Writings against death : the autobiographies of Simone de Beauvoir

247 Pages·2005·1.55 MB·English

by  Beauvoir

Writing against Death
FAUX TITRE
262
Etudes de langue et littérature françaises
publiées sous la direction de
Keith Busby, M.J. Freeman,
Sjef Houppermans et Paul Pelckmans
Writing against Death
the Autobiographies
of Simone de Beauvoir
Susan Bainbrigge
AMSTERDAM - NEW YORK, NY 2005
Cover illustration: Simone de Beauvoir at a book signing at the Librairie
française, Rio de Janeiro 1960.
Photo Coll. Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir/Diffusion éditions Gallimard
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of
‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence’.
Le papier sur lequel le présent ouvrage est imprimé remplit les prescriptions
de ‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information et documentation - Papier pour documents
- Prescriptions pour la permanence’.
ISBN: 90-420-1845-3
Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2005
Printed in The Netherlands
Contents

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Introduction 9

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER I
Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée 29
The Family Romance 34
Living Others’ Deaths 40
Autobiography and Intertext 53

CHAPTER II
La Force de l’âge 65
The Self in Public/Private Worlds 68
Beauvoir’s fuites: Public and Private Itineraries and Inventories 78
Writing the Fracturing Self: Rhetoric and Genres 90

CHAPTER III
La Force des choses 103
The ‘Politics of Self’ 107
Beauvoir’s Rhetoric of Death: a Discourse of Ageing 116
Genres as forcés 126

CHAPTER IV
Tout compte fait 133
Beauvoir as Public Persona 137
La femme privée? Death, Memory and the Past 145
Writing the Ending: Tout compte fait as testament 152
(AUTO)BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER V
Une mort très douce 165
Avidité and Thanatos in the Lives of Two Jeunes filles rangées 168
Daughters, Mothers, and Sisters: Narrative Voices in Une
mort très douce 173
Dialogues with Death and the Dead: (Auto)biography as
Reparation 176

CHAPTER VI
La Cérémonie des adieux 179
Situating Sartre in the Text: Love Story or Symbolic Violence? 181
Negotiations of Death and Mortality via the Abject Other:
Double Discourses 182
Writing for Posterity 186

Conclusion 191
Bibliography 201
Index 241
List of Abbreviations

Page references to frequently quoted texts by Simone de Beauvoir
appear in brackets in the text preceded by the abbreviations listed
below. The editions used are those listed in the bibliography.

CA La Cérémonie des adieux
DS Le Deuxième sexe
FA La Force de l’âge
FC La Force des choses
MJFR Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée
MTD Une mort très douce
TCF Tout compte fait
LaV La Vieillesse
Acknowledgements

This book has been researched and written with the generous support
of many people. I am indebted to Mary Orr for her guidance and
unfailing enthusiasm for this project from its conception to the final
stages of completion. I would also like to thank colleagues past and
present of the Universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Exeter and
Goldsmiths College for their support. Thanks are also due to the
members of the Simone de Beauvoir society, and especially Elizabeth
Fallaize, Alison Holland, Yolanda Patterson and Ursula Tidd, for their
encouragement and feedback at various stages. For moral support my
thanks go to my family and friends. I gratefully acknowledge the
expert help provided by Computing services at the University of
Edinburgh and the team at Rodopi.

I am most grateful to the editors of L’Esprit créateur ,
Literature and History, Modern Language Review, and the Simone de
Beauvoir Studies for granting me permission to draw on material used
in the following articles in the context of this broader analysis: ‘Death
of the Maidens: Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée ’, in Simone de
Beauvoir Studies, vol. 13 (1996), 126-36; ‘Le Drame personnel de
l’histoire: Simone de Beauvoir’s La Force de l’âge and La Force des
choses’, Literature and History, ed. by Jennifer Birkett, 10, 1 (Spring
2001), 54-69; ‘Writing the Ending: Simone de Beauvoir’s Tout
compte fait as Testament’, L’Esprit créateur, Vol. XL, No. 1 (Spring
2000), 79-87; ‘La Cérémonie des adieux and Le Livre brisé: Situating
Sartre in the Text’, Modern Language Review (Winter 2002), 835-49.

This book is dedicated to Chris Brickley, with love.
‘Une figure, celle du Moi, cette
“autre” qui est “moi”, occupe,
dans le texte, le lieu indécryptable
du sujet de l’énonciation, une
figure qui représente cet étrange
dispositif autobiothanato-
graphique où, au même moment,
dans le même site, un peu avant,
un peu après, “je” naît à “sa”
mort, “je” meurt à “sa” vie’.1

Introduction

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) is recognized as one of the leading
intellectual figures of the 20 th century whose influence stretches far
beyond the confines of France. As writer, as philosopher, as
intellectual, and as feminist activist, her ideas have touched both
academic and non-academic spheres of activity. The ongoing
fascination with her life and writings is testimony to the important
contribution which she has made to feminist thought and to the
questioning and reassessment of literary and philosophical canons.
Study of these writings offers the opportunity to engage with
philosophical, political, literary and feminist debates and to explore a
number of key preoccupations of the intellectual in post-war France.
These might range from explorations of existentialism and littérature
engagée to studies of the relationship between literature, politics,
philosophy and feminism. However, it is specifically Simone de
Beauvoir’s role as autobiographer, and the relationship of her
autobiographical œuvre to autobiography studies which is the focus of
this study. Close readings of Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée , La
Force de l’âge, La Force des choses, Tout compte fait, Une mort très
douce and La Cérémonie des adieux explore the extent to which
Beauvoir takes her own life as a case study. 2 Her energetic
questioning and reassessment of her actions and the actions of others

1 Louis Marin, L’Écriture de soi: Ignace de Loyola, Montaigne, Stendhal, Roland
Barthes (Paris: PUF, 1999), p. 4.
2 Page references to these texts appear in brackets in the text preceded by the
following abbreviations: MJFR, FA, FC, TCF, MD, CA. The editions are those listed
in the bibliography.