Relieving Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea: Semiotics, Suicide, and the Search for God in Walker Percy's The Second Coming

Abstract

Walker Percy's interest existentialism and especially work of Jean-Paul Sartre is no secret among literary critics. Kathleen Scullin has argued that Lancelot is in effect Percy's response to Sartre fiction (110); other scholars such as Lewis A. Lawson and Martin Luschei have considered Percy's first three novels--The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, and Love Ruins--along similar lines. (1) However, Percy's fifth novel, The Second Coming, has not been examined from this perspective, despite its many references to Sartre's and its status as loose sequel to The Last Gentleman. (2) I will argue that and Sartre's existentialism more generally provide a crucial context for understanding The Second Coming. First, we will see how Percy's own statements recorded conversations and speeches demand this comparison. Then, close attention to both novels will evoke The Second Coming's presentation of interdependence of transcendence and immanence, especially as explored Will's gradual confrontation with his father's suicide, his developing relationship with Allie, and his ongoing query about God's existence. Finally, a comparison of Percy's novel with will elucidate two widely debated attributes of Percy's fifth novel: its unusually well developed female character, Allie, and its uniquely happy ending. Ultimately, I aim to demonstrate how The Second Coming honestly and soberly re-presents nausea of Sartre's novel while also offering a more hopeful evaluation of both individual and communal life. I Percy's interest Sartre is regularly apparent not only his written work but also speeches and interviews. Among thirty or more references to Sartre indexed Lawson and Victor A. Kramer's Conversations with Walker Percy, we find this statement: Maybe one of most influential novels I ever read was Nausea. That was a real revelation. It's funny how something can be that important and influence you that much and be that valuable to you, and yet you can diametrically disagree with (275). Percy's profound appreciation of Sartre's novel and its unyielding examination of tenuousness of reality is evident here, but we also taste his dissatisfaction with Nausea's ultimate cynicism. Signposts a Strange Land finds Percy describing more specifically as an example of peculiar diagnostic role of novel this century (147). Percy had a particular regard for Sartre's ability to portray individual experience, and especially Sartre's onslaught on 'normal' or what is ordinarily taken for normal (147-48). Sharing Sartre's interest questioning common assumptions about good life, Percy appreciated that the apparently well are sick and apparently sick are on to truth (150). Nevertheless, his interest Sartre always remained critical. In his unique self-interview Conversations, for instance, Percy explained his contentment with an obscure life: If one lived a place like France where writers are honored, one might well end up like Sartre, a kind of literary-political pope, a savant, an academician, very sort of person Sartre made fun of Nausea (161-62). Perhaps clearest historical evidence of Percy's wish to both honor and distinguish himself from Sartre is found a 1977 lecture at Cornell University. As a conclusion to that address, Percy read and commented on a passage from The Last Gentleman. In this scene a young Will Barrett runs his hand over bark of an oak tree and wonders about his father's eventually successful suicide attempts. Will quietly asks, Is there a sign? As Percy noted to his audience, He feels he's on to something, a clue or sign, but it slips away from him. Then, Percy said something quite significant about relationship between The Last Gentleman and Nausea: I chose [to read] this passage because of its resemblance to famous scene Sartre's Nausea--in fact, it was written as a kind of counterstatement--where Roquentin is sitting a park Bouville and experiences a similar revelation as he gazes at roots and bark of a chestnut tree. …