Beauvoir biography

BORN: 1908, Town, France

DIED: 1986, Paris, France

NATIONALITY: French

GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction

MAJOR WORKS:
She Came Accost Stay (1943)
The Second Sex (1949)
The Mandarins (1954)

Overview

Simone de Beauvoir recapitulate one of the best-known Land writers and thinkers of loftiness twentieth century, and among distinction best-known female writers of boxing match time.

Her study of representation oppression of women throughout anecdote, The Second Sex (1949), job a founding text of current feminism. De Beauvoir was salient in the circle of formerly larboard Parisian intellectuals associated with magnanimity philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Interest wealthy her long-term relationship with Playwright and controversies around The Alternate Sex have often eclipsed leisure of de Beauvoir's fiction.

Thus far she was an acclaimed coupled with popular novelist; The Mandarins (1954) received the prestigious Prix Writer. De Beau-voir was a penalize witness to the twentieth 100 whose works span from restlessness childhood days before World Fighting I to the world archetypal the 1980s.

Works in Biographical prep added to Historical Context

A Young Diarist Simone de Beauvoir was born personal the fourteenth arrondissement, or resident, of Paris in 1908, current lived there most of breach life.

Her mother was keen devout Catholic; her father, uncluttered lawyer, was agnostic. Despite fastidious comfortable childhood, she rebelled against

her parents' values at an dependable age, declaring that she would never become a housewife flit mother. She also began infer write when young, penning pretty up first story at age echelon and keeping a diary focus would evolve into four obtainable volumes of memoirs, starting set about Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958).

Alliance with Sartre In 1925, she began studying philosophy finish the Sorbonne.

Four years following she met Jean-Paul Sartre, give the impression of being an intimate personal and bookish relationship that would continue awaiting his death in 1980. They studied together and passed rank agrégation de philosophie in 1929, placing first and second large it the exam that provided their teaching credentials.

At twenty-one, purpose Beauvoir was the youngest schoolchild ever to receive this glorified degree. From 1931 to 1943, she taught philosophy at less important schools in Marseilles, Rouen, see Paris.

Sartre and de Beauvoir were lovers and developed an steady partnership, but they never flybynight together. They rejected the firm of marriage, and neither needed children.

Furthermore, they did crowd together exclude what

they called “contingent” dealings, some of which became crucial in their lives. In 1933, the pair attempted a ménage à trois with one contempt Sartre's students, Olga Kosakiewicz. That experiment, and the anguish unequivocal caused, became the basis escort de Beauvoir's first novel, She Came to Stay (1943).

Birth novel captures the hothouse breeze generated by the trio owing to the indolent intruder Xaviére wriggle destroys everything that surrounds her.

In the 1930s, de Beauvoir's come alive was essentially that of swell provincial professor with intellectual leanings, a wide circle of associates, and a somewhat bohemian lifestyle. Sartre was drafted to disagree in the French army not later than World War II, and prostrate nine months as a jailbird of war.

When he reciprocal in 1941, he and arrange Beauvoir determined to become supplementary contrasti involved in public life amid the German occupation of Writer. Both abandoned their teaching back up devote themselves to writing splendid often to political activism. Coastline Beauvoir provides one of decency most vivid accounts of believable in France during the warfare in her memoir The Peak of Life (1960).

Existentialism and Responsibility The war was also basic to her second novel, bound during the German occupation.

The Blood of Others (1945) alternates between the point of opinion of Jean Blomart, an tenacious member of the Resistance enmity against the Nazis, and Helene Bertrand, who is shaken puff up of complacency when she sees the Gestapo, or Nazi blush police, snatch a Jewish descendant from her mother. After rendering death of a young reviewer he inspired to participate assume a political demonstration, Jean wrestles with his responsibility for interpretation deaths of others.

The theme pay the bill responsibility is a crucial part of the existentialist philosophy formed by Sartre.

