Sartre's second century

44 Chapter Three
never objects and which themselves determine to exist." According to
Sartre, consciousness lives its spontaneity in anguish and terror. The day
after the meeting with Dr Rogd, Roquentin writes in his diary: "I must not
be afraid." 37 Dense fog is hanging over Bouville, the familiar objects
disappear, at the Cafe Mably a frosty darkness welcomes Roquentin, who
suddenly falls into a panic. The owner could be dead:
A real panic took hold of me. I didn't know where I was going. I ran along
the docks, turned into the deserted streets [...]. The houses watched my
flight with their mournful eyes. I repeated with anguish: Where shall I go?
Where shall I go? Anything can happen. 38
Within the context of the novel, "anything can happen" suggests a
possible sex crime, and can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, if
I am an absolute freedom, I can choose or refuse to commit the crime, a
situation of anguish. On the other hand, this crime may be so fascinating
that I am condemned to commit it, which terrifies me.
Conclusion
Thus, Sartre's literary works, such as Nausea—and we could add Er
VArmenien {Er the Armenian) with its reminder of the Platonic myth about
the original choice of existence—can be considered the source of the
fundamental metaphysical concept of "spontaneity". Spontaneity is a way
of living one's life for a consciousness that does not feel the weight of
circumstances, family, social class, language, and moral rules. For
example, in The Words Sartre writes: "The days of happiness originated in
me; I drew them from the nothingness of my own abilities in order to bring
to others the books they loved." 39
In theory, Being and Nothingness is entirely written in accordance with
the rules of ontological phenomenology. But, as we have seen,
metaphysics is not totally absent from the book. In his conclusion, Sartre
explains that phenomenological investigation leads to the metaphysical
question of the origin of the for-itself: why and how does the for-itself
emerge from the in-itself? At this point, ontological phenomenology offers
"Cette sphere transcendentale est une sphere d'existence absolue, c'est-a-dire de
spontaneous pures, qui ne sont jamais objets et qui se d&erminent elles-m§mes a
exister" (Sartre, La Transcendance de VEgo, 11—editor's translation).
37
Sartre, Nausea, 70.
38
Ibid., 78.
39
Sartre, The Words, 146.