Comment and Critique

1. Comment and Critique Source: Marks, Elaine. Critical Essays on Simone de Beauvoir. Boston, Massachusetts: G. K. Hall & Co., 1987. Juliet Mitchell argues that Beauvoir either ignores or fails to understand the Freudian concept of the unconscious; Gerda Lerner argues that Beauvoir’s analysis of women is fundamentally ahistorical and that women have indeed had a history and a culture; (3)

2. Mary Evans argues that Beauvoir rejects the “real” problems faced by women and men and fails to recognize those needs and desires that do not originate on the conscious level. (3-4)

3. Jean-Paul Sartre Talks of Beauvoir Sartre: I think she’s beautiful. I’ve always thought her beautiful…She has a man’s intelligence and a woman’s sensitivity…She has the right relationship with herself. It’s not only a matter of literature, it’s a matter of life. (15-17)

4. Colette Audry Talks of Beauvoir It is only through the strength and seriousness of her [Beauvoir] mind, her good will, her desire to be in tune with grown-ups that, day after day, she came to crash with the contradictions of a small world…and to realize that, in the last analysis, she could count on no one but herself. (20)

5. Colette Audry Talks of Beauvoir [Beauvoir] fully conquered her freedom…because what she was primarily looking for was not even freedom but truth in the world and in her own existence. (21)

6. Alice Schwazer Talks of Beauvoir “I am a feminist,” Beauvoir now declared publicly, and so committed herself to the need for a separate, autonomous women’s movement, while also criticising political parties in capitalist and socialist countries alike. (25)

7. Alice Schwazer Talks of Beauvoir [Beauvoir says] motherhood is not a woman’s life work. That the capacity for biological motherhood does not automatically mean a duty to be a social mother…motherhood often makes slaves of women and ties them to the house and/or to their role. That we must therefore put an end to this kind of mother, and the division of labor along male/female lines. (26)

8. Alice Schwazer Talks of Beauvoir Beauvoir is one of the few women philosophers of modern times, a leading theoretician and a distinguished journalist. She is recognised as a major literary figure both by the critics and by her enormous public who devour her novels and memoirs. It is a record to be proud of. (28)

9. Alice Schwazer Talks of Beauvoir [Beauvoir] is a woman who refuses to accept her role passively, who has taken a stand, flouting all convention and opposition. She never marries—yet her love is deep and faithful. She does not have any children—yet a large part of the younger generation sees her as a model in areas of vital importance….She does not tie herself down, yet she has her roots. (28)

10. Alice Schwazer Talks of Beauvoir In The Second Sex, [Beauvoir’s] physiological, psychological, economic and historical study of the internal and external reality of women in a male-dominated world, is a pioneering work without parallel. Even today, thirth-three years after it was first published, it is still the most exhaustive and far-reaching theoretical work on the new feminism. (29)

11. Alice Schwazer Talks of Beauvoir Beauvoir shows us that we can and must shake ourselves out of our slave mentality, though we have been moulded by the dictates of femininity and are trapped by our oppressors, even in our beds. She embodies the existentialist demand that one change from object to subject, refuse to be passive and act in spite of everything, and thus—and at this price—become a human being. (29)

12. Alice Schwazer Talks of Beauvoir In the last sentence of The Second Sex,Beauvoir expresses the wish that one day men and women will “unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.” That is undoubtedly the most daring and most noble vision of a society delivered from the pressure of sex (and other) roles, and from master-slave relationships. (30)

13. Elizabeth Hardwick Talks of Beauvoir The Second Sex is extremely repetitious and some things are repeated more often than others, although nearly every idea is repeated more often once. (50)

14. Elizabeth Hardwick Talks of Beauvoir The Second Sex begins with biological material showing that in nature there are not always two sexes and reproduction may take place asexually….These biological and anthropological matters are of enormous fascination, but often, and a bit in this present work, too, a false and dramatic use is made of them: they carry a weight of mystification and intensity quite unjustified when the subject is the modern woman. (51)