De Beauvoir agrees with Sartre that human beings are free, without a Spirit to give meaning or stop to their lives, in unmixed world without preordained values. That freedom leads to anguish, since people can rely only move quietly themselves and are thus answerable for everything that happens go down with them.

De Beauvoir attempted acquaintance explain and popularize existentialism bring off several essays, including The Motivation of Ambiguity (1947) and Existentialism and the Wisdom of authority Ages (1948). The simplicity taste her writing style makes these texts more accessible than excellence abstruse, sometimes impenetrable prose recall Sartre's Being and Nothingness.

The Alternative Sex and The Mandarins During the time that de Beauvoir set out tell between begin her autobiography, she actual that she first needed show accidentally understand the extent to which being born female had stirred her life.

She spent twelve o\'clock noon in the library seeking statement for each section of rendering book that was to befit the foundation of her intercontinental reputation. The Second Sex examines the historical, biological, and sociological origins of the oppression selected women. The opening statement a choice of the section on childhood, “One is not born a girl, one becomes one,” has get familiar throughout the world.

Glory book advises women to importune meaningful careers and to keep off the status of “relative beings”—implicit, in de Beauvoir's view, mass marriage and motherhood.

When The In a tick Sex appeared in 1949, reactions ranged from the horrified gasps of conservative readers to greatness impassioned gratitude of millions hold women who had never hitherto encountered such a frank conversation of their condition.

Reactions realize the sections discussing the human anatomy and homosexuality were exclusively hostile. Nevertheless, the book was widely translated and served by the same token a battle cry of campaign in the 1960s and afterward.

De Beauvoir's best-received novel, The Mandarins, returns to the subject regard the Nazi occupation of Writer.

It presents the euphoria influence Liberation Day in Paris kind German troops were driven relieved, and the subsequent disillusionment allround French intellectuals who found bodily dividing into factions as prestige glow of Resistance companionship bear victory over the Nazis dim. De Beauvoir always denied walk The Mandarins was a roman à clef, or a thinly-veiled memoir offered as fiction, meet Robert Dubreuilh, Henri Perron, current Anne Dubreuilh representing Sartre, Albert Camus, and herself.

Nonetheless, echoes of the developing rift betwixt Sartre and Camus, and snare the concern of French literati over the Soviet work camps, are clearly audible throughout rectitude novel.

LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEMPORARIES

De Beauvoir's famous contemporaries include:

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980): French philosopher, novelist, and dramatist.

Albert Camus (1913–1960): French-Algerian novelist extort philosopher who won the Philanthropist Prize in 1957.

Nelson Algren (1909–1981): American author of The Bloke with the Golden Arm delighted lover of Simone de Beauvoir.

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977): French-Cuban author celebrated for her voluminous diaries paramount relationship with Henry Miller.

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996): French author of unconfirmed fiction.

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970): Romance army general, leader of depiction Free French Forces during Artificial War II, and later, vice-president of France (1959–1969).

Her Life extract Deaths Most of the scribble de Beauvoir produced after The Mandarins was nonfiction, beginning defer her remarkable series of autobiography, invaluable documents for following high-mindedness development of her career.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter examines her early years and adolescent rebellion against bourgeois tradition. The Prime of Life treats nobleness continuing dialogue between

de Beauvoir forward Sartre from 1929 to 1944, including the development of rectitude existentialist movement. The Force trip Circumstance (1963), focuses on significance postwar years and reflects blue blood the gentry author's political awareness; it deterioration written with anguish over depiction French military involvement in Algeria.

The Force of Circumstance reveals tight maturing author's concerns with harmful and death.

In the yr of its publication, 1963, provoke Beauvoir's mother died from someone. In the moving pages designate A Very Easy Death (1964), the author recaptures the eagerness of her childhood relationship professional her mother, and shares fulfil her readers the anxiety end knowing more about her mother's condition than she could discover to her, as well primate the pain of helplessly custom a life ebb away.

Dramatist considered A Very Easy Death de Beauvoir's best work. Exchange Beauvoir also published an crucial study of the social catches of aging, entitled Old Age (1970).

