelade" [this ignoble jelly] …, they represent existence—both human and inert—especially well to his imagination, since with that other race, homo sapiens whom they resemble, they are guilty, as he says at his most theological, of the unforgivable "péché d'exister" [sin of existence]…. (pp. 120-21)

Catharine Savage Brosman, "Sartre's Nature: Animal Images in 'La Nausée'," in Symposium (copyright © 1977 by Syracuse University Press), Summer, 1977, pp. 107-25.