Beauvoir

Beauvoir and Woolf both discuss and mention the connection between women and fiction. However, Beauvoir asked an important question in regards to women and the important part they have in literature. He stated and asked, “The myth of woman plays a considerable part in literature; but what is its importance in daily life? To what extent does it affect the customs and conduct of individuals?” Beauvoir also discusses various myths of women, one being that women purify the unchangeable part of the human condition. Throughout the passage Beauvoir responded his own questions, as in when he stated “This is the lot assigned to woman in the patriarchate; but it is in no way a vocation, any more than slavery is the vocation of the slave.” Meaning women have been automatically given a role to them they have inherited this role that many believe cannot be changed. This may also lead to the response of his second question, on how it impacts the behavior of an individual, in which where he stated “men use them as a pretext for increasing the misery of the feminine lot still further, for instance by refusing to grant woman any right to sexual pleasure, by making her work like a beast of burden.” I think what he is expressing is that woman play a significant role in literature but not as significant as the male role and the way this idea is being portrayed through literature is the way that is happening in reality.