writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

BETWEEN “SEEKING SALVATION IN LITERATURE” AND “PUTTING
DOWN THE FACTS” SIMONE DE DEAUVOIR AND WOMEN’S LIFE
WRITING
Daria GOSEK *
Simone de Beauvoir is often (too often) and too superficially treated as a kind of gloss to Sartre’s
philosophy. The best example of this type of interpretive practices – actually, I should write
'simplifying' – is Beauvoir's essay on literature, presented at the famous meeting which was held on
9th December 1964 in the Parisian theatre ‐ la Mutualité. It was organized by the student and
communising magazine Clarté. Yves Buin asked questions to those invited to the discussion titled Que
peut la littérature?; among the invited guests were, i.a., Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre.
Whereas the presentation of Sartre is regarded as one of the most important and even
programmatic, and as such is often still discussed (and translated into many languages), the one of
Simone de Beauvoir (unfortunately) did not meet with such a large response or reception. It is a
significant text which also largely explains writing practice of Simone de Beauvoir, her intellectual
hinterland and finally, the philosophical perspective which Beauvoir dealt with 1 . This essay, however,
will be crucial for my paper ‐ and it is the one I will begin with, trying to present the most important
thesis/statements of Beauvoir, in order to subsequently analyze – from this perspective –
autobiographical texts as well as novels written by her. In Simone de Beauvoir’s case there is an
interaction or relation between the life lived and her texts telling the story of her life (she’s bringing
the writing of a life, and a life in writing). Life is being seen through her writings and its being telling
to the others – the readers.
In the case of a literary‐critical reflection, it should be emphasized that both Jean‐Paul Sartre and
Simone de Beauvoir – in their presentations – performed a certain recognition of an ethical nature,
created an image of relationships between the writer and the reader, and of recognition – made by
each side of the writer‐reader relationship – of their mutual freedom. And even though both of them
are commencing their analyses with similar assumptions, in the course of further argumentation
their standpoints begin to differ considerably. Sartre focuses on engagement of the writer and on
engaged art, setting the writer certain tasks and goals. Beauvoir's position resounds strongly with a
subject of connecting literature with ethical act. According to her, literature has to be something that
reveals the ethical nature of human reality. In a decisive and unambiguous way, she connects
literature with a specifically perceived solidarity. Moreover, literature can be defined as an
expression and as kind of social act – especially in a context of Beauvoirs interpretations of
Heideggerian “Mitsein.” Term “Mitsein” may be regarded as central to the philosophy of Simone de
Beauvoir (as Eva Gothlin states 2 ).
Mitsein means for Beauvoir not that human beings are primordially bonded together in some
salutary way or even that they are interdependent—socially, psychologically, or biologically. As
Nancy Bauer states: “Rather, my being‐with others is foundationally important insofar as it endlessly
provides me with the means, the cultural resources, to hide my ambiguity from myself” 3 . In a
decisive and unambiguous way, Simone de Beauvoir connects literature with a specifically perceived
solidarity. Literature becomes a place of specifically understood declaration, although not a
confessional one but one being a testimony. Significant are the words of Simone de Beauvoir, which
she ends her preface to The Prime of Life with such statement:
*
Jagiellonian University - Kraków, Poland.
251