The Prime Life: Simone De Beauvoir Analysis

     Ms. Beauvoir has not experienced freedom before she starts her writing at the days of her freedom. She was amused and in awe about the little things that she considers to be freedom. For example, she writes, “I was free to come and go as I pleased. I could get home with the milk, read in bed all night, sleep till midday, shut myself up for forty-eight hours at a stretch, or go out on the spur of the moment” (p. 54). She showed her excitement in all the little things in life that she had the freedoms to do now. It seemed as if she did not have any freedom before this so when she reached this point she would eat, dress, and have a relationship with whom she pleased. Ms. Beauvoir explains, “these duties did not even prove a burden to me since I felt that by performing them, I was involved in a new sort of game: I was playing at being a grownup” (p. 54). She was doing all these adult activities for the first time and was surprisingly excited to be doing them. These tasks of “working on my budget, borrowing, paying back, and adding up figures” normally would be boring or cumbersome to an adult, but not to her.

    Ms. Beauvoir meets up with her love, Sartre, again in October while she is in Paris. Even though her parents do not agree with her being in a relationship with Sartre she still continues to have an intimate relationship with him. In her relationship with Sartre she wrote, “We had no external limitations, no overriding authority, no imposed pattern of existence. We created our own links with the world, and freedom was the very essence of our existence” (p. 59). What she describes their relationship to be is different than other young people’s relationships because they still find themselves free to do what they please and not be held back by one another.

Word count: 325

Comments

  1. Maddie PrillamanJanuary 20, 2021 at 6:41 AM

    I think you explained her feelings of freedom well through the quotes you used. Also, how excited and eager she seemed to finally have these adult experiences that, to most other adults, seem mundane. I used similar quotes for my bog post as well. I thought it was interesting to read how her life changed once she was able to have freedom in her daily life and in her relationships.

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  2. Bella TerblancheJanuary 20, 2021 at 6:42 AM

    I found this concept intriguing because she had so little freedom to begin with, that when she finally got a little taste of it she went off the rails slightly. I think she took freedom and used it at its full advantage which is interesting because it is the complete opposite of how her family raised her to be. This happens a lot even in todays culture where parents are helicoptering over their children and once that child gets a second of freedom it usually doesn't end well because they haven't been exposed to anything their entire life.

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  3. livvcastroJanuary 20, 2021 at 6:47 AM

    Emmy,
    I agree with your analysis of the first two quotes that you chose. I also analyzed those quotes in my blog. I was surprised at how Simone described work as a game or play-pretend. One of the hard things about being an adult is working and the way she describes it shows that she is not phased by it. This goes to show what type of person she was. She was not bothered by the ‘boring tasks” but instead excited by them. This also shows how much freedom means to her because she is willing to make chores, such as working, a fun part of her life rather than a tedious part of it.

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