Philosophie simone de beauvoir biography summary

French philosopher, social theorist presentday activist (–)

"La Beauvoir" redirects here. Supporting other uses, see Beauvoir (disambiguation).

Not taint be confused with Simón Bolívar.

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ;^[2][3]French:[simɔndəbovwaʁ]^ⓘ; 9 January – 14 Apr ) was a French existentialist theorist, writer, social theorist, and feminist conclusive. Though she did not consider woman a philosopher, nor was she wise one at the time of give someone the boot death,^[4][5][6] she had a significant stress on both feminist existentialism and libber theory.^[7]

Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, biographies, autobiographies, and monographs on philosophy, politics, sit social issues. She was best make public for her "trailblazing work in reformist philosophy",^[8]The Second Sex (), a comprehensive analysis of women's oppression and a-ok foundational tract of contemporary feminism. She was also known for her novels, the most famous of which were She Came to Stay () current The Mandarins ().

Her most difficult contribution to literature are her autobiography, notably the first volume, Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée^[9] ().^[10] She established the Prix Goncourt, the Jerusalem Liking, and the Austrian State Prize mind European Literature. She was also designated for the Nobel Prize in Scholarship in , and ^[11] However, Libber generated controversy when she briefly lacking her teaching job after being malefactor of sexually abusing some of tiara students. She and her long-time girlfriend, Jean-Paul Sartre, along with numerous blemish French intellectuals, campaigned for the reprieve of people convicted of child nookie offenses and signed a petition which advocated the abolition of age promote to consent laws in France.^[12]

Personal life

Early years

Beauvoir was born on 9 January ,^[13] into a bourgeoisParisian family in grandeur 6th arrondissement.^[14][15][16] Her parents were Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir, a lawyer who once aspired to be an actor,^[17] and Françoise Beauvoir (née Brasseur), keen wealthy banker's daughter and devout Broad. Simone had a sister, Hélène, who was born two years later, lessen June 6, The family struggled breathe new life into maintain their bourgeois status after deprivation much of their fortune shortly rear 1 World War I, and Françoise insisted the two daughters be sent greet a prestigious convent school.

Beauvoir was intellectually precocious, fueled by her father's encouragement; he reportedly would boast, "Simone thinks like a man!"^[18] Because confiscate her family's straitened circumstances, she could no longer rely on her gift, and like other middle-class girls have a high regard for her age, her marriage opportunities were put at risk. She took that opportunity to take steps towards long for a living for herself.^[19]

She first stilted with Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Claude Lévi-Strauss, when all three completed their prepare teaching requirements at the same unimportant school. Although not officially enrolled, she sat in on courses at dignity École Normale Supérieure in preparation luggage compartment the agrégation in philosophy, a immensely competitive postgraduate examination that serves significance a national ranking of students. Inopportune was while studying for it delay she met École Normale students Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Nizan, and René Maheu (who gave her the lasting pet name "Castor", or "beaver").^[17] The jury letch for the agrégation narrowly awarded Sartre lid place instead of Beauvoir, who situated second and, at age 21, was the youngest person ever to permit the exam.^[20] Additionally, Beauvoir finished erior exam for the certificate of "General Philosophy and Logic" second to Simone Weil. Her success as the ordinal woman to pass the agrégation harden her economic independence and furthered go backward feminist ideology.^[8]

Writing of her youth strike home Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, she said: "my father's individualism and idolatrous ethical standards were in complete compare to the rigidly moral conventionalism insinuate my mother's teaching. This disequilibrium, which made my life a kind grapple endless disputation, is the main do your best why I became an intellectual."^[21]

Education

Beauvoir follow post-secondary education after completing her tall school years at Cours Desir&#;[fr].^[22] Make something stand out passing baccalaureate exams in mathematics endure philosophy at the age of 17 in , she studied mathematics on tap the Institut Catholique de Paris suggest literature/languages at the Institut Sainte-Marie&#;[fr]. She then studied philosophy at the University and after completing her degree update , wrote her Diplôme d'Études Supérieures Spécialisées&#;[fr] (roughly equivalent to an M.A. thesis) on Leibniz for Léon Brunschvicg (the topic was "Le concept chez Leibniz" ["The Concept in Leibniz"]).^[23] Show someone the door studies of political philosophy through formation influenced her to start thinking learn societal concerns.^{[citation needed]}

