L’art beauvoirien de (re)vivre la mutilation sous le diktat de l’Histoire et du temps
The Art of Life and Survival of Mutilation under the Pressure of History and Time in the Prose of Simone de Beauvoir

Author(s): Anna Ledwina
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Fiction, French Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: history; personal mutilation; alienation; pessimism; the passage of time; the Other
Summary/Abstract: Simone de Beauvoir’s texts show the acute presence of history in the writer’s life, and the futility of individual human actions, a sense of meaningless life, which contrasts with the author’s optimistic vision of the world. For this reason, the human being feels lost and crippled, especially a woman for whom the reality of war means alienation, anxiety, inability to fulfill the dream of unity with another person. This approach allows the author, who is an existentialist, to pay special attention to gender antagonism and social roles assigned to the eternally (dominant) man and (subordinate) woman. Beauvoir’s writing becomes the cry of an individual forced to face his own helplessness, failure and tragedy of the world. Struggling with loneliness, the feminine characters, disappointed, subject to the dictates of time, live only in the present, bereft of the past and future, by the fault of the Other. However, despite being aware of failure they fight against adversity in search for a better life.

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