Philosophers of all ages have had to accept the existence of God. If God exists, then philosophical ideas such as determinism and a perfect ideal of existence are concepts that can be discussed effectively. However, if there is no God, then there is no higher moral power to strive for, and no meaning to life than life itself. While many philosophers, beginning in the 18th century, began to conceive of a world in which God did not exist, most were unwilling to abandon the idea that a code of being still existed under a perfect and objective form. What existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre did was to denounce the falsity of any system of values ​​in a world where God does not exist. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In “Existentialism and Humanism,” Sartre writes that there is no possible concept of values ​​existing a priori in relation to what we make of them. He describes a French movement that attempted to postulate that even without the ideal of God, values ​​could still exist: “nothing would change if God did not exist” (“Existentialism and Humanism,” 40). However, as Sartre posits, the non-existence of God changes everything. If there is no God, there are no a priori notions of good or evil, no ideal of existence that men do not create for themselves. While many critics of existentialism claim that this philosophy takes away action and power from man, making all actions and thoughts arbitrary, Sartre instead sees this philosophy as an empowerment: even if the man does not determine his own existence, he has the power to use his own life. in the way he chooses. Sartre's first and most famous philosophical novel, Nausea, tells the story of a man confronted with this subjective reality of his life. Antoine Roquetin, the hero (or anti-hero) of the novel, must confront the central assertion of existentialism: that if there is no God, then man's existence precedes his essence. : “man exists, appears, appears on the scene, and only then defines himself... Man is nothing other than what he makes of himself” (36) . Roquetin feels “nauseated” when he begins to realize the idea that in all things existence precedes essence, or that he, as a man, is capable and responsible for defining everything he sees ; that there is no essence, whether of objects, feelings, or memories, that is anything other than what a subjective individual makes of it. Nausea is a visceral, undigested realization that becomes less and less physical as Roquetin begins to accept this realization and live his life accordingly. Antoine first feels Nausea, or realizes that existence precedes essence, through his connection with the color of objects. Color plays a very important role in this novel because color is the essence of essence. When describing an object, its color is often the first thing we refer to, and yet what is more subjective than color? How do you know that your definition of red is the same as someone else's? There's no way to know that when I say something is red and another person agrees with me, they're not actually seeing what I'm calling blue. Antoine recounts an experience in his favorite café. He looks at the bartender and notices his suspenders: "the suspenders are barely visible on the blue shirt... but it's a false humility; in fact they won't let themselves be forgotten... as if, starting to turn purple, they stopped somewhere along the way without giving uptheir pretensions... Nausea is... in the straps” (Nausea, 19). Antoine's nausea is a physical reminder that he is trying to define the straps as being purple, as if purple were an objective reality and the meaning of their existence. However, the purple color of the straps is entirely subjective: they are purple because Roquetin makes them that way. His statement that Nausea exists within the straps shows his refusal to accept the responsibility that comes from admitting the control he exercises over the essence of those straps. However, we see his acceptance of this fact later in the novel. At the climactic moment, where Antoine fully admits that existence precedes essence and that color itself does not exist, he writes: "Adolphe's suspenders... They were not purple" (130) . Saying that the straps were purple as he initially does suggests that purple can be compared to an ideal of purple that exists for all men. Saying they weren't purple doesn't mean they were any other color, but that their existence has nothing to do with them being purple, suspenders, like all objects, exist without any defined value, these values ​​are assigned by each man as he chooses. The nausea that Antoine feels outside of himself while looking at the straps, becomes a nausea that he feels within himself when he begins to think about his attempts to write a biography of a historical figure named Robellon. He spent most of his life writing about this man, trying to understand who he was. However, the moment he realizes that the suspenders in the coffee? simply exist, without any value that objectifies them, he also arrives at the same conclusion about Robellon's life. He comments at the beginning of the novel that during the ten years he has studied this man, he still cannot define him objectively: "what is missing in all the testimonies [on Robellon] is firmness and consistency...they do not seem to concern the same person” (13). What Roquetin realizes is that he will never find a higher truth about Robellon than what he decides to believe about him. In fact, he realizes that all historians define history; that there is no more objective truth to be found in the past than in the present. A biography of Robellon's life would be no more truthful than a fictional account. This sickening realization that the last ten years of Roquetin's life were spent trying to find an ultimate truth of the past leads him to another important principle of existentialism, which we might call presentism: "true nature of the present was revealed: it was what exists... The past did not exist... things are entirely what they seem to be and behind them... there is nothing” (96) . Just after accepting this realization, Roquetin thinks he feels nauseous again, but he writes "it wasn't that...Mr. Robellon had just died for the second time" (96). The past does not exist, it only lives through subjective memory, Roquetin must therefore accept the idea that he will never truly “know” Robellon, just as he will never truly know himself in the past . He thinks he feels nausea because that is his usual reaction to awareness of existence, but in this case he has already accepted that the past is a void, so it does not replace his awareness of existence. consciousness through physical pain. the past is a void also leads Roquetin to realize that the future objectively means nothing. If we cannot determine anything about the past, then looking to the future is equally pointless, because any action we take with the future in mind will no longer exist once the future is present. The very idea of ​​a..