Introduction
Simone de Beauvoir is one of the most influential philosophers and feminist thinkers of the 20th century. Her groundbreaking work "The Second Sex," published in 1949, sparked important conversations about women's rights and inspired a generation of feminists. However, for decades Beauvoir's philosophical contributions have often been dismissed or overshadowed by those of her lifelong partner, Jean-Paul Sartre.
In "Becoming Beauvoir," Kate Kirkpatrick aims to set the record straight and reveal Beauvoir as a brilliant, original thinker in her own right. Drawing on newly available materials like Beauvoir's student journals and letters, Kirkpatrick paints a fuller picture of Beauvoir's intellectual development, romantic relationships, and the origins of her most important ideas. This biography challenges many of the misconceptions about Beauvoir and demonstrates how her philosophy was shaped by her unique experiences as a woman navigating the male-dominated intellectual circles of 20th century France.
Misrepresentation of Beauvoir's Life and Work
For much of her life and after her death, Simone de Beauvoir has been misrepresented and her contributions minimized. There is a common perception of Beauvoir as merely Sartre's companion and intellectual sidekick, rather than as an independent thinker. This misrepresentation stems largely from the sexist attitudes of the time, which struggled to accept the idea of a truly autonomous female intellectual.
Many facts about Beauvoir's life were twisted or ignored by biographers and critics eager to downplay her achievements. She was often portrayed as completely devoted to Sartre romantically and intellectually subservient to him. The reality was far more complex. While Sartre was certainly an important influence and collaborator, Beauvoir had already explored many philosophical ideas in her early journals that were later attributed solely to Sartre.
For instance, Beauvoir's early distinction between being "for myself" and being "for others" prefigured similar concepts in Sartre's famous work "Being and Nothingness." Yet Beauvoir rarely received credit for originating these ideas. Her romantic life was also mischaracterized - while Sartre was her primary intellectual partner, he was far from her only significant romantic relationship. Letters reveal that filmmaker Claude Lanzmann was actually the only man Beauvoir addressed with the intimate "tu" form.
Despite her formidable intellect and fierce independence, society continued to belittle Beauvoir's ideas and reduce her to Sartre's attractive companion. She was nicknamed "Notre Dame de Sartre" in France and described reductively by The New Yorker as "the prettiest Existentialist you ever saw." These portrayals reveal how threatening the idea of a brilliant, autonomous female thinker was to the patriarchal society of mid-20th century Europe and America.
Childhood Influences on Beauvoir's Philosophy
The seeds of Simone de Beauvoir's philosophical outlook were planted early in her childhood. Born in 1908 to an upper-middle-class Parisian family, young Simone was a precocious student with a keen interest in exploring the natural world. Her early years provided formative experiences and ideas that would shape her later work.
One key influence was the religious divide between her devoutly Catholic mother and atheist father. This introduced Beauvoir to the concept of fundamental ideological differences from a young age. The atmosphere of philosophical debate in her household helped spark her intellectual curiosity.
Though her father was an atheist, Beauvoir herself was deeply religious as a child and young teenager. She attended Catholic school and for a time even considered becoming a nun. Her early faith instilled in her the Christian notion of the fundamental equality of all souls before God. This idea of spiritual equality would later inform her feminist philosophy - if all souls are equal, why should women be treated as inferior to men?
Beauvoir's childhood reading also planted important seeds. At age 11, she fell in love with Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," particularly the character of Jo March. Jo was defined not by beauty or virtue, but by her passion for writing and learning. This portrayal of a girl prioritizing intellectual pursuits over domestic duties resonated deeply with young Simone. It made her question why women were expected to give up their dreams while men were encouraged to follow theirs.
Even as a girl, Beauvoir began to contemplate how she could love a man who wouldn't treat her as an equal. She concluded that the only worthy kind of romantic love was a "love-friendship" based on mutual respect and intellectual exchange. This early ideal foreshadowed the unconventional relationship she would later have with Sartre.
Beauvoir's Evolving Relationship with Faith
Religion played a complex and evolving role in shaping Beauvoir's worldview and philosophy. As a child, she was a fervent Catholic who attended mass three times a week and kept a notebook of "saintly resolutions." She saw God's hand in the beauty of the natural world and for a time seriously considered becoming a nun.
However, as she entered her teenage years, Beauvoir began to struggle with doubt. She noticed glaring contradictions between religious teachings and the realities of the world around her. In particular, she was troubled by the double standard that allowed men to live debauched lives while women were held to impossibly high moral standards. She saw this hypocrisy play out in her own family, with her father's drinking and visits to brothels contrasted with her mother's pious frugality.
A disturbing incident at a religious bookshop, where the attendant exposed himself to her, further eroded Beauvoir's faith. She found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the idea of a benevolent God with the many injustices and cruelties she observed in society. Gradually, she began to find it easier to imagine a world without God rather than one where God was responsible for such suffering.
As her faith waned, Beauvoir started exploring ideas that would later be associated with existentialism. At 19, she wrote that "the act is the affirmation of ourselves," presaging the existentialist notion that we define ourselves through our actions rather than having a predetermined essence. This idea that we must create meaning for ourselves in the absence of God became central to her philosophy.
Interestingly, even as she moved towards atheism, Beauvoir retained some of the spiritual impulses from her religious upbringing. She viewed her philosophical calling as similar to that of a prophet - she felt she had important truths to share with the world. The biblical story of Isaiah answering God's call for a messenger resonated deeply with her. She often heard an inner voice whispering "Here I am, here I am," urging her to fulfill her intellectual destiny.
A Transformative Experience at Lourdes
A pivotal moment in Beauvoir's philosophical development came during the summer of 1926, when she was 18 years old. She traveled with her aunt to Lourdes, a famous Catholic pilgrimage site. It was here that Beauvoir had her first profound encounter with intense human suffering, as she witnessed the many sick and disabled pilgrims who had come seeking miraculous cures.
This experience shook Beauvoir to her core. She felt ashamed of what she called her "intellectual and sentimental elegance" in the face of such raw pain and desperation. For a moment, she considered dedicating her life entirely to alleviating the suffering of others through complete self-sacrifice.
However, upon further reflection, Beauvoir reached a more nuanced conclusion that would shape her lifelong philosophical outlook. She decided that while it was important to be good and generous to others, completely negating one's own life and desires was not the answer. Instead, she would strive to live the best life possible while also being of service to others.
This experience led Beauvoir to contemplate whether a moral code could be built primarily on respect and consideration for other people, rather than religious dictates. She reasoned that it was possible, and indeed necessary, to cultivate one's own interests and preserve one's independence while still giving generously to others. In fact, she concluded that maintaining a strong sense of self was crucial for being truly useful to others in the long run.
The Lourdes trip also solidified Beauvoir's belief that philosophy should engage with real life rather than remain in an abstract realm. She wanted to bridge the gap between intellectual understanding and lived experience. Literature, she decided, was the ideal medium for this - it could convey the full spectrum of human feelings and experiences while also exploring philosophical ideas.
Energized by these realizations, the 18-year-old Beauvoir completed a 68-page novel manuscript shortly after returning from Lourdes. She titled it "Tentative d'existence" ("An Attempted Existence"), signaling her desire to probe the nature of human existence through writing. This early work foreshadowed her later novels that would blend philosophy with rich depictions of life.
Early Encounters with Sartre
Contrary to popular belief, Simone de Beauvoir's first encounters with Jean-Paul Sartre were not the earth-shattering, love-at-first-sight moments often portrayed in retellings of their relationship. After excelling in school, Beauvoir began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. In 1928, while preparing for the rigorous agrégation teaching exam at the elite École Normale Supérieure, she met fellow student Sartre.
At the time, Beauvoir was actually in love with Sartre's friend, René Maheu. When Sartre initially tried to arrange a date with her, Beauvoir sent her sister Hélène in her place, describing Sartre as short and extremely ugly. It was only after Maheu failed his exam and had to leave the school that Sartre made more serious overtures towards Beauvoir.
To her surprise, Beauvoir discovered that Sartre's prankster persona at school masked a deeply generous and intellectually curious nature. They quickly developed a strong bond and became lovers. Beauvoir described Sartre as "the incomparable friend of my thought," but even in the early days of their affair, he was not the only person in her romantic life. She continued to harbor feelings for other men, including Maheu.
Importantly, Beauvoir's private journals reveal that she was by no means intellectually subordinate to Sartre, as later accounts often suggested. She was bold enough to criticize his early essays as clumsy. Many of the major philosophical ideas later attributed solely to Sartre actually emerged from their passionate discussions together, with Beauvoir often originating key concepts.
