Fall 1995 Order in Sartre and Camus Nausea , by Jean-Paul Sartre, and The Stranger , by Albert Camus, refuse to impose order on their events by not using psychology, hierarchies, coherent narratives, or cause and effect. Nausea refuses to order its events by not inscribing them with psychology or a cause for existence, and it contrasts itself with a text by Balzac that explains its events.
Nausea resists the traditional strategy of including the past to predict a character's future.
The Stranger resists traditional categories of order by not dividing Meursault's body and soul, or body and mind. The novel contrasts its refusal to interpret with the coherent narrative that the prosecutors create. The Stranger and Nausea explore similar strategies as they interrogate ways to view the world without a system of interpretative illusions. Nausea refuses to assign order to its events by choosing not to justify them with psychology or cause. Roquentin finds himself unable to pick up a piece of paper, for no apparent physical reason.