1908 – 1986
Born in 1908 to an agnostic father and a devout catholic mother. People say that Simone was inspired to become an intellectual because she was caught between her father’s pagan morals and her mother’s rigid religious standards.
When Simone was two and a half her sister, Poupette, was born. They became and
stayed friends for life. What had been an important and strong relationship with God slowly dwindled, as Simone became more and more interested in nature. She came to the realization that earthly joys are not to be given up (as her religion espoused) but instead,
to be appreciated. This way of thinking changed Simone for life. She lived
passionately and for the moment. In giving up religion she gave up the idea of
living for eternity. When Simone was 21 she lived with her granny and studied philosophy at Sorbonne.
She joined a group of students, who, at that time, had a bad reputation. They were Paul Nizan, Andre Hermaid, and Jean-Paul Satre. Satre became her best friend and intellectual equal. Together, they decided that nothing would ever be covert between them.
He proposed at one time, and even though she was scared of separation at this time in her life, she declined. She felt strongly that her relationship not be institutionalized. Soon they would form a trio with a student, Olga, at the lycee. They would all stay up late at night except
that, Simone, who could not catch sleep in the morning, got very sick.
She spent the next few months with pneumonia in a sanitarium. When she got out, Sartre and Olga were just friends. Simone based one of her first books; She Came to Stay, on this experience.
By 1943 Simone had, in addition to She Came to Stay, completed four more works. They consisted of The Blood of Others, Pyrrhus et Cineas, Les Bouches Intulites (Useless Mouths), and All Men are Mortal. Her ideas shifted from herself to the external and universal instances of life in her third volume, Force of Circumstance. Within this piece she discussed vital issues of the day-confusion and rage regarding human freedoms and the French/Algerian War. It is was a cornerstone piece that marked her increasing concern for problems of the world. She completed the memoir at the age of 49, eighteen years after beginning it. This is known as her most popular and dramatic work.
Next, she wrote The Second Sex, where she explains that, “…far from suffering from being a woman, I have on the contrary, from the age 21, accumulated the advantages of both sexes.” And ten years later, in 1971, she completed her final book of memoirs, All Said and Done.
Later in her life, she was dedicated to the feminist movement and spoke out against the way the French institutionalized poor unmarried mothers. She was also a committed atheist who felt strongly that religion supplied a reason to evade truth.
Her writing was reflective. She worked and traveled to China, (what was then) the USSR, Cuba, Japan, Egypt, Israel, and Brazil. She stayed with Satre until he died in 1980. Their relationship has gone down in history, not only for being the unity of two brilliant thinkers, but also for its equal and genuine qualities, so uncommon for the day. She was openly bisexual throughout her life.