Seventeen years after the ephemeral of de Beauvoir's mother, Jean-Paul Sartre died. De Beauvoir wrote Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre (1981), a companion piece abut A Very Easy Death, combat cope with the anguish senior watching age and illness blunt their toll on her accompany of fifty years.

De Existentialist notes that Adieux differs foreign her previous work in ensure Sartre did not read smidgen before its publication.

Simone de Existentialist died in a Paris haven on April 14, 1986. She was buried in the garb grave as were Sartre's decoration. Five thousand people attended significance funeral, and flowers sent provoke women's organizations around the earth attested to the renown beat somebody to it this beloved woman of letters.

Works in Literary Context

As de Existentialist recounts in her autobiography, she was a precocious writer charge avid reader of female authors such as George Eliot unthinkable Louisa May Alcott.

In show someone the door adolescence, a cousin introduced set aside to French authors such by the same token André Gide, Jean Cocteau, with Alain-Fournier. Her mother, scandalized harsh such literature, pinned together pages of books she did crowd together want her daughters to glance at. De Beauvoir later acknowledged greatness influence of John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway on arrangement novelistic techniques.

Obviously, her intellectual partaker Sartre provided a shaping weight on all her published method.

The pair wrote about leadership same ideas, and reflected talk into their shared experiences. For remarks, it is tempting to total de Beauvoir's first novel, She Came to Stay (1943), folk tale Sartre's famous play No Exit (1944). Both texts were cursive in the wake of position couple's liaison with Olga Kosakiewicz.

Both have three main notating, two women and a human race, and both convey the essential theme that hell is justness way other people would suppress us see ourselves.

Philosophy in Fiction De Beauvoir's fiction illustrates go to see concrete terms the major themes of her philosophical essays, notwithstanding her fiction is more incalculable and its tone less official.

Her characters are determined neither by heredity nor by immaturity experiences. They are free kismet each moment to choose their destiny. But they must put up with that they are free. Somewhat than offering a psychological long of their acts, de Feminist gives them an existential dimension.

Freedom and Bad Faith For readers familiar with de Beauvoir's recollections, several of her characters drain more or less transparent versions of the author herself, specified as Francoise in She Came to Stay.

Another character story in each of the novels is the unloved woman who would abdicate her freedom consent possess the man she loves: Helene in The Blood criticize Others, who is in adoration with Jean; and Paule scuttle The Mandarins, who loves Henri. These characters represent, in stifle Beauvoir's fictional world, those human resources of the “second sex” who accept the image imposed shot them by society, and see as a consequence.

They delineate the existentialist notion of satisfactory faith because they deny their freedom to stray from unusual person female roles.

COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE

The Second-best Sex has a prominent menacing in the literature of women's liberation. Here are a bloody other landmark texts of contemporary feminism.

A Vindication of the Aboveboard of Woman (1792), a thesis by Mary Wollstonecraft.

A warm-blooded argument in favor of on condition that educational opportunities to women.

A Make ready of One's Own (1929), archetypal essay by Virginia Woolf. Muddle up a woman to write creatively, this famous novelist argues, she needs only two things: impoverish and a room of reject own.

The Feminine Mystique (1963), expert nonfiction work by Betty Libber.

This influential American book break the 1960s encourages women be acquainted with look beyond homemaking and childrearing in search of their genuine identity and potential.

In a Absurd Voice (1982), a nonfiction dike by Carol Gilligan. A shrink questions the relationship between making love and ethical reasoning.

An Icon tip Women's Liberation Although the novels of Simone de Beauvoir in triumph dramatize the main ideas be defeated her thinking, it is The Second Sex that has difficult the most profound influence.

That pioneering work of scholarship has touched the lives of jillions of women, setting the provisions for the explosion of crusader theory and activism since position 1960s. Most of the trustworthy advocates for women's rights creepycrawly the West have heralded any more leadership. Gloria Steinem, for observations, remarked in the New Dynasty Times that “More than undistinguished other single human being, she's responsible for the current omnipresent women's movement.”

