Writing war in the feminine: de Beauvoir and Duras

Maurice Rieuneau , Guerre et révolution dans le roman français de 1919 à 1939 ( Paris: Klincksieck, 1974), 88. This novel, Mirabelle de Pampelune ( 1917), was written by Colette Yver.

Karin Hausen , 'The German nation's obligations to the heroes' widows of World War I', in Margaret Randolph Higonnet , Jane Jenson , Sonya Michel and Margaret Collins Weitz (eds), Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 140.

Jacqueline Sainclivier , 'Sociologie de la Résistance: Quelques aspects méthodologiques et leur application en Ile-et-Vilaine', Revue d'histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale, 117 (January 1980 ), 43.

Charles-Louis Foulon , 'Les femmes dans les comités départementaux de Libération: quelques données pour les recherches futures', in Union des Femmes Françaises, Les Femmes dans la Résistance, Colloque à Paris, 22 et 23 novembre 1975 ( Paris: Éditions de Rocher, 1977), 273.

Margaret R. and Patrice L. - R. Higonnet , 'The Double Helix', in Higonnet et al., 38. For example, of 1,059 people named 'Compagnons de la Libération', the highest honour awarded to a Resistance veteran, only 6 were women (Paula Schwartz, 'Redefining resistance: women's activism in wartime France', in Higonnet et al., 144.)

Paula Schwartz discusses many possible reasons for this exclusion and concludes that the notion of what constituted Resistance activity must be reconsidered.

Jane Jenson describes the effect of the discourse of traditional gender roles on post-war public policy affecting women in her article, 'The Liberation and new rights for French Women', in Higonnet et al., 272-84. See also Higonnet and Higonnet.

Dominique Veillon , 'Résister au féminin', Pénélope , xii (1985), 87-92.

Veillon, 87.

Lucie Aubrac , Ils partiront dans l'ivresse ( Paris: Seuil, 1984).

Stanley Hoffmann , Decline or Renewal? France Since the 1930s (New York: Viking, 1974 ),48.

Hoffman, 48.

Charles de Gaulle , Discours et messages. Pendant la guerre , Juin 1940 - Janvier 1946 (1945; rpt. Paris: Plon, 1970 ), 445.

Joan W. Scott , 'Rewriting history', in Higonnet et al., 19-30.

De Gaulle , Discours et messages, 553.

De Beauvoir's Journal de guerre of this period, as well as her Lettres à Sartre, have been published since her death, but these documents must necessarily occupy a different place in her work.

W. M. Frohock describes the participation in this project of Camus, Malraux and Sartre, but does not mention de Beauvoir ( W.M. Frohock , 'The years of shame', The Massachusetts Review (Autumn 1975 ,) 789-97).

Simone de Beauvoir, La Force de l'âge (1960; rpt. Paris: Gallimard. Collection Folio, 1986), 625. Subsequent references appear in my text.

Simone de Beauvoir, La Force des choses (1963 ; rpt. Paris: Gallimard, Collection Folio, 1972), 59.

Higonnet et al., 16.

Virginia M. Fichera , 'Simone de Beauvoir and "The Woman Question": Les Bouches inutiles', in Critical Essays on Simone de Beauvoir, ed. Elaine Marks (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987), 246-58.

Simone de Beauvoir, Le Sang des autres ( 1945 ; Paris: Gallimard, Collection Folio, 1973), 310.

Charles de Gaulle , Mémoires de guerre. L'Appel 1940-1942 (Paris: Plon, 1954), 38. Subsequent references appear in my text.

Veillon, 88-89.

Veillon, 89.

Albert Camus, who himself contributed mightily to the mythology of Resistance solidarity, recognized immediately the relationship between Le Sang des autres and his own vision when he praised de Beauvoir's manuscript, in his own terms, as a 'livre fraternel' (La Force de l'âge, 645).

Simone de Beauvoir, Journal de guerre, septembre 1939 - janvier 1941 (Paris : Gallimard, 1990).

Nancy Chodorow , The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).

The publication of de Beauvoir's Journal de guerre, septembre 1939 - janvier 1941 has made it clear that she was preoccupied with others in addition to Sartre. In her autobiography, all this concern becomes focused on Sartre alone.

Marguerite Duras , La Douleur (Paris: P.O.L., 1985), 10. Subsequent references appear in my text.

In another text in La Douleur the Durassian protagonist becomes unable to eat as soon as she learns of her husband's arrest.

This scene is quite possibly the imaginary point of departure for the image of the dying German in Hiroshima mon amour.

Duras's identification with the position of the mother, revealed in her use of the pronