This study compares Simone de Beauvoir's theory of the self developed in her philosophical writings with the self presented in her autobiographical writings. ;The Introduction notes relevant differences in the Anglo-American and Continental philosophic traditions and in French and English and explains the existential-phenomenological analysis of the self. In chapter one I argue that, though Beauvoir began her investigation of the self with this analysis , she interpreted it to include an emphasi…
Read moreThis study compares Simone de Beauvoir's theory of the self developed in her philosophical writings with the self presented in her autobiographical writings. ;The Introduction notes relevant differences in the Anglo-American and Continental philosophic traditions and in French and English and explains the existential-phenomenological analysis of the self. In chapter one I argue that, though Beauvoir began her investigation of the self with this analysis , she interpreted it to include an emphasis on relations with others. In chapter two I claim that Beauvoir developed another notion in The Second Sex, "the gendered self"; this represented a major departure from existential-phenomenology. In chapter three I discuss literary strategies she uses in her autobiographies. In chapter four I show how she presents her child self within an existentialist problematic, and as gendered. In chapter five, I show that she developed a "companionate self" in two love relationships and that her ability to write the "deaths" of these became a way to rediscover her self. In chapter six I assert that in discussions of her writing, she presents both an existential self and a gendered self. Finally, I conclude that Beauvoir preserved a tension between freedom, or the existential self, and determinism, or the gendered self, in her writings