Who was Simone de Beauvoir? Explain the corrosive effects of WWI and WWII on ideas of progress and traditional ideologies. What role did de Beauvoir play in the post WWII world?

Who was Simone de Beauvoir? Explain the corrosive effects of WWI and WWII on ideas of progress and traditional ideologies. What role did de Beauvoir play in the post WWII world?

Simone de Beauvoir was one of the most important cultural historians of the twentieth century. She was also one of the most thoughtful critics of society. Her insights might have been a direct result of the mental stimulation she and her contemporaries provided to each other. Known primarily for her non-fiction, de Beauvoir was a philosophical crusader. She explored the roles of women in society in The Second Sex, a work placing her in the vanguard of the feminist movement. Later, she dealt with the challenges of the aged members of society, in The Coming of Age and other works. While Jean-Paul Sartre often preferred speeches and magazine editorials, de Beauvoir constructed long works with astounding clarity.

The corrosive effects of WWI and WWII

When Sartre was conscripted in 1939, de Beauvoir was forced to consider European politics. Until that time, she was focused on teaching, writing, and theoretical debates among friends. Suddenly the debates were about the very real nature of life, death, and personal choices.

Possibly the most influential work by Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness was published in 1943. As noted in the commentaries, there is some debate as to Simone de Beauvoir's influence upon Sartre. Did this work, edited by de Beauvoir, shape her thoughts, or are the marks of her intellect to be found in Sartre's great work? That scholars still debate the role each played in the other's works is indicative of how closely they were linked.

In the fall of 1943, de Beauvoir's first novel was published. She Came to Stay was a fictionalized account of her relationships with Sartre and Olga Kosakiewicz. Living in occupied Paris, de Beauvior and Sartre maintained close ties to several of their former students. In addition to Olga, Nathalie Sorokine and Jacques-Laurent Bost completed a unique social group. These three individuals were dedicated to Sartre and de Beauvoir intellectually, but also in a more complex manner.

Sartre and Beauvoir spent the war years with an intimate group of friends called “the family.” […] Among the members of “the family” were to be counted Olga and Jacques-Laurent Bost, Sartre's former student, both of whom were significantly younger than Beauvoir and Sartre.The family frequently pooled resources and cooked together. Since she lived in hotels and ate at cafés most of her life, this was Beauvoir's only real experience of cooking, to say nothing of the other domestic duties she was forced into adopting during the war. It is significant that the future author of The Second Sex was so unencumbered of domestic duties most of her life.

Philosophical exploration, especially studying the role of individual choice, was de Beauvoir's academic ...