Did Simone de Beauvoir Reach Higher Ground?
In “A Woman Destroyed," de Beauvoir explores women’s existential struggle in a patriarchal society, in desperate pursuit of failed relationships, relentlessly chasing men who beat and betray them.
Twenty-six days after they eloped, he went missing. ‘I apologize for springing this on you so suddenly. This confession, which we can talk about more another time, is perhaps one that you already possess a psychic understanding of,’ Chantal wrote in her journal.
It was the summer of 2019, and their two-person book club met every third Wednesday at The Reserve near the old Chelsea Market. This month, Chantal and Laura were discussing “A Woman Destroyed.” Simone de Beauvoir’s Monique struggles with an identity crisis that stems from her husband’s infidelity and the disintegration of her marriage. She discovers that her husband, Maurice, is having an affair with a younger woman. This revelation shatters her sense of security and self-esteem.
Chantal felt the story mirrored her experience. The tumultuous relationship with Laurance, a surreptitious drug addict she met at a Holiday party in Hackney in December 2014. De Beauvoir writes the story as a diary, detailing Monique’s emotional turmoil and struggle with identity, self-worth, and societal roles. Monique is forced to confront her sacrifices and feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and loneliness. She questions her life choices and why she has adhered to her roles as a wife and mother.
Four years prior, Chantal married Laurence in a quiet City Hall ceremony. Only a select few were present—her sister, Alice, and his parents, Rose and Alistair—and no one else knew. She preferred the secrecy and thought it exuded the pinnacle of romance—just two souls uniting. Laurance had wanted a grander affair, with friends and family in attendance, a chance to show off. That kind of love didn’t resonate with Chantal.
Monique’s journey is a painful exploration of her inadequacies and strengths. She vacillates between moments of despair and attempts to reclaim her independence. As she confronts her husband’s infidelity, she also begins to confront her sense of identity and the societal expectations imposed upon her as a woman. She has devoted herself to her family, often neglecting her needs and desires.
Her struggle symbolizes the broader themes in de Beauvoir’s work, particularly the existential challenges women face in asserting their autonomy and finding meaning in a world that often seeks to define them by their relationships with others.
Chantal had thought that she deeply loved Laurance. When she confessed her love to Laurence, they sat on a brick step in a friend’s semi-detached backyard in Herne Hill, South London. Between puffs of rolled-up cigarettes, they enthusiastically discussed Prokofiev and the nature of Romantic music when she seized Laurence by the collar of his T-shirt, pulling him down to her. They fell back into the damp grass of the midsummer night. She whispered, “I’m falling in love with you.”
Wide-eyed, she looked at him and felt herself deflate. He swiftly stood up, assuming his usual contrapposto posture of contemplation, and he began to wax poetic, pacing and philosophizing on the meaning of love. He was lost in prophetic rumination. Chantal was his audience of one for this lecture.
He did not reciprocate Chantal’s emotions. He strode around her, gesturing wildly as if defying the constraints of gravity. He expounded on his current understanding of love. “I love my parents; I still love Helena. I don’t know what it would mean to love you,” he declared. Hearing those words was harsh but only made Chantal love him more. What a deep thinker he was! She thought. She could feel Simone’s astonishment at how twisted women can be.
Laurance was the first person who made her feel deserving of love. She thought of their relationship as intellectually gratifying and almost magical. A connection she knew she would never experience again, and she was perfectly alright with that. She could hear Simone say that one should not lose oneself in another person.
When they woke up the next day, Laurence drew her close to him and confessed, “Of course, I love you, Chantal. Why didn’t I say that? You are my love.” Her heart melted. She was slowly dissolving into the identity of being Laurence’s lover. She thought Laurence’s morning musings were sweeter because he had slept on it. He deliberated, reflected, and ultimately understood that he was in love. She loved him dearly. Last night’s crushing blow was overshadowed by her desire to be loved.
Sitting in a coffee shop in Gowanus, twenty-six days after their elopement, she was hunched over a bar stool, facing away from the others. She stared out the window, fixated on the F trains as they transitioned from overground to underground. (List the stations) It was an industrial Romance that captivated her. Yet, her phone consumed her. She repeatedly dialed Laurence’s number, shaking her legs anxiously on the bar stool’s footrest. She hadn’t heard from him in three weeks. She felt terrified and ashamed. Her husband was missing, and she had no one to confide in.
It must have been a terrifying ordeal for him. Crack is paralyzing; it induces paranoia in the body, not just the mind. Every fiber of one’s being becomes enshrouded in hallucinations of fear. Visual, auditory, and perceptual senses intertwine, rendering everything dark and evil. The true essence of oneself seems to vanish, and an external force pursues relentlessly. Nowhere feels safe.
Chantal was living in a rented room she found on Facebook Marketplace. Lying awake on the broken futon, she would wait for Laurence’s frantic 2 AM calls. It was 7 AM in London, and he was standing alone in Finsbury Park. He felt he was in danger. Gypsies were after him. Romani people were hiding in trees, hurling cats at him. That’s what he told her. It was utterly wild. But for Laurence, it was absolute truth.
She wished she could envelop him and squeeze him back to himself. Her warm embrace would remind him of their love if she could get to him. She sat in bed and turned to look out her window, facing the entrance to the hospital next door. A metal door screeched open and closed all night. Emergency lights flickered, filling the darkness of her sleepless nights. The whaling sirens didn’t bother her; her purpose was clear: she would rescue Laurence from addiction and self-destruction.
Just before Memorial Day, her desperation palpable, she boarded a plane to London. When she passed border control and stepped into the Arrivals at Heathrow Terminal 5, Laurence was teetering on the edge of the barricade. He looked disheveled and worn, attempting to hide the beer he was clutching. When he embraced her, it was as if his entire being pressed against her; she felt the heaviness of his burden shift onto her. She was destroyed.
Laurence rocked his hips against her. An intimate gesture that had often been a source of comfort. But today, his scent was repulsive. His oily, jagged stubble pierced her dehydrated skin as he pressed his cheek into her, hissing, “Buy me some rolling tobacco, won’t you?”
[1] “A Woman Destroyed” is a collection of three short stories written by Simone de Beauvoir, a prominent French existentialist philosopher and feminist. While the stories do not delve into explicit philosophical arguments, they reflect Beauvoir’s philosophical ideas and concerns about women’s experiences and existential themes.