Simone De Beauvoir's Existentialist Perspective On Women And Their Literary Creation

Simone de Beauvoir is famous for her distinct personal experience and innumerable literary works. She is the center of existentialism movement and woman's rights movement. Her works challenged the established system, which greatly affected human's especially woman's concept after the World WarⅡ. She sought for freedom all her life and had set a good image in public. There are plenty of reports about her life in western countries, however, there is few report about her in China. Chinese people have paid some attention to her distinct personal experience or sometimes took her as the dependency of Sartre, however, we always ignore her independent status as a philosopher and a literator. So there is a promoting field in the research of Simone de Beauvoir in China.This thesis mainly focuses on Simone de Beauvoir's female philosophy of existentialism and the materialization of her philosophy. We talk about it in three aspects.Firstly, Simone de Beauvoir's distinct personal experience plays an important part in the formulation of her personality. And her distinct personality embodies in her works, which appeal innumerable readers. In Chapter One, this paper only analysis the changing period of Simone de Beauvoir from a conservative lady to a woman who resists against tradition and pursues freedom. It also introduces the influence on her from the "love contract" between her and Sartre. I'd like to use bisexuality to generalize her character. The bisexuality should have represented balance and harmonious character, but it is behaved in a contradictive way in Simone de Beauvoir.Secondly, The Second Sex centrally expresses her female philosophy of existentialism. Simone de Beauvoir quotes "the other" conception from Sartre's existentialism. She analyses the passive and negative roles that woman plays compared with man. Simone de Beauvoir breaks Sartre's exclusivelism and widely learns from Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Engels. Simone de Beauvoir comprehensively reveals woman's survival environment and is always in search of liberating woman. In addition, The Second Sex uses female philosophy of existentialism into the criticism literature; The Second Sex breaks the female myth written by male writers and expresses some important literature conceptions.Lastly, Simone de Beauvoir's most favorite way to express her idea is to write novels. We choose three typically novels written by her from different periods and analyses the female images she creates. Most of the female characters in her novels are facing the problems of how to walk out from the difficulties and how to become independent. Although they have their own ways, all of them overcome the difficulties. These female images represent Simone de Beauvoir's active and optimistic philosophy, and also represent her think about female problems in different periods.In all, although the existentialism movement and woman's rights movement are weaken, Simone de Beauvoir observes woman from an existentialism view and has done a lot of literary research, which in deed pioneer a valuable field.