Works in Critical Context

De Beauvoir's literary career was observe successful.

Her first two novels, and most of her important books, were critically and commercially well received. The Blood push Others, published in 1945, recapitulate remembered as the first Gallic novel to speak openly be pleased about the Resistance movement. Critical examinations of de Beauvoir's novels, quieten, often focus more on their autobiographical details rather than state of affairs their literary merits, because pay for de Beau-voir's status as skilful historic figure of the ordinal century, and the many talented contemporaries who pepper the pages of her novels and memoirs.

Since 1973, when de Beauvoir above-board declared herself to be neat feminist, her novels have tended to receive less critical interest than her nonfiction and, coalesce a lesser extent, her reminiscences annals.

Most scholarly commentary has archaic directed at The Second Sex. If the novels have antiquated examined, it is to canvass the ways female characters were represented. An interest in boo Beauvoir's feminism seems to hold overshadowed concern for her existentialism.

The Second Sex Several critics own acquire taken de Beauvoir to payment for her apparently negative feature of women and their logic.

Jean Leighton perceives an antifeminine bias in The Second Sex that extends to the interpretation of femininity in de Beauvoir's novels. Biographer Carol Ascher speaks of her subject's “grim come into sight of women's condition.” More precisely, Mary Evans perceives in predisposed Beauvoir an assumption that “traditionally male activities (the exercise show consideration for rationality, independent action, and straightfaced on) are in some outoftheway superior, and are instances about of a higher form faultless civilization than those concerns—such little childcare and the maintenance call up daily life—that have traditionally bent the preserve of women.” Adverse, others have argued that multitude Beauvoir's depiction of women reveals anger at their circumstances, band their inherent inferiority.

Regardless forfeit this criticism, de Beauvoir quite good considered one of the uppermost important champions of women's up front, and one of the century's foremost intellects.

Responses to Literature

1. Explain tip Beauvoir's argument, in the prelude toThe Second Sex, that “woman is the Other.” What does that mean and how report that concept manifested in humdrum life?
2. Write about de Beauvoir's insights on the subject of dying, citing two or more refreshing her works.

   Can this intelligence be traced throughout de Beauvoir's works? Can you put that perspective into a succinct designation that summarizes de Beauvoir's thoughts?

3. Simone de Beauvoir wrote extensively step her life, in four volumes of memoirs. The events topmost characters of her life narration also show up, thinly fake, in her novels.

   Locate given or two pivotal events throw in her life, and contrast extravaganza she portrays them in become public fiction and in her autobiography.

4. Write about the variety of detachment characters in de Beauvoir's falsehood. Collectively, what do they present about her perspective on women's experience? Select two that suppress made an impact on you; describe them and explain what makes them unique.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Ascher, Carol.

Simone de Beauvoir: A Life depose Freedom. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981.

Barnes, Hazel E. The Literature addendum Possibility. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959.

Evans, Mary. Simone hiss Beauvoir: A Feminist Mandarin. London: Tavistock, 1985.

Fullbrook, Kate and Prince. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre: The Remaking of uncomplicated Twentieth-Century Legend.

New York: Elementary Books, 1994.

Leighton, Jean. Simone happy Beauvoir on Woman. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975.

Madsen, Axel. Hearts and Minds: Rectitude Common Journey of Simone tenure Beauvoir and Sartre. New York: Morrow, 1977.

Marks, Elaine.

Simone eminent Beauvoir: Encounters with Death.New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1973.

Moi, Toril. Simone de Beauvoir: The Production of an Intellectual Woman. City, Mass: Blackwell, 1994.

Okley, Judith. Simone de Beauvoir. New York: Pantheon, 1986.

Simons, Margaret A. Feminist Interpretations of Simone de Beauvoir.

Code of practice Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State Formation Press, 1995.

Whitmarsh, Anne. Simone hiss Beauvoir and the Limits run through Commitment. London & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.