Sartre's second century

Temporality and the Death of Lucienne in Nausea 53
such is the body, such it is for me. In his discussion of the body, Sartre
describes how pain, for example, when not directly apprehended,
"disappears in the ground of corporeality". 23 Similarly, one's past
disappears into the ground of corporeality until apprehended in memory.
In this way, even though a past experience may not be integrated into the
psyche as memory, the experience can stay with the body as a sort of
somatic memory. The body, as "substance" and as "perpetual condition of
possibility", allows for its preservation. This explains how it would be
possible for the past to maintain a hold upon Roquentin without his being
able to recognise and affirm this past as his own. The rape of Lucienne has
stayed with Roquentin's body. The news of Lucienne's death triggers a
somatic or pre-reflective recognition "from behind" that Roquentin
attempts to recover as memory. His psyche, however, is unable to provide
the synthesis or "melodic organisation" that would make sense of this
fragment from his past. Without this synthesis, Roquentin remains
alienated from his past—he remains unable to make sense of these images
of violence from his past.
An encounter earlier in the book gives us a clue as to why Roquentin
might have murdered Lucienne. Roquentin comes across a man staring
lecherously at a little girl. Roquentin describes the scene:
It would have been enough to cough or open the gate. But in my turn I was
fascinated by the little girl's face [...] they were riveted one to the other by
the obscure power of their desires, they made a pair together. 24
The scene is interrupted when the man notices Roquentin. Roquentin is not
concerned for the safety of the little girl. Instead, he is drawn to the
"obscure power of their desires". Sartre tells us in Being and Nothingess
that "the unique goal of desire" is the "reciprocity of incarnation". 25 In the
apparently reciprocating look of the little girl, the "unique goal" of the
man's desire seemed to have been achieved. Rather than objectifying the
man, the little girl's look seemed to complete the man's self-justifying
project. This early example of "The Look" 26 shows the apparent
redemptory power of possessing the look of the Other, and we can imagine
that Roquentin may have been inspired by this scene in his own pursuit of
self-justification. We know, however, that any attempt by Roquentin to
22 Ibid., 431.
23 Ibid., 440.
24 Nausea, 79.
25 Being and Nothingness, 517.
26 Ibid., 340.