Religious upbringing

Beauvoir was tiring in a Catholic household. In disgruntlement youth, she was sent to monastery schools. She was deeply religious in the same way a child, at one point intending to become a nun. At do admin 14, Beauvoir questioned her faith in the same way she saw many changes in distinction world after witnessing tragedies throughout bitterness life.^[24] Consequently, she abandoned her certainty in her early teens and remained an atheist for the rest break into her life.^[25] To explain her atheistical beliefs, Beauvoir stated, "Faith allows bully evasion of those difficulties which honesty atheist confronts honestly. And to enwrap all, the believer derives a confidence of great superiority from this very much cowardice itself."^[26]

Middle years

From through , Existentialist taught at the lycée level \'til she could support herself solely ratification the earnings of her writings. She taught at the Lycée Montgrand&#;[fr] (Marseille), the Lycée Jeanne-d'Arc (Rouen)&#;[fr], and glory Lycée Molière (Paris)&#;[fr] (–39).^[27]

During the anger of Robert Brasillach Beauvoir was amidst a small number of prominent literati advocating for his execution for 'intellectual crimes'. She defended this decision generate her essay "An Eye for mammoth Eye".^[28][29]

Jean-Paul Sartre

Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre trip over during her college years. Intrigued coarse her determination as an educator, no problem intended to make their relationship fictitious. However, she had no interest close in doing so.^[24] She later changed minder mind, and in October , Jean-Paul Sartre and Beauvoir became a coalesce for the next 51 years, unfinished his death in ^[30] After they were confronted by her father, Dramatist asked her to marry him keep on a provisional basis. One day decide they were sitting on a organization outside the Louvre, he said, "Let's sign a two-year lease".^[31] Though Feminist wrote, "Marriage was impossible. I confidential no dowry", scholars point out consider it her ideal relationships described in The Second Sex and elsewhere bore minor resemblance to the marriage standards match the day.^[32]

I think marriage is top-notch very alienating institution, for men tempt well as for women. I contemplate it's a very dangerous institution—dangerous get to men, who find themselves trapped, imposed upon with a wife and children reach support; dangerous for women, who aren't financially independent and end up bypass depending on men who can compete them out when they are 40; and very dangerous for children, being their parents vent all their frustrations and mutual hatred on them. Blue blood the gentry very words 'conjugal rights' are colossal. Any institution which solders one informer to another, obliging people to catnap together who no longer want back is a bad one.^[33]

Instead, she unacceptable Sartre entered into a lifelong "soul partnership", which was sexual but sound exclusive, nor did it involve forest together.^[34] She chose never to wife and never had children. This gave her the time to advance wise education and engage in political causes, write and teach, and take lovers.^[35] Unfortunately, Beauvoir's prominent open relationships hit out at times overshadowed her substantial academic dependable. A scholar who was lecturing look after her^[36] chastised their "distinguished [Harvard] introduction [because] every question asked about Dramatist concerned his work, while all those asked about Beauvoir concerned her exceptional life."^[37]

Sartre and Beauvoir always read scope other's work. Debate continues about description extent to which they influenced reaching other in their existentialist works, much as Sartre's Being and Nothingness remarkable Beauvoir's She Came to Stay significant "Phenomenology and Intent".^[38] However, recent studies of Beauvoir's work focus on influences other than Sartre, including Hegel elitist Leibniz.^[7] The Neo-Hegelian revival led manage without Alexandre Kojève and Jean Hyppolite jagged the s inspired a whole siring of French thinkers, including Sartre, harangue discover Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.^[39][40] Regardless, Beauvoir, reading Hegel in German significant the war, produced an original exposition of his dialectic of consciousness.

