Simone de Beauvoir Biography
Journalist, Women’s Rights Activist, Academic, Activist, Philosopher (1908–1986)
French writer Simone de Beauvoir laid the foundation for the modern feminist movement. Also an existentialist philosopher, she had a long-term relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.
Who Was Simone de Beauvoir?
Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris, France, in 1908. When she was 21, De Beauvoir met Jean-Paul Sartre, forming a partnership and romance that would shape both of their lives and philosophical beliefs. De Beauvoir published countless works of fiction and nonfiction during her lengthy career—often with existentialist themes—including 1949’s The Second Sex, which is considered a pioneering work of the modern feminism movement. De Beauvoir also lent her voice to various political causes and traveled the world extensively. She died in Paris in 1986 and was buried with Sartre.
Catholic Upbringing and Atheism
Simone de Beauvoir was born Simone Lucie-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir on January 9, 1908, in Paris, France. The eldest daughter in a bourgeois family, De Beauvoir was raised strictly Catholic. She was sent to convent schools during her youth and was so devoutly religious that she considered becoming a nun. However, at the age of 14, the intellectually curious De Beauvoir had a crisis of faith and declared herself an atheist. She thus dedicated herself to the study of existence, shifting her focus instead to math, literature and philosophy.
In 1926, De Beauvoir left home to attend the prestigious Sorbonne, where she studied philosophy and rose to the top of her class. She completed her exams and a thesis on German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1929. That same year De Beauvoir met another young student, budding existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, with whom she would soon form a lasting bond that would profoundly influence both of their personal and professional lives.
Relationship With Sartre and WWII
Impressed by De Beauvoir’s intellect, Sartre had asked to be introduced to her. In a short time, their relationship became romantic but also remained wholly unconventional. De Beauvoir rejected a proposal of marriage from Sartre early on. The two would also never live under the same roof and were both free to pursue other romantic outlets. They remained together until Sartre’s death decades later in a relationship that was at times fraught with tension and, according to biographer Carole Seymour-Jones, eventually lost its sexual chemistry.
The individual liberties their relationship structure granted the couple allowed De Beauvoir and Sartre to part ways for a time, with each accepting teaching jobs in different parts of France. De Beauvoir taught philosophy and literature throughout the 1930s, but during World War II was dismissed from her post by the Vichy government after the German army occupied Paris in 1940. Meanwhile, Sartre, who was drafted into the French army at the start of the war, was captured in 1940 but released the following year. Both De Beauvoir and Sartre would work for the French Resistance during the remainder of the war, but unable to teach, De Beauvoir soon launched her literary career as well.
Debut: ‘She Came to Stay’
De Beauvoir’s first major published work was the 1943 novel She Came to Stay, which used the real-life love triangle between De Beauvoir, Sartre and a student named Olga Kosakiewicz to examine existential ideals, specifically the complexity of relationships and the issue of a person’s conscience as related to “the other.” She followed up the next year with the philosophical essay Pyrrhus and Cineas, before returning to fiction with the novels The Blood of Others (1945) and All Men Are Mortal (1946), both of which were centered on her ongoing investigation of existence.
During the 1940s, De Beauvoir also wrote the play Who Shall Die? as well as editing and contributing essays to the journal Les Temps Modernes, which she founded with Sartre to serve as the mouthpiece for their ideologies. It was in this monthly review that portions of De Beauvoir’s best-known work, The Second Sex, first came to print.
‘The Second Sex’
Published in 1949, The Second Sex is De Beauvoir’s nearly 1000-page critique of patriarchy and the second-rate status granted to women throughout history. Now reckoned as one of the most important and earliest works of feminism, at the time of its publication The Second Sex was received with great controversy, with some critics characterizing the book as pornography and the Vatican placing the work on the church’s list of forbidden texts.
Four years later, the first English-language edition of The Second Sex was published in America, but it is generally considered to be a shadow of the original. In 2009, a far-more-faithful, unedited English volume was published, bolstering De Beauvoir’s already significant reputation as one of the great thinkers of the modern feminist movement.
‘The Prime of Life’
Although The Second Sex established De Beauvoir as one of the most important feminist icons of her era, at times the book has also eclipsed a varied career that included many other works of fiction, travel writing and autobiography, as well as meaningful contributions to philosophy and political activism. Among the most notable of her written works were the Prix Goncourt–winning novel The Mandarins(1954), the travel books America Day by Day (1948) and The Long March (1957) and four autobiographies: Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958), The Prime of Life(1960), Force of Circumstance (1963) and All Said and Done (1972).
Not content to rest on the laurels of her literary and intellectual achievements, De Beauvoir used her fame to lend her voice to various political causes as well. She joined Sartre in support of Algeria’s and Hungary’s struggles for independence during the 1950s and the student movement in France in the late 1960s, also condemning American foreign policy during the Vietnam War. During the 1970s, De Beauvoir’s work brought her to the forefront of the feminist movement, to which she shared her intellect through lectures and essays as well as by participating in demonstrations for abortion rights and women’s equality.
