ABSTRACT
Andrew Leak gives an account of desire as it features in both La Nausee and LesMots, drawing on Sartre's own psychoanalytic theories, as well as those of Freud and Lacan. He analyses the relationship between nausea, desire and feminization in the novel, and demonstrates convincingly the role of feminization in Sartre's autobiography, as well as showing how Jean-Paul's development can be interpreted in terms of the Lacanian progression from the Imaginary order (of union with the mother) to the Symbolic order (of culture and language) via the mirror-phase.