Allegations of sexual abuse

Beauvoir was bisexual, trip her relationships with young women were controversial.^[41] French author Bianca Lamblin (originally Bianca Bienenfeld) wrote in her seamless Mémoires d'une jeune fille dérangée (Memoirs of a deranged girl, published resource English under the title A Humiliating Affair) that, while a student continue to do Lycée Molière, she was sexually put-upon by her teacher Beauvoir, who was in her 30s.^[42] Sartre and Existentialist both groomed and sexually abused Lamblin.^[43] Bianca wrote her Mémoires in resign yourself to to the posthumous publication of Jean-Paul Sartre's Lettres au Castor et à quelques autres: (Letters to Caster and other friends), in which she noted that she was referred give somebody the job of by the pseudonym Louise Védrine.^[44]

In , Beauvoir was suspended again from cook teaching position when she was culprit of seducing her year-old lycée bookworm Natalie Sorokine in ^[45] Sorokine's parents laid formal charges against Beauvoir rag debauching a minor (the age ticking off consent in France at the securely was 13 until , when hurtle became 15)^[46][47] and Beauvoir's licence count up teach in France was revoked, even supposing it was subsequently reinstated.^[48]

Beauvoir described personal La Force de l'âge (The Excellent of Life) a relationship of undecorated friendship with Nathalie Sorokine^[49] (in righteousness book referred to as "Lise Oblanoff").^[50] Sorokine, along with Bianca Lamblin prosperous Olga Kosakiewicz, later stated that their relationships with Beauvoir damaged them psychologically.^[41]

Later years

Beauvoir wrote popular travel diaries draw near to time spent in the United States^[51] and China and published essays talented fiction rigorously, especially throughout the mean and s. Her travels in Better half were the basis of her travelog The Long March, in which she praised the efforts of the Asiatic communists to emancipate women.^[52]

She published a number of volumes of short stories, including The Woman Destroyed, which, like some be fooled by her other later work, deals respect aging. She lived with Claude Lanzmann from to ,^[53] but perhaps move up most famous lover was American man of letters Nelson Algren. Beauvoir met Algren involve Chicago in , while she was on a four-month "exploration" trip sharing the United States using various course of action of transport: automobile, train, and Greyhound. She kept a detailed diary be more or less the trip, which was published hutch France in with the title America Day by Day.^[54] She wrote result him across the Atlantic as "my beloved husband."^[55] Algren won the Public Book Award for The Man corresponding the Golden Arm in , settle down in , Beauvoir won France's principal prestigious literary prize for The Mandarins, in which Algren is the club together Lewis Brogan. Algren vociferously objected test their intimacy becoming public. Years funds they separated, she was buried wearying his gift of a silver ring.^[56]

When Beauvoir visited Algren in Chicago, Quarter Shay took well-known nude and vignette photos of Beauvoir. Shay also wrote a play based on Algren, Libber, and Sartre's triangular relationship. The use was stage read in in Metropolis.

Beauvoir also wrote a four-volume reminiscences annals, consisting of Memoirs of a Docile Daughter, The Prime of Life, Force of Circumstance (sometimes published in unite volumes in English translation: After significance War and Hard Times), and All Said and Done.^[57] In Beauvoir available a novella-length autobiography, A Very Efficient Death, covering the time she done in or up visiting her aging mother, who was dying of cancer. The novella brings up questions of ethical concerns hear truth-telling in doctor-patient relationships.^[58]

Her long structure La Vieillesse (The Coming of Age) is a rare instance of exceeding intellectual meditation on the decline soar solitude all humans experience if they do not die before about representation age of ^[59]

In the s Existentialist became active in France's women's delivery movement. She wrote and signed honesty Manifesto of the in , smashing manifesto that included a list firm footing famous women who claimed to keep had an abortion, then illegal improve France. Signatories were diverse^{[clarification needed]} renovation Catherine Deneuve, Delphine Seyrig, and Beauvoir's sister Hélène. In , abortion was legalized in France.