15. Virginia Woolf’s “Professions for Women” This is the paper read to the Women’s Service League by Virginia Woolf in 1942. My profession is literature, but there are fewer experiences in literature for women than in other fields. However, Fanny Burney, Aphra Behn, Harriet Martineau, Jane Austen and George Eliot were famous women writers before us. (1345)

16. Writing was a reputable and harmless occupation. No demand was made upon the family purse. For ten shillings and sixpence one can buy paper enough to write all the plays of Shakespeare. The cheapness of writing paper is, of course, the reason why women have succeeded as writers before they have succeeded in the other professions. (1345)

17. Articles have to be about something. While I was writing the articles, I was going to review books and should need to do battle with a certain phantom. I called her “The Angel in the House.” It was she who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her. (1345)

18. “The Angel in the house” was intensely sympathetic and charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. She was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathized always with the minds and wishes of others. (1346)

19. “The Angel in the House” whispered: “My dear, you are a young woman. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; be pure. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own.” And she made as if to guide my pen. I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse would be that I acted in self-defense. Had I not killed her, she would have killed me. (1346)

20. When you put pen to paper, you cannot review a novel without having a mind of your own, without expressing what you think to be the truth about human relations, morality, sex. Killing “the Angel in the House” was part of the occupation of a woman writer. Then, the young woman had to be herself. (1346)

21. There is nothing so delightful in the world as telling stories. A novelist’s chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible. He has to induce in himself a state of perpetual lethargy. He wants life to proceed with the utmost quiet and regularity—the imagination. This state is the same both for men and women. (1347)

22. She was letting her imagination sweep unchecked round every rock and cranny of the world that lies submerged in the depths of our unconscious being. The consciousness of a woman who speaks the truth about her passions had roused her from her artist’s state of unconsciousness. (1347)

23. These are two of the adventures of my professional life. The first one is killing “The Angel in the House.” The second one is that the obstacles against me are still immensely powerful. A woman has still many ghosts to fight and many prejudices to overcome. There is nothing to prevent a woman from being a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant, but there are still many phantoms and obstacles looming in her way. (1348)

24. You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men. You are able to pay the rent. You are earning your five hundred pounds a year. But this freedom is just a beginning. The room is your own, but it is still bare. It has to be furnished; it has to be decorated; it has to be shared. (1348)

25. Wolfgang Iser’s “Interaction between Text and Reader Central to the reading of every literary work is the interaction between its structure and its recipient. (1673) The text itself simply offers “schematized aspects” through which the aesthetic object of the work can be produced. (1674)

26. The literary work has two poles, i.e., the artistic and the aesthetic: the artistic pole is the author’s text, and the aesthetic is the realization accomplished by the reader. As the reader passes through the various perspectives offered by the text, and relates the different views and patterns to one another, he sets the work in motion, and so sets himself in motion, too. (1674)

27. R. D. Laing writes: “I may not actually be able to see myself as others see me, but I am constantly acting in the light of the actual or supposed attitudes, opinions, needs, and so on the other has in respect of me.” (1674)

28. In The Politics of Experience, Laing says, “Your experience of me is invisible to me and my experience of you is invisible to you. I cannot experience your experience. You cannot experience my experience. We are both invisible men. All men are invisible to one another. Experience is man’s invisibility to man.” (1675)

29. Contact therefore depends upon our continually filling in a central gap in our experience. Thus, dyadic and dynamic interaction comes about only because we are unable to experience how we experience one another, which in turn proves to be a propellant to interaction. (1675)

30. Dyadic interaction is not given by nature but arises out of an interpretative activity, which will contain a view of others and, unavoidably, an image of ourselves. The partners in dyadic interaction can ask each other questions in order to ascertain how far their images have bridged the gap of the inexperienceability of one another’s experiences. The reader, however, can never learn from the text how accurate or inaccurate are his views of it. (1675)

31. It is the very lack of ascertainability and defined intention that brings about the text-reader interaction. (1675) It is the gaps, the fundamental asymmetry between text and reader, that give rise to communication in the reading process. (1676) The imbalance between text and reader is undefined. And it is this very indeterminacy and blanks that increase the variety of communication possible. (1676)

