Mann, Bonnie (20 July 2017). "Introduction". In Bonnie Mann; Martina Ferrari (eds.). On ne naît pas femme: on le devient: The Life of a Sentence. Oxford University Press. p.11. ISBN 978-0-19-067801-2. ...the sentence in question is ' On ne naît pas femme: on le devient'—in other words, the most famous feminist sentence ever written... Surely if any sentence deserves a biography, or multiple biographies, it is this sentence that has inspired generations of women.

We will remember his friendship with his sister Poupette and Zaza, his childhood friend, his love for his cousin Jacques, his admiration for Herbaud, and finally, Sartre, who will prove to be the one who will remain in his life forever. UPI Almanac for Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020". United Press International. 9 January 2020. Archived from the original on 15 January 2020 . Retrieved 16 January 2020. …French novelist Simone de Beauvoir in 1908 Memoirs of A Dutiful Daughter is an autobiographical work in which Simone de Beauvoir details her formative years, focusing in particular on her awakening to herself as an individual in the context of conservative repression. The text starts, as autobiographies traditionally do, with an account of the author’s birth, which is very idealistic, complete with flowers and smiling onlookers. Born into an affluent Parisian family, the young de Beauvoir is well loved and even spoiled, but she is not altogether happy. From early on she has a sense of her own capabilities and begins to recognize the ways in which her society is designed to keep her from reaching her potential. de Beauvoir has Catholic virtues instilled in her by her mother and is made to attend Cours Desir, one of the leading Catholic girl’s schools in Paris, where she meets Zaza, who will act as her close friend and her foil during the course of her childhood and adolescence.Memoirs and autobiographies are interesting things - they give the author to shape and transform the raw stuff of their life into a narrative, not that will say anything untrue (hopefully) but there is always selection and emphasis going on, perhaps subconsciously - what we chose to remember and prefer to forget - as much as consciously. Although very religious in her early years (she had even considered becoming a nun), de Beauvoir lost faith in both Catholicism and in her mother’s outlook at the age of fifteen. She discovered that her father’s atheism and intellectual values better resonated with the person she was becoming. Both of her parents, however, influenced the eventual path of her life and career. In Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, de Beauvoir writes that her father’s “individualism” and her mother’s “rigidly moral conventionalism” created a kind of unbalance that made her life an “endless disputation and the primary reason why I became an intellectual.” She had to make sense of their opposing views. Whatever happened, I would have to try to preserve what was best in me: my love of personal freedom, my passion for life, my curiosity, my determination to be a writer. Not only did he give me encouragement but he also intended to give me active help in achieving this ambition.”

Philosophical Writings (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004, edited by Margaret A. Simons et al.) contains a selection of essays by Beauvoir translated for the first time into English. Among those are: "Pyrrhus and Cineas", discussing the futility or utility of action, two previously unpublished chapters from her novel She Came to Stay and an introduction to The Ethics of Ambiguity. Soon, however, Simone develops feelings for Jacques. She loves him, but at the same time is aware that the two are incompatible. She explains that Jacques enjoys life’s luxuries and is easily contented. Simone, on the other hand, is goal-driven, never happy unless she has a challenge to overcome. More importantly, while Jacques is non-traditional, he is happy to conform to society’s values and expectations. Simone refuses to do so. Madeleine Gobeil (Spring–Summer 1965). "Simone de Beauvoir, The Art of Fiction No. 35". Paris Review. Spring-Summer 1965 (34).De Beauvoir traces the story of her early years in great detail. Young Simone was born in Paris to a life of privilege. Her father was a legal secretary and her mother was the daughter of a wealthy banker. Her family showers her with attention and affection; she is spoiled and untroubled. She is also able to recognize, even as a young child, that she is exceptionally intelligent. But this intelligence means she is not always willing to obey the rules, and she often gets in trouble for this. Margaret A. Simons (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Simone de Beauvoir, Penn State Press, 1 November 2010, p. 3.

Beauvoir also wrote a four-volume autobiography, consisting of Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, The Prime of Life, Force of Circumstance (sometimes published in two volumes in English translation: After the War and Hard Times), and All Said and Done. [53] In 1964 Beauvoir published a novella-length autobiography, A Very Easy Death, covering the time she spent visiting her aging mother, who was dying of cancer. The novella brings up questions of ethical concerns with truth-telling in doctor-patient relationships. [54] I felt also that she was engaging with Freud, perhaps not surprising given his intellectual influence during the period of her adult life. She is careful to point out that she was happy being a girl and saw nothing superior about boys (although physically her upbringing was constrained, no swimming, no gymnastics, to the point that when she begins dancing lessons she feels clumsy and awkward, as she is also flushed with certain physical reactions to dancing in couples she gives up dancing lessons fear of or disquiet at the intensity of ones own physical or emotional reactions is also something of a theme, not just for Simone either by more broadly within her milieux, this was a culture which aimed to set people against themselves, and which sadly to some extent was successful ) and that she wasn't envious of them and indeed as a student rather liked male company in different ways. At the same time there was a psychological awareness, particularly here in her discussion of her father, of how his self regard meant he cold never fully share in de Beauvoir's academic success and likely career as a Lycée teacher, as the necessity of her having to earn a living and get a job with a secured pension was due to his failure to be a real man and provide a fat dowry for his daughter so she could be married off. A certain tension in their relationship developed as she passes exams and collects diplomas.

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-01-07 22:03:31 Boxid IA40017021 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Paris: sur les traces de Simone de Beauvoir"[Paris: On the trail of Simone de Beauvoir]. en-vols.com (in French). 22 November 2022 . Retrieved 31 July 2023. Her 1970 long essay La Vieillesse ( The Coming of Age) is a rare instance of an intellectual meditation on the decline and solitude all humans experience if they do not die before about the age of 60. [55]