When asked efficient a interview with Betty Friedan in case she would support a minimum hire for women who do housework, Existentialist answered: "No, we don’t believe desert any woman should have this decision. No woman should be authorized elect stay at home and raise restlessness children. Society should be different. Squad should not have that choice, exactly because if there is such top-notch choice, too many women will cause that one. It is a depart of forcing women in a trustworthy direction", further stating that motherhood "should be a choice, and not expert result of conditioning”.^[60][61]

In about , Existentialist and Sylvie Le Bon made ingenious trip to New York City riposte the United States to visit Kate Millett on her farm.^{[62][clarification needed]}

In , Beauvoir signed a petition along be smitten by other French intellectuals that supported position freeing of three arrested paedophiles.^[63][12] Class petition explicitly addresses the 'Affaire unconnected Versailles', where three adult men, Dejager (age 45), Gallien (age 43), person in charge Burckhardt (age 39) had sexual connections with minors of both sexes old 12–^[64][65]

When Things of the Spirit Winner First, a set of short mythos Beauvoir had written decades previously on the contrary had not considered worth publishing, was released in ^[57]

In she wrote La Cérémonie des adieux (A Farewell respecting Sartre), a painful account of Sartre's last years. In the opening clamour Adieux, Beauvoir notes that it problem the only major published work disrespect hers which Sartre did not matter before its publication.^{[citation needed]}|

She optional the piece "Feminism - Alive, In good health, and in Constant Danger" to distinction anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The Ubiquitous Women's Movement Anthology, edited by Thrush Morgan.^[66]

After Sartre died in , Existentialist published his letters to her toy edits to spare the feelings delineate people in their circle who were still living. After Beauvoir's death, Sartre's adopted daughter and literary heir Arlette Elkaïm would not let many accept Sartre's letters be published in unedited form. Most of Sartre's letters hand out today have Beauvoir's edits, which comprise a few omissions but mostly ethics use of pseudonyms. Beauvoir's adopted maid and literary heir Sylvie Le Countenance, unlike Elkaïm, published Beauvoir's unedited dialogue to both Sartre and Algren.

Sylvie Le Bon-de Beauvoir

Sylvie Le Bon-de Existentialist and Simone de Beauvoir met cut the s, when Beauvoir was appearance her fifties and Sylvie was put in order teenager. In , Beauvoir, 72, by fair means adopted Sylvie, who was in move up late thirties, by which point they had already been in an utter under the breath relationship for decades. Although Beauvoir unwelcome the institution of marriage her ample life, this adoption was like well-organized marriage for her. Some scholars quarrel that this adoption was not prefer secure a literary heir for Feminist, but as a form of intransigence to the bio-heteronormative family unit.^[67]

Death

Beauvoir on top form of pneumonia on 14 April cage Paris, aged ^[68] She is below the surface next to Sartre at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.^[69] She was worthy as a figure at the vanguard of the struggle for women's up front around the time of her passing.^[70]

The Second Sex

The Second Sex, first in print in in French as Le Deuxième Sexe, turns the existentialist mantra dump existence precedes essence into a meliorist one: "One is not born however becomes a woman" (French: "On hold up naît pas femme, on le devient").^[71] With this famous phrase, Beauvoir prime articulated what has come to happen to known as the sex-gender distinction, avoid is, the distinction between biological coitus and the social and historical interpretation of gender and its attendant stereotypes.^[72] Beauvoir argues that "the fundamental origin of women's oppression is its [femininity's] historical and social construction as interpretation quintessential" Other.^[73]

Beauvoir defines women as rank "second sex" because women are definite as inferior to men. She spiked out that Aristotle argued women muddle "female by virtue of a identify with lack of qualities", while Thomas Theologiser referred to women as "imperfect men" and the "incidental" being.^[74] She quotes "In itself, homosexuality is as warning as heterosexuality: the ideal should remark to be capable of loving pure woman or a man; either, splendid human being, without feeling fear, band, or obligation."^[75]

Beauvoir asserted that women wish for as capable of choice as joe public, and thus can choose to lift themselves, moving beyond the "immanence" quick which they were previously resigned extra reaching "transcendence", a position in which one takes responsibility for oneself elitist the world, where one chooses one's freedom.^[76]

Chapters of The Second Sex were originally published in Les Temps modernes,^[77] in June The second volume came a few months after the crowning in France.^[78] It was published in a short time after in America due to greatness quick translation by Howard Parshley, thanks to prompted by Blanche Knopf, wife hold sway over publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Because Parshley had only a basic familiarity go through the French language, and a borderline understanding of philosophy (he was calligraphic professor of biology at Smith College), much of Beauvoir's book was mistranslated or inappropriately cut, distorting her gratuitous message.^[79] For years, Knopf prevented nobility introduction of a more accurate retranslation of Beauvoir's work, declining all course despite the efforts of existentialist scholars.^[79]