‘Old Age’ and Death
In the later stages of her career, De Beauvoir devoted a good deal of her thinking to the investigation of aging and death. Her 1964 work A Very Easy Death details her mother’s passing, Old Age (1970) analyzes the significance and meaning of the elderly in society and Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre (1981), published a year after his death, recalls the last years of her partner’s life.
De Beauvoir died in Paris on April 14, 1986, at the age of 78. She shares a grave with Sartre in the Montparnasse Cemetery.
Adopted from: https://www.biography.com/people/simone-de-beauvoir-9269063
Simone de Beauvoir
FRENCH WRITER
WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Simone de Beauvoir, in full Simone Lucie-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir, (born Jan. 9, 1908, Paris, France—died April 14, 1986, Paris), French writer and feminist, a member of the intellectualfellowship of philosopher-writers who have given a literary transcription to the themes of Existentialism. She is known primarily for her treatise Le Deuxième Sexe, 2 vol. (1949; The Second Sex), a scholarly and passionate plea for the abolition of what she called the myth of the “eternal feminine.” This seminal work became a classic of feminist literature.
Schooled in private institutions, de Beauvoir attended the Sorbonne, where, in 1929, she passed her agrégation in philosophy and met Jean-Paul Sartre, beginning a lifelong association with him. She taught at a number of schools (1931–43) before turning to writing for her livelihood. In 1945 she and Sartre founded and began editing Le Temps modernes, a monthly review.
Her novels expound the major Existential themes, demonstrating her conception of the writer’s commitment to the times. L’Invitée (1943; She Came To Stay) describes the subtle destruction of a couple’s relationship brought about by a young girl’s prolonged stay in their home; it also treats the difficult problem of the relationship of a conscience to “the other,” each individual conscience being fundamentally a predator to another. Of her other works of fiction, perhaps the best known is Les Mandarins (1954; The Mandarins), for which she won the Prix Goncourt. It is a chronicle of the attempts of post-World War II intellectuals to leave their “mandarin” (educated elite) status and engage in political activism. She also wrote four books of philosophy, including Pour une Morale del’ambiguité (1947; The Ethics of Ambiguity); travel books on China (La Longue Marche: essai sur la Chine [1957]; The Long March) and the United States (L’Amérique au jour de jour [1948]; America Day by Day); and a number of essays, some of them book-length, the best known of which is The Second Sex. In 2009 a new English-language translation of The Second Sex was published, making the entire original text available to English-speaking readers for the first time; the earlier translation (1953) had been severely edited.
Several volumes of her work are devoted to autobiography. These include Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (1958; Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter), La Force de l’âge (1960; The Prime of Life), La Force des choses (1963; Force of Circumstance), and Tout compte fait (1972; All Said and Done). This body of work, beyond its personal interest, constitutes a clear and telling portrait of French intellectual life from the 1930s to the 1970s.
In addition to treating feminist issues, de Beauvoir was concerned with the issue of aging, which she addressed in Une Mort très douce (1964; A Very Easy Death), on her mother’s death in a hospital, and in La Vieillesse (1970; Old Age), a bitter reflection on society’s indifference to the elderly. In 1981 she wrote La Cérémonie des adieux (Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre), a painful account of Sartre’s last years. Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography, by Deirdre Bair, appeared in 1990. Carole Seymour-Jones’s A Dangerous Liaison (2008), a double biography of de Beauvoir and Sartre, explores the unorthodox long-term relationship between the two.
Simone de Beauvoir revealed herself as a woman of formidable courage and integrity, whose life supported her thesis: the basic options of an individual must be made on the premises of an equal vocation for man and woman founded on a common structure of their being, independent of their sexuality.
Adopted from: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simone-de-Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir Biography
Simone de Beauvoir was an eminent French writer, intellectual, activist, and philosopher. This biography profiles her childhood, life, thoughts, achievements and timeline.
Quick Facts
Also Known As: Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand De Beauvoir, Castor
Famous As: Writer
Nationality: French
Died At Age: 78
Sun Sign: Capricorn
Born In: Paris
Father: Georges Bertrand De Beauvoir
Mother: Françoise Brasseur
Siblings: Hélène De Beauvoir
Spouse/Ex-Spouse: Jean-Paul Sartre
Children: Sylvie Le Bon-De Beauvoir
Religion: Atheism
Died On: April 14, 1986
Place Of Death: Paris
Ideology: Communists
Personality: INFJ
City, States, Provinces & Districts: Paris
Simone de Beauvoir was an eminent French writer, intellectual, feminist, political activist, social theorist and an existentialist philosopher. Her diverse corpus includes novels, short stories, travel diaries, essays, philosophy, ethical writings, biographies, autobiographies, social issues and politics. She had major influence on feminism, feminist theory and feminist existentialism which is prominent from her revolutionary masterpiece ‘The Second Sex’ that deals with oppression of women. Her other notable writings include ‘She Came to Stay’, ‘The Ethics of Ambiguity’, ‘The Mandarins’ and ‘Pyrrhus et Cineas’. Many of her writings speak strongly of her philosophical bent of mind which was influenced by idealisms and philosophy of Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger and Descartes among others. Simone de Beauvoir had an open relationship with famous philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. Although most of her ideas were original and sometimes different from Sartre, many a times Simone de Beauvoir was unfairly tagged as a follower of Sartrean philosophy. Throughout her life she remained under close scrutiny of the public.
