TORIL MOI The making of an intellectual woman IB Simone de Beauvoir * >* y B For GeirArne Simone de Beauvoir The Making of an Intellectual Woman Toril Moi y B BLACKWELL Oxford UK &■ Cambridge USA Copyright © Toril Moi 1994 The right of Toril Moi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 1994 Blackwell Publishers 238 Main Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 USA 108 Cowley Road Oxford 0X4 1JF UK All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moi, Toril. Simone de Beauvoir: the making of an intellectual woman/Toril Moi. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. ISBN 0-631-14673-3. - ISBN 0-631-19181-X (pbk.) 1. Beauvoir, Simone de, 1908-86. 2. Women and literature - France - History - 20th century. 3. Women authors, French - 20th century - Biography. 4. France - Intellectual life - 20th century. 5. Women intellectuals - France - Biography. I. Title. PQ2603.E362Z855 1994 848'. 91409-dc20 93-1101 [B] CIP British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset in Bembo 11 on 12V2pt by Best-Set Typesetter Ltd, Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain by T. J. Press Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall This book is printed on acid-free paper Contents V-*r ■ Acknowledgements vii Key to Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 I Part 1 Second Only to Sartre 15 2 The Making of an Intellectual Woman 37 3 Politics and the Intellectual Woman: Cliches and Commonplaces in the Reception of Simone de Beauvoir 73 II Part 4 L’Invitee: An Existentialist Melodrama 95 5 Freedom and Flirtation: The Personal and the Philosophical in Sartre and Beauvoir 125 6 Ambiguous Women: Alienation and the Body in The Second Sex 148 7 Beauvoir’s Utopia: The Politics of The Second Sex 179 III Part 8 The Scandal of Loneliness and Separation: The Writing of Depression 217 Afterword 253 Notes 258 Works Cited 300 Index 314 * ' '' ' Acknowledgements This book is an old project: in one sense, I have always wanted to work on Simone de Beauvoir. Since I started serious work on the book in the spring of 1988, I have benefitted from the conversation and advice of a great number of people. First I would like to thank the Meltzer Foundation at the University of Bergen and the Norwegian Research Council for the Humanities (NAVF) for giving me travel grants to go to Paris on two occasions. The Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH) in Paris made me directeur d’etudes associe from April to June 1988, and again from March to July 1991. I thank M. Clemens Heller for his invitation, and Mme Elina Almasy for her invaluable support at the MSH. To help me fund my trips to Paris, I also got a travel grant from Norsk Faglitteraer Forfatterforening (Norwegian Association of Non-fiction Writers). The University Library in Bergen helped me with the initial bibliography. I would like, too, to thank Mme Liliane Phan of the Gallimard Archives and the patient staff at the Bibliotheque Marguerite Durand and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. I also received much assistance from the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University and the Perkins Library at Duke University. During my work on this manuscript I have received particularly thorough critical advice on individual chapters or sections from Simon Blackburn, Penny Boumelha, Malcolm Bowie, Peter Brooks, Dianne Chisholm, Elizabeth Fallaize, Stanley Fish, Abigail Solomon Godeau, Rakel Christina Granaas, Julia Hell, Dana Polan, Sian Reynolds, David Rodowick, Monique de Saint Martin, Regina Schwartz, Martin Stone, Vigdis Songe-Moller, Kjell Soleim, Jennifer Wicke and Jane Winston. M. Maurice de Gandillac kindly replied to my questions about the Ecole Normale Superieure in the 1920s. Over a number of years, Sarah Beckwith, Terry Eagieton, Diana Knight and Geir Arne Moi ended up reading most of the book in bits and pieces: I would like to thank them for viii Acknowledgements their critical sense, energetic encouragement and immense patience. In the spring of 1993, Sara Danius, Stefan Jonsson and Eva Lundgren-Gothlin took the time and trouble to give me detailed comments on the whole manuscript. Their careful feedback saved me from many blunders. Nathalie Duval not only read the whole manuscript, but also provided lots of bibliographical references, and much up-to-date information on the French scene: I am deeply grateful for her support. At Duke University my various research assistants over the years helped me organize my teaching and saved me many trips to the library: for this I am grateful to Barbara Will, Deborah Chay, Jane Winston, Faith Smith and Jack Mumighan. At various times students at Bergen, Yale and Duke have been exposed to my views on Simone de Beauvoir: they made me think more clearly than I would have done without them. I have lectured on Beauvoir in too many places to list them all here. In terms of my own work, I felt particularly inspired by my visit to Concordia University in Montreal, where I spoke about Beauvoir on the International Women’s Day in 1989. My seminars on Beauvoir at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, in May 1990 made me believe that there are many men and women in the world who still care about Simone de Beauvoir and the situation of intellectual women. I would particularly like to thank Jenna Mead, Marion Campbell and Hazel Rowley for making my stay in Melbourne such a friendly one. From 1990 to 1992, Ralph Cohen at the Commonwealth Center of the University of Virginia invited me to give what seems an unseasonably high number of lectures and seminars on Beauvoir. Libby Cohen’s enthusiasm encouraged me at just the right time. Some people have provided me with different kinds of support. Michele Le Doeuff proves by her brilliant example that feminist philosophy is still ahve in France. She introduced me to Mme Helene de Beauvoir. I am grateful to Mme de Beauvoir for her hospitality and for sharing with me her sister’s unpublished letters. Thanks to Michele Le Doeuff, I also met Mme Simone Martinet (nee Keim) who was a student at the Ecole Normale Superieure in the rue d’Ulm in the 1930s. Mme Martinet generously gave of her time and energy to discuss her experiences at the Ecole Normale with me. Mme Chantal Duval and Mile Claire Bazin provided crucial books at the last minute. By lending me a beach house to write in, Diane Elmeer and Julian D. Newman allowed me to escape from the relentless pressure of everyday life in May 1992: chapter 7 owes a lot to them. My British publisher, Philip Carpenter, consistently supported this project, even when it looked as if it were never going to be completed. I feel a special gratitude to two persons who, quite independently of each other, supported my project by taking it seriously and by encouraging me to find my own voice in relation to Simone de Beauvoir. For many years now Julia Kristeva has been consistently supportive of my work. Her