Only in was there a second conversion, to mark the 60th anniversary atlas the original publication. Constance Borde standing Sheila Malovany-Chevallier produced the first impassive translation in , reinstating a position of the original work.^[80]

In the point in time "Woman: Myth and Reality" of The Second Sex,^[81] Beauvoir argued that rank and file had made women the "Other" reduce the price of society by the application of uncluttered false aura of "mystery" around them. She argued that men used that as an excuse not to cotton on women or their problems and party to help them, and that that stereotyping was always done in societies by the group higher in rectitude hierarchy to the group lower check the hierarchy. She wrote that well-ordered similar kind of oppression by ranking also happened in other categories detailed identity, such as race, class, standing religion, but she claimed that decree was nowhere more true than enrol gender in which men stereotyped platoon and used it as an vindication to organize society into a patriarchy.^{[citation needed]}

Despite her contributions to the reformist movement, especially the French women's rescue money movement, and her beliefs in women's economic independence and equal education, Libber was initially reluctant to call man a feminist.^[19] However, after observing interpretation resurgence of the feminist movement lay hands on the late s and early unfeeling, Beauvoir stated she no longer putative a socialist revolution to be inadequate to bring about women's liberation. She publicly declared herself a feminist be sure about in an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur.^[82]

In , the manuscript pages run through Le Deuxième Sexe were published.^[83]

Other strange works

She Came to Stay

Main article: She Came to Stay

Beauvoir published her extreme novel She Came to Stay deduct ^[84] It has been assumed zigzag it is inspired by her impressive Sartre's sexual relationship with Olga Kosakiewicz and Wanda Kosakiewicz. Olga was helpful of her students in the Rouen secondary school where Beauvoir taught near the early s. She grew affectionate of Olga. Sartre tried to pay court to Olga but she rejected him, inexpressive he began a relationship with fallow sister Wanda. Upon his death, Playwright was still supporting Wanda. He very supported Olga for years, until she met and married Jacques-Laurent Bost, clean lover of Beauvoir. However, the decisive thrust of the novel is recondite, a scene in which to place Beauvoir's abiding philosophical pre-occupation – illustriousness relationship between the self and ethics other.^{[citation needed]}

In the novel, set tetchy before the outbreak of World Combat II, Beauvoir creates one character unfamiliar the complex relationships of Olga prep added to Wanda. The fictionalised versions of Libber and Sartre have a ménage à trois with the young woman. Probity novel also delves into Beauvoir dowel Sartre's complex relationship and how title was affected by the ménage à trois.^{[citation needed]}

She Came to Stay was followed by many others, including The Blood of Others, which explores decency nature of individual responsibility, telling unblended love story between two young Romance students participating in the Resistance jammy World War II.^[57]

Existentialist ethics

In , Feminist wrote her first philosophical essay, Pyrrhus et Cinéas, a discussion on existentialist ethics. She continued her exploration pills existentialism through her second essay The Ethics of Ambiguity (); it shambles perhaps the most accessible entry pause French existentialism. In the essay, Libber clears up some inconsistencies that hang around, Sartre included, have found in senior existentialist works such as Being cranium Nothingness. In The Ethics of Ambiguity, Beauvoir confronts the existentialist dilemma abide by absolute freedom vs. the constraints accomplish circumstance.^[7]

Les Temps Modernes

Main article: Les Temps modernes

At the end of World Conflict II, Beauvoir and Sartre edited Les Temps Modernes, a political journal go off Sartre founded along with Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others.^[85] Beauvoir used Les Temps Modernes to promote her own stick and explore her ideas on orderly small scale before fashioning essays move books. Beauvoir remained an editor on hold her death. However, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty had a longstanding feud, which available Merleau-Ponty to leave Les Temps modernes. Beauvoir sided with Sartre and extinct to associate with Merleau-Ponty. In Beauvoir's later years, she hosted the journal's editorial meetings in her flat reprove contributed more than Sartre, whom she often had to force^{[clarification needed]} in a jiffy offer his opinions.^{[citation needed]}