32. What is missing from the apparently trivial scenes, the gaps arising out of the dialogue—this is what stimulates the reader into filling the blanks with projections. As the unsaid comes to life in the reader’s imagination, so the said “expands” to take on greater significance than might have been supposed: even trivial scenes can seem surprisingly profound. (1676)

33. The gaps function as a kind of pivot on which the whole text-reader relationship revolved. Hence, the structured blanks of the text stimulate the process of ideation to be performed by the reader. The blanks leave open the connection between textual perspectives, and so spur the reader into coordinating these perspectives and patterns within the text. (1677)

34. Negation invokes familiar and determinate elements or knowledge only to cancel them out. What is cancelled remains in view, and thus brings about modifications in the reader’s attitude toward what is familiar or determinate in relation to the text. Blanks indicate that the different segments and patterns of the text are to be connected. When the schemata and perspectives have been linked together, the blanks disappear. (1677)

35. A narrative text is composed of a variety of perspectives, which outline the author’s view and also provide access to what the reader is meant to visualize. (1677) The object itself is a product of interconnection, the structuring of which is to a great extent regulated and controlled by blanks. (1678)

36. The blank as an empty space between segments enables them to be joined together, thus constituting a field of vision for the wandering viewpoints. Now, the segments present in the field are structurally of equal value, and the fact that they are brought together highlights their affinities and their differences. (1678)

37. The segments of the referential field are given a common framework, which allows the reader to relate affinities and differences and so to grasp the patterns underlying the connections. This framework is also a blank, which acquires an act of ideation in order to be filled. (1678)

38. The blank exercises significant control over all the operations that occur within the referential field of the wandering viewpoint. The segments have been connected and a determinate relationship established, a referential field is formed which constitutes a particular reading moment. (1678)

39. The segment on which the viewpoint focuses in each particular moment becomes the theme. Whenever a segment becomes a theme, the previous one must lose its thematic relevance and be turned into a marginal, thematically vacant position, which can be and usually is occupied by the reader so that he may focus on the new thematic segment. (1679)

40. Blanks refer to suspended connectability in the text, vacancies refer to nonthematic segments within the referential field of the wandering viewpoint. (1679) Transformations take place whenever the norms are the foregrounded theme and the perspective of the hero remains the background conditioning the reader’s viewpoint. (1680)

41. The transformations brought about by the theme-and-background interaction are closely connected with the changing position of the vacancy within the referential field. Once a theme has been grasped, conditioned by the marginal position of the preceding segment, a feedback is bound to occur, thus retroactively modifying the shaping influence of the reader’s viewpoint. (1680)

42. The vacancy transforms the referential field of the moving viewpoint into a self-regulating structure, which proves to be one of the most important links in the interaction between text and reader, and which prevents the reciprocal transformation of textual segments from being arbitrary. (1681)

43. The blank in the fictional text induces and guides the reader’s constitutive activity. The tension that occurs within the field between heterogeneous perspective segments is resolved by the theme-and-background structure, which makes the viewpoint focus on one segment as the theme, to be grasped from the thematically vacant position now occupied by the reader as his standpoint. (1681)

44. The reader fills in the blank in the text, thereby bringing about a referential field; the blank arising in turn out of the referential field is filled in by way of the theme-and-background structure; and the vacancy arising from juxtaposed themes and backgrounds is occupied by the reader’s standpoint, from which the various reciprocal transformations lead to the emergence of the aesthetic object. (1681)

45. Participation means that the reader is not simply called upon to “internalize” the positions given in the text, but he is induced to make them act upon and so transform each other, as a result of which the aesthetic object begins to emerge. (1681)

46. The shifting blank is responsible for a sequence of colliding images, which condition each other in the time flow of reading. The discarded image imprints itself on its successor, even though the latter is meant to resolve the deficiencies of the former. In this respect, the images hang together in a sequence, and it is by this sequence that the meaning of the text comes alive in the reader’s imagination. (1682)