Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader

228 Pages·1998·12.51 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Fallaize (editor)

xf °
CRITICAL READER
6 OE ES ete. by
ILABETH LAI
5

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR:
Jake GdESE G ra iy a e/BaNo fls e
Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader is an invaluable collection of critical texts
on Simone de Beauvoir’s work, as a feminist, a novelist and an autobiographer. It
includes key essays examining her fiction, her writings on her life and her most
famous work, The Second Sex, by an outstanding list of contributors comprising:
Toril Moi, Hazel Barnes, Elaine Marks, Alex Hughes, Judith Butler, Jane Heath,
Anne Ophir, Eva Lundgren-Gothlin, Judith Okely, Sonia Kruks, Francis Jeanson.
In an informative and compelling introduction Elizabeth Fallaize contextual-
ises the readings of Beauvoir within the evolution of feminism, and considers her
changing role within contemporary culture and thought. She provides a timely
reassessment of Beauvoir’s significance over the decades and an understanding of
why she continues to matter today.
This collection of critical writings on Simone de Beauvoir is an essential
resource for students of twentieth-century culture, women’s studies and modern
literature.
Elizabeth Fallaize is a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, and has written
extensively on Simone de Beauvoir.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/simonedebeauvoirO0O00unse_g9q4
SIMONE DE
BEAUVOIR:
\ (COROUEIUBGU G esIsD e I
Edited by
Elizabeth Fallaize
x
London and New York
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First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1998 Elizabeth Fallaize, editorial matter and the collection as a
whole; see the Acknowledgements for © of individual chapters
Typeset in Galliard and Helvetica by
RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Simone de Beauvoir: a critical reader/[edited by] Elizabeth Fallaize.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Beauvoir, Simone de, 1908— —Criticism and interpretation.
I. Fallaize, Elizabeth.
PQ2603.E3627876 1998
848’.91409—de21 97-44992
GIP
ISBN 0-415-14702-6 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-14703-4 (pbk)
FOR MY SON, JACK DRISCOLL

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements 1X
Introduction ELIZABETH FALLAIZE
Beauvotr’s writing career
The critical field: reading the woman writer
Readers of The Second Sex
Readers of the autobiography
Readers of the fiction
Readings of The Second Sex
JUDITH OKELY Rereading The Second Sex
JUDITH BUTLER Sex and gender in Simone de Beauvoir’s
Second Sex
SONIA KRUKS Beauvoir: the weight of situation
TORIL MOI ‘Independent women’ and ‘Narratives of
liberation’
EVA LUNDGREN-GOTHLIN ‘The master-slave dialectic in
The Second Sex
Readings of the autobiography 109
FRANCIS JEANSON' The father in Memoirs of a Dutiful
Daughter
ALEX HUGHES Murdering the mother in Memotrs of a
Dutiful Daughter 120
ELAINE MARKS Encounters with death in A Very Easy
Death and The body in decline in Adieux: A Farewell
to Sartre 132
CONTENTS
Readings of the fiction 155
HAZEL BARNES _ Self-encounter in She Came to Stay 157
JANE HEATH She Came to Stay: the phallus strikes back 171
ANNE OPHIR Mythical discourse in “The Woman
Destroyed’ 183
ELIZABETH FALLAIZE Narrative strategies and sexual
politics in Beauvoir’s fiction 193
Further reading 203
Index 207
Vill