Childhood & Early Life
- Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris to Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir and Françoise Beauvoir on January 9, 1908. Her father was a legal secretary and her mother was the daughter of a wealthy banker. Her sister Helena was two years younger.
- Her family lost most of their fortune after the First World War. Even though she was highly religious and God loving since childhood and intended to be a nun, she faced crisis of faith at the age of 14 and from then on remained an atheist throughout her life.
- In 1925 she cleared baccalauréat exams in philosophy and mathematics.
- In 1926 she obtained Certificates of Higher Studies in Latin and French literature.
- She went to live with her grandmother to study Philosophy in Sorbonne. In 1927 she received Certificates in General Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic and Greek.
- In 1928 she received Certificates in Psychology, Sociology and Ethics. She was the ninth woman to obtain degree from Sorbonne at that time.
- She stood second in the philosophy aggregation test writing a thesis on Leibniz thus becoming the youngest ever to pass the exam and later became the youngest teacher of Philosophy in France. It is here that she met fellow student Jean Paul Sartre who stood first in the exam.
Career
- Simone de Beauvoir started her career as a teacher in 1931 in a lycée at Marseilles.
- In 1932 she moved to Rouen to teach advanced literature and philosophy in the ‘Lycée Jeanne d’Arc’. As she advocated pacifism and was outspoken about the condition of women, she was officially admonished. Later in 1941 the Nazi Government discharged her from her post of teacher.
- She wrote the novel ‘She Came to Stay’ during 1935-1937 and got it published in 1943. It was a success and she was acknowledged as a writer. Her other notable writings that followed during this period include ‘The Blood of Others’, ‘Who Shall Die?’ and ‘Men are Mortal’.
- In 1943 she was again dismissed from teaching following complaints of moral corruption by parents of one of her female students. That brought an end to her teaching career.
- Her remarkable essays on existentialist ethics include ‘Pyrrhus et Cinéas’ published in 1944 and ‘The Ethics of Ambiguity’ in1947.
- In 1945 her political commitments and leftist orientation led her to associate with Jean Paul Sartre, Raymond Aron, Maurice Merleau-Ponty among other intellectuals who founded a leftist journal, ‘Les Temps Modernes’. She continued to be an editor of the journal till her death. ‘Moral Idealism and Political Realism’, ‘Eye for an Eye’ and ‘Existentialism and Popular Wisdom’ are some of the remarkable articles worth mentioning.
- In 1949 she published her revolutionary masterpiece ‘The Second Sex’ that deals with oppression of women – an apt work on feminist existentialism.
- Her travel diaries include ‘America Day by Day’ published in 1948 following her lecture in the US in 1947 and ‘The Long March’ in 1957 after she visited China with Sartre in 1955. During 1950s and 1960s she wrote numerous essays, fictions and short stories.
- Her book ‘Mandarins’ was published in 1954. It is about personal lives of friends and philosophers belonging to and Sartre and her circle. She had dedicated the book to American writer Nelson Algren. The book also contained experiences of her relationship with Algren including sexual encounters. This book won her France’s highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.
- Her book ‘Coming of Age’ was published in 1970. It was an outcome of her intense study of repression and exploitation of elderly people by society.
- The 1970s saw her in an active role in Women’s Liberation Movement in France and in 1971 she signed the ‘Manifesto of the 343’. It contained names of renowned ladies who professed to have gone through abortion, which was illegal in France then but later legalised in 1974.
- Her four-volume autobiography includes ‘Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter’; ‘The Prime of Life; ‘Force of Circumstance’, ‘After the War and Hard Times’ and ‘All Said and Done’.
Major Works
- ‘The Second Sex’ remains her best philosophical work and is till date considered an important subject in dealing with oppression and liberation of women.
- The Mandarins is also considered as one of her most successful books and fetched her highest literary award of France, the ‘Prix Goncourt’.
Personal Life & Legacy
- She once contemplated marriage with her cousin Jacques Champigneulle but that never happened.
- She never married but remained in life-long relationship with famous philosopher Jean Paul Sartre since October 1929.
- Beauvoir adopted Sylvie Le Bon as her daughter who was her literary heir.
- She died at 78 years in Paris due to pneumonia. She was buried in Paris at Cimetière du Montparnasse, next to Jean Paul Sartre.
Adopted from: https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/simone-ernestine-lucie-marie-bertrand-2866.php
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Riswan E. Tarigan, Thinker, Motivator & Inspirator 
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