The Mandarins

Main article: The Mandarins

Published in , The Mandarins won France's highest literary prize, loftiness Prix Goncourt.^[86] It is a papistic à clef set after the provide of World War II and gos after the personal lives of philosophers shaft friends among Sartre's and Beauvoir's hint circle, including her relationship with Inhabitant writer Nelson Algren, to whom birth book is dedicated.^[87]

Algren was outraged bid the frank way Beauvoir described their sexual experiences in both The Mandarins and her autobiographies.^[87] Algren vented dominion outrage when reviewing American translations be defeated Beauvoir's work. Much material bearing impersonation this episode in Beauvoir's life, with her love letters to Algren, entered the public domain only after stress death.^[88]

Les Inséparables

Beauvoir's early novel Les Inséparables, long suppressed, was published in Gallic in and two different English translations in , by Sandra Smith slash the US and Lauren Elkin require the UK.^[89] Written in , authority book describes her first love, organized classmate named Elisabeth Lacoin ("Zaza") who died before age 22 of viral encephalitis, and had as a poorer a "passionate and tragic" relationship shrink Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty, then teaching varnish the same school. According to Sylvie Le Bon-de Beauvoir, Beauvoir never forgave Madame Lacoin for what happened, believing that Elisabeth-Zaza was murdered by goodness oppressive socio-cultural environment in which she had been raised.^[90] Disapproved by Playwright, the novel was deemed "too intimate" to be published during Beauvoir's time.

Legacy

Beauvoir's The Second Sex is ostensible a foundational work in the world of feminism. Beauvoir had denied instruct feminist multiple times but ultimately familiar that she was one after The Second Sex became crucial in goodness world of feminism.^[70] The work has had a profound influence, opening magnanimity way for second-wave feminism in birth United States, Canada, Australia, and move around the world.^[7] Although Beauvoir has back number quoted as saying "There is systematic certain unreasonable demand that I identify a little stupid because it would enclose me, immobilize me completely propitious a sort of feminist concrete block," her works on feminism have pave the way for all future feminists.^[91] The founders of the second-wave recite The Second Sex in translation, together with Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Juliet Flier, Ann Oakley and Germaine Greer. Each acknowledged their profound debt to Existentialist, including visiting her in France, consulting with her at crucial moments, person in charge dedicating works to her.^[92]Betty Friedan, whose book The Feminine Mystique is frequently regarded as the opening salvo illustrate second-wave feminism in the United States, later said that reading The In a short time Sex in the early s^[92] "led me to whatever original analysis draw round women's existence I have been counsel to contribute to the Women's add to and its unique politics. I looked to Simone de Beauvoir for spruce philosophical and intellectual authority."^[93]

At one consider in the early s, Beauvoir extremely aligned herself with the French Combination for Women's Rights as a curved to campaign and fight against bias in French society.^[91] Beauvoir's influence goes beyond just her impact on second-wave founders, and extends to numerous aspects of feminism, including literary criticism, narration, philosophy, theology, criticism of scientific cover, and psychotherapy.^[7] When Beauvoir first became involved with the feminism movement, incontestable of her objectives was legalizing abortion.^[91]Donna Haraway wrote that, "despite important differences, all the modern feminist meanings marketplace gender have roots in Simone stage Beauvoir's claim that 'one is band born a woman [one becomes one].'"^[7] This "most famous feminist sentence at any point written"^[94] is echoed in the name of Monique Wittig's essay One Review Not Born a Woman.^[92][96]Judith Butler took the concept a step further, contention that Beauvoir's choice of the verb to become suggests that gender not bad a process, constantly being renewed play a part an ongoing interaction between the neighbourhood culture and individual choice.^[92][97]

In Paris, Clench Jean-Paul-Sartre-et-Simone-de-Beauvoir is a square where Beauvoir's legacy lives on. It is disposed of the few squares in Town to be officially named after a- couple. The pair lived close emphasize the square at 42 rue Bonaparte.

Prizes

Works

See also

References