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What Can Philosophical Literature Do? the Contribution of Simone De Beauvoir

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What Can Philosophical Literature Do? the Contribution of Simone De Beauvoir What Can Philosophical Literature Do? The Contribution of Simone de Beauvoir by Ashley King Scheu Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Toril Moi, Supervisor ___________________________ David Bell ___________________________ Helen Solterer ___________________________ Anne Garréta Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 ABSTRACT What Can Philosophical Literature Do? The Contribution of Simone de Beauvoir by Ashley King Scheu Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Toril Moi, Supervisor ___________________________ David Bell ___________________________ Helen Solterer ___________________________ Anne Garréta An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by Ashley King Scheu 2011 Abstract “What Can Philosophical Literature Do? The Contribution of Simone de Beauvoir” examines Simone de Beauvoir’s existentialist aesthetic theory of the philosophical novel alongside two fictional works, L’invitée (1943) and Le sang des autres (1945), which constitute Beauvoir’s first experiments in writing works of this hybrid genre. Throughout this dissertation, I mobilize Beauvoir’s theoretical and literary writing to challenge implied notions that literature somehow acts as a supplement to philosophy and that philosophical literature does not offer distinct advantages to the philosophical system. In her theoretical writings on philosophical literature – including “Littérature et métaphysique” (1945), her auto-analysis of her novels in La Force de l’âge (1960), her contribution to the forum, Que peut la littérature? (1965), and her lecture, “Mon expérience d’écrivain” (1966) – Beauvoir confronts a potential impasse in the conception of the philosophical novel, which risks devolving into being either a roman à thèse or a concrete example of a pre-existing philosophical system. This aesthetic impasse becomes particularly acute when Beauvoir begins to write ethical fiction after WWII. This dissertation catalogs Beauvoir’s unique philosophical solutions to this aesthetic problem, and in turning to L’invitée and Le sang des autres , demonstrates that Beauvoir’s aesthetic innovations open up readings of her novels to new insights about her iv contributions to twentieth-century literary and philosophical thought, including her thought on separation from the other – solipsism and skepticism – and on connection to the other – love, Mitsein , and reciprocal recognition. In chapter one, I point to Beauvoir’s formulation of the philosophical-literary impasse in “Littérature et métaphysique” and enumerate how this impasse has worked its way into the critical reception of L’invitée . Beauvoir resolves this aesthetic problem through her concept of the philosophical-literary work as a particularly strong appeal to the reader’s freedom. In chapter two, I read L’invitée with Beauvoir’s aesthetic insights in mind, which has the effect of freeing Beauvoir’s novel from the philosophical binds of Sartre’s theory of the Look in L’être et le néant . In L’invitée , Beauvoir accounts for and also goes beyond conflict and domination by building a multiplicity of looks through her theme of spectacle in her novel (dance, theater). In chapter three, I show how Beauvoir’s turn to ethics and engaged literature after WWII once again raises the specter of the roman à thèse . I thus delineate the differences between engaged literature and the roman à thèse , differences which rely upon the existentialist notion of engaged literature as a dévoilement or unveiling of ethical issues. Finally, in chapter four I show the ways in which Le sang des autres both falls into the traps of the roman à thèse on the one hand and on the other resists that trap through its unveiling of her characters’ world as Mitsein and the ambiguous ethical problem of empathy within Mitsein . v Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my husband, Tim, and to my two baby girls, Sadie and Harper. The time spent away from you while writing this dissertation made me a better partner and mother, and the time spent with you away from this dissertation helped to keep me sane and happy. Here’s to hoping you all read it someday (Sadie and Harper, you’re off the hook at least until you learn to read). vi Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... x Introduction: Is Philosophical Literature Actually Philosophy, and Should We Want It to Be? ................................................................................................................................................... 1 1. Simone de Beauvoir’s Aesthetic Theory of the Philosophical Novel: From the Philosophical Argument to the Philosophical-Literary Appeal ........................................... 29 1.1 Introduction: Does Writing a Good Novel Mean that One Must Abandon Philosophy? ........................................................................................................................... 29 1.2 “Littérature et métaphysique”: Literature as Lived Philosophy. ............................ 34 1.3 Literature and Phenomenology: Starting with Imagined Lived Experience in order to Philosophize about Solipsism. ............................................................................. 40 1.4 The Reliance of Philosophy on the Aesthetic: Another Look at the Opening of L’invitée ................................................................................................................................. 45 1.5 On Literature as Philosophical Argument .................................................................. 48 1.6 “Un mode de communication irréductible à toute autre”: Ambiguity and the Appeal in “Littérature et métaphysique.” ........................................................................ 58 2. Simone de Beauvoir’s L’invitée : Looking for Recognition in the Theater ........................ 63 2.1 Introduction: How Beauvoir’s Philosophical-Literary Appeal Explodes Sartre’s Theory of the Look ............................................................................................................... 63 2.2 A Philosophical Point of Comparison: Conflict in Sartre’s Theory of the Look .... 65 2.3 Seeing a Jacket as Old and Tired: The All or Nothing Proposition of Françoise’s Skepticism .............................................................................................................................. 68 vii 2.4 Bridging the Skeptic’s Gap: From the Old Jacket to Other Human Beings ............ 75 2.5 Dance, Spectacle, and the Objectifying Look .............................................................. 77 2.6 “La même pièce qui se déroulait, dans un même théâtre": Love and Looking with the Other ................................................................................................................................ 84 2.7 Looking On Stage for Recognition: L’invitée and Visual Theories of Theater ........ 94 2.8 Conclusion: Sartre’s Look and the Solipsist’s Choice .............................................. 112 3. Ethics and Literature in Simone de Beauvoir’s Postwar Fiction: Differentiating between Existentialist Committed Literature and the Roman à Thèse ................................ 114 3.1 Introduction: Simone de Beauvoir’s Aesthetics during her “Moral Period” ....... 114 3.2 The Problem with Ethics in Literature: Critical Divisions over Le sang des autres ............................................................................................................................................... 117 3.3 Committed Literature: An Existentialist Solution to the Ethical Novel? .............. 128 3.4 Committed Literature as Dévoilement and Communication: From Beauvoir to Sartre and Back Again. ...................................................................................................... 135 4. Le sang des autres : Beauvoirian Mitsein and an Existential Account of Empathy ......... 147 4.1 Introduction: From an Overwhelming Solidarity to the Solitude in Empathy ... 147 4.2 The Thesis of Solidarity: Allegorical Characters, Redemption, and the Convergence of Moral Plotlines in Le sang des autres ................................................. 149 4.3 Problems with Empathy: The Countercurrent of Solitude in a Novel about Solidarity .............................................................................................................................. 159 4.4 Ambiguous Ethics: From Solidarity to Beauvoirian Mitsein ................................. 171 4.5 The Aggression at the Heart of Empathy: Finding an Ethical Response to the Suffering of the Other ........................................................................................................ 188 4.6 Conclusion: The Literary Scene as a Privileged Space for Unveiling Ethics ........ 197 viii Conclusion ................................................................................................................................
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