Beauvoir's intellectual prowess is underscored by her performance on the notoriously difficult agrégation exam. At just 21 years old, she became the youngest person ever to pass, ranking just behind Sartre. However, Sartre was 24 at the time and had failed the exam the previous year. This achievement highlights that Beauvoir was very much Sartre's equal, if not his superior, in philosophical ability from the start of their relationship.
The Complexities of an Open Relationship
In 1929, shortly after becoming romantically involved, Sartre and Beauvoir spent time together at her family's country estate in Meyrignac. It was during long walks and talks in the summer meadows that they cemented their bond and decided on the terms of their relationship. They agreed to have an open arrangement that would allow for other "contingent loves" alongside their primary partnership.
This unconventional setup initially appealed to Beauvoir, who was in love with two other men in addition to Sartre at the time. Like Sartre, she believed that a life of freedom and self-realization was the only kind worth living. When Sartre told her he couldn't promise to give all of himself to her exclusively, Beauvoir was excited by the possibilities this openness presented.
However, putting their ideals of freedom into practice proved more complicated than anticipated. One of their first tests came in the form of 19-year-old Olga Kosakiewicz, a brilliant student at the university where Beauvoir taught. Both Beauvoir and Sartre became entranced by Olga, and the three began spending time together as a trio.
Despite their pact of openness, this new dynamic stirred up complex emotions. Beauvoir found herself disturbed by Sartre's obvious infatuation with Olga. Meanwhile, Sartre became upset when Olga took another lover. These reactions revealed the gap between their intellectual ideals of freedom and the messy reality of human emotions and attachments.
This experience made Beauvoir acutely aware of the precarious nature of relationships. She realized that even open arrangements required careful tending and negotiation to survive. Over the years, both Beauvoir and Sartre engaged in relationships with various students. While they viewed these liaisons as freely chosen by all parties, this outlook failed to account for the significant power imbalance between professors and students. In later years, both Beauvoir and Sartre faced criticism for potentially exploiting their positions of authority in these relationships.
Despite its complications, Beauvoir and Sartre's open relationship endured as a lifelong partnership. However, it required ongoing work to navigate the tensions between their philosophical ideals of radical freedom and the realities of human vulnerability and interdependence.
Diverging Philosophical Paths
While Beauvoir and Sartre remained close collaborators throughout their lives, their philosophical paths began to diverge in significant ways. This split became particularly apparent after the 1943 publication of Sartre's seminal work "Being and Nothingness," which cemented his reputation as a leading existentialist thinker.
Although the pair had long discussions about their shared existentialist ideas, there was a key claim in Sartre's book that Beauvoir strongly disagreed with. This disagreement would go on to shape her own philosophical work in important ways.
In "Being and Nothingness," Sartre introduced the concepts of "facticity" and "transcendence." Facticity referred to the given circumstances of one's life - things like gender, race, place of birth, and family background. Transcendence, on the other hand, was the freedom to move beyond these circumstances through one's choices and actions.
Sartre argued that we should never let ourselves be determined by our facticity. He believed all humans had the power to transcend their circumstances, no matter how difficult. To accept one's situation as fixed and unchangeable was to act in "bad faith."
Beauvoir found this argument deeply problematic. She asked: what about people who face systemic oppression based on their facticity? What kind of transcendence could a woman confined to a harem achieve? Or a Jewish person in Nazi-occupied Europe?
She recognized that Sartre's philosophy failed to account for how power structures in society limit the choices available to certain groups. While it sounds simple to say all humans are free, the reality is far more complicated. Not everyone has equal opportunity to "transcend" their circumstances.
Beauvoir began articulating these complications in essays like "Pyrrhus and Cineas" and "The Ethics of Ambiguity." Her central argument - that social and political realities constrain freedom in ways Sartre's philosophy didn't address - would go on to define her major works, including "The Second Sex."
This philosophical divergence highlights Beauvoir's original contributions to existentialist thought. By incorporating analysis of social power dynamics, she developed a more nuanced understanding of human freedom that continues to resonate today.
Beauvoir's Focus on Ethics
Another key area where Beauvoir's philosophy diverged from Sartre's was in her emphasis on ethics. While Sartre focused primarily on the nature of existence and human freedom, he had relatively little to say about how that freedom should be used ethically. In the entirety of "Being and Nothingness," only a few inconclusive pages were devoted to the question of ethics.
