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A review by kellymat77
The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir
5.0
I ordered this book online as my summer break reading, and ended up reading most of it on a nine-hour Amtrak train from central New York to Boston. I was so engrossed in reading it that I barely remember what the inside of the train looked like.
The Woman Destroyed was originally published in 1967 as La Femme rompue. As the title introduces, it is about women in crisis — dealing with broken marriages, lack of purpose, and old age. The situations De Beauvoir’s characters find themselves in are common, but that everyday quality somehow makes its women more compelling.
The book includes three stories. “The Age of Discretion” is about a woman facing old age and an estranged son, “The Monologue” is about a woman abandoned by her family, and “The Woman Destroyed” is about a woman dealing with her cruel husband’s affair.
The stories are raw depictions of the inner workings of the female mind. I found much of the book intensely relatable, even while disagreeing with or disliking some of the characters. De Beauvoir shines an honest light on aspects of womanhood that go overlooked.
My favorite of the three was the very first story. I liked the protagonist as a character, and although she was controlling, irrational and a terrible mother-in-law, I related to her crisis and the way that she defined the world.
The main struggle of the protagonist is her lost sense of purpose and her tense relationship with her son. Her latest book is a failure and her son has rejected her plans for his life. Both conflicts affect her relationship with her husband.
It is the only story of the book with somewhat of a happy ending — after miscommunications on both sides, the woman and her husband reconcile their issues. I loved the line where they come back together:
“I had recovered the Andre I had never lost and that I never should lose.”
The story discusses aging and loss, and how women can lose their sense of purpose when we get older. For 1967, De Beauvoir’s perspective on female independence and self-worth was very new.
Her characters have interests and opinions beyond the men in their lives, but continue to be devoted wives. With this book, she emphasizes that women are forced to center their lives around men, and demonstrates how that can go terribly wrong.
With the middle story, De Beauvoir pushes the limits of her female characters. The protagonist of this story is crude, unlikable, and spiraling. Honestly, it was refreshing to see a woman pushed to the brink and allowed to be insane, because women in media are allowed to lose it much less than their male counterparts.
The prose in this section was markedly different than the other two stories. It was made up of sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and nonsensical anecdotes. Her style created a rushed, insane atmosphere and really characterized the main character as a woman on the edge.
“I have weapons I’ll use them he’ll come back to me I shan’t go on rotting all alone in this dump with those people on the next floor who trample me underfoot and the ones next door who wake me every morning with their radio … All those fat cows have a man to protect them and kids to wait on them and me nothing”
The last story is the longest and most memorable of the three. It is written as a series of diary entries.
In the story, a woman named Monique discovers that her husband of many years is having an affair, and allows him to continue it in the hopes that it fizzles out. It does not fizzle out, and she ends the book alone and devastated.
I was incredibly frustrated by Monique. I wanted her to leave her husband about 100 different times while reading, but I understood why she didn’t. I felt like I was on the phone with a friend making a bad decision that I couldn’t talk her out of making.
This story really affected me. While reading, I felt like I was Monique, and I closed the book feeling lost and sad. The emotional power of the book, even when translated from its original language, speaks to De Beauvoir’s power as a writer.
I wonder what it would look like if somebody chronicled what goes on in my mind when I’m dealing with something. Would I seem unlikable and cruel, like some of De Beauvoir’s characters, or would I be sympathetic?
Feminist literature like The Woman Destroyed always makes a strong impression on me. There is something remarkable about the universality of womanhood, and how stories from more than 50 years ago can continue to resonate today.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kelly3u2w5/p/book-review-the-woman-destroyed-by?r=1z6ft2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
The Woman Destroyed was originally published in 1967 as La Femme rompue. As the title introduces, it is about women in crisis — dealing with broken marriages, lack of purpose, and old age. The situations De Beauvoir’s characters find themselves in are common, but that everyday quality somehow makes its women more compelling.
The book includes three stories. “The Age of Discretion” is about a woman facing old age and an estranged son, “The Monologue” is about a woman abandoned by her family, and “The Woman Destroyed” is about a woman dealing with her cruel husband’s affair.
The stories are raw depictions of the inner workings of the female mind. I found much of the book intensely relatable, even while disagreeing with or disliking some of the characters. De Beauvoir shines an honest light on aspects of womanhood that go overlooked.
My favorite of the three was the very first story. I liked the protagonist as a character, and although she was controlling, irrational and a terrible mother-in-law, I related to her crisis and the way that she defined the world.
The main struggle of the protagonist is her lost sense of purpose and her tense relationship with her son. Her latest book is a failure and her son has rejected her plans for his life. Both conflicts affect her relationship with her husband.
It is the only story of the book with somewhat of a happy ending — after miscommunications on both sides, the woman and her husband reconcile their issues. I loved the line where they come back together:
“I had recovered the Andre I had never lost and that I never should lose.”
The story discusses aging and loss, and how women can lose their sense of purpose when we get older. For 1967, De Beauvoir’s perspective on female independence and self-worth was very new.
Her characters have interests and opinions beyond the men in their lives, but continue to be devoted wives. With this book, she emphasizes that women are forced to center their lives around men, and demonstrates how that can go terribly wrong.
With the middle story, De Beauvoir pushes the limits of her female characters. The protagonist of this story is crude, unlikable, and spiraling. Honestly, it was refreshing to see a woman pushed to the brink and allowed to be insane, because women in media are allowed to lose it much less than their male counterparts.
The prose in this section was markedly different than the other two stories. It was made up of sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and nonsensical anecdotes. Her style created a rushed, insane atmosphere and really characterized the main character as a woman on the edge.
“I have weapons I’ll use them he’ll come back to me I shan’t go on rotting all alone in this dump with those people on the next floor who trample me underfoot and the ones next door who wake me every morning with their radio … All those fat cows have a man to protect them and kids to wait on them and me nothing”
The last story is the longest and most memorable of the three. It is written as a series of diary entries.
In the story, a woman named Monique discovers that her husband of many years is having an affair, and allows him to continue it in the hopes that it fizzles out. It does not fizzle out, and she ends the book alone and devastated.
I was incredibly frustrated by Monique. I wanted her to leave her husband about 100 different times while reading, but I understood why she didn’t. I felt like I was on the phone with a friend making a bad decision that I couldn’t talk her out of making.
This story really affected me. While reading, I felt like I was Monique, and I closed the book feeling lost and sad. The emotional power of the book, even when translated from its original language, speaks to De Beauvoir’s power as a writer.
I wonder what it would look like if somebody chronicled what goes on in my mind when I’m dealing with something. Would I seem unlikable and cruel, like some of De Beauvoir’s characters, or would I be sympathetic?
Feminist literature like The Woman Destroyed always makes a strong impression on me. There is something remarkable about the universality of womanhood, and how stories from more than 50 years ago can continue to resonate today.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kelly3u2w5/p/book-review-the-woman-destroyed-by?r=1z6ft2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true