Comment on the Instances of ‘Bad Faith’ as Represented in the Novel Nausea.

Answer

Comment on the instances of ‘bad faith’ as represented in the novel Nausea.

Or, what do you understand by bad faith”? Focus on the instances of bad faith in Nausea.

Fear and anguish in the face of an immeasurable existential burden leads individuals to seek an escape from the responsibility that comes with human freedom. In Sartre’s (1905-1980) philosophy, the tendency to present oneself as indifferent to one’s free existence is termed “bad faith’‘. One is in bad faith when one is not responding directly to one’s existence; rather, one has an artificial construct that mediates between him and reality. That is, one is guilty of regarding oneself not as a free person but as an object. Bad faith, however, has to be differentiated from falsehood, as Sartre makes a distinction between the two:

 Bad faith… has in appearance the structure of falsehood. Only what changes everything is the fact that in bad faith it is from myself that I am hiding the truth.

So bad faith is a kind of self-deception. Based on this definition, we shall attempt to point out and explain the instances of bad faith scattered across the novel Nausea. 

Monsieur Fasquelle’s Bad Faith: As Roquentin’s existential investigation of the world goes on, we can see numerous people who are in “bad faith.” Monsieur Fasquelle, the manager of Cafe Mably, is infected with “Bad faith”, as he seems to have defined himself by his profession:

 When his establishment empties, his head empties too.

He has forgotten that he has chosen the profession. It is a common trait among professionals to internalize certain fixed ways of looking at life. They are keen to perform social roles imposed upon them from outside without attempting to create their individual essences. They always look for a label to explain things. 

The bad faith of Doctor Roge and Achille: Doctor Roge is one such fellow. He dubs Monsieur Achille “an old crackpot.” Achille, too, is in “bad faith’, as he humbly