Sartre struggled to explain why some choices were more meaningful or valuable than others. He complained that some people don't differentiate between getting drunk alone in their room and becoming a world leader, but he couldn't articulate why the difference between those two choices matters from an existentialist perspective.
Beauvoir, on the other hand, made ethics central to her philosophical project. In her essay "Pyrrhus and Cineas," she uses an ancient anecdote to illustrate why our actions and choices have profound moral weight. In the story, King Pyrrhus is discussing his plans for world conquest with his advisor Cineas. Cineas asks, "What does it matter whether you rest at home or conquer the world?"
Beauvoir answers this question decisively: it matters enormously because conquering the world means exercising immense power over the lives of others. Our actions continuously create the conditions in which other people must live their lives. Therefore, we have an ethical responsibility to consider the consequences of our choices.
Unlike Sartre's often bleak outlook (famously declaring "hell is other people" in his play "No Exit"), Beauvoir emphasized the importance of human interdependence. She believed that a world where we don't meaningfully coexist and impact each other would be a miserable one. Our freedom is valuable precisely because it allows us to engage with others and shape our shared reality.
For Beauvoir, it was not enough to simply seek freedom, as she and Sartre had done in their personal relationship. We must use that freedom responsibly and ethically. Her philosophical standpoint can be summarized as: seek freedom as an individual, but use that freedom in ways that respect and uplift others.
This ethical dimension of Beauvoir's work has proven to be one of her most enduring contributions to philosophy. Her insistence that freedom comes with moral responsibility continues to influence discussions of ethics and social justice today.
Beauvoir's Enduring Legacy
Simone de Beauvoir's life and work challenged the patriarchal assumptions of her time and continue to inspire thinkers today. By insisting on her intellectual autonomy and developing original philosophical ideas, she paved the way for greater recognition of women's contributions in academia and beyond.
Beauvoir's magnum opus, "The Second Sex," remains a foundational text of feminist philosophy. Its central insight - that women are not born but rather become women through social conditioning - revolutionized understanding of gender and continues to shape debates around sex and gender today.
Her ethical philosophy, with its emphasis on freedom and responsibility, provides a framework for grappling with complex moral questions in an increasingly interconnected world. Beauvoir's insistence that we must consider how our choices impact others feels particularly relevant in an age of global challenges like climate change.
Beauvoir's personal life also left a lasting legacy. Her open relationship with Sartre, though not without its complications, helped challenge restrictive social norms around marriage and monogamy. Her openness about her bisexuality was groundbreaking for the time and helped pave the way for greater LGBTQ+ acceptance.
As a public intellectual, Beauvoir modeled engaged citizenship and the importance of applying philosophical ideas to real-world issues. She was an outspoken advocate for women's rights, decolonization, and other progressive causes throughout her life.
Perhaps most importantly, Beauvoir's life story reminds us of the power of determination and self-belief in the face of societal constraints. Despite facing dismissal and belittlement as a female thinker, she persevered to become one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. Her journey from precocious Catholic schoolgirl to renowned existentialist thinker demonstrates the human capacity for intellectual and personal growth.
Conclusion
"Becoming Beauvoir" reveals Simone de Beauvoir as a thinker of profound originality and importance in her own right. Far from being merely Sartre's companion, Beauvoir developed a distinct philosophical voice that in many ways surpassed her famous partner's.
From her childhood grappling with religious faith to her groundbreaking work on feminist philosophy, Beauvoir's intellectual journey was shaped by her unique experiences as a woman in a male-dominated world. Her emphasis on ethics and social responsibility added crucial dimensions to existentialist thought that Sartre's work lacked.
By challenging misconceptions and filling in gaps in our understanding of Beauvoir's life, Kirkpatrick's biography allows us to appreciate the full scope of her contributions. We see how ideas that would later revolutionize feminist thought had their seeds in Beauvoir's earliest experiences and writings.
Ultimately, Beauvoir's legacy is one of courage - the courage to think originally, to live authentically, and to challenge societal norms. Her life and work continue to inspire those seeking to understand the human condition and create a more just world. In "becoming Beauvoir," she carved out a place for women's voices in the philosophical canon and expanded our conception of what it means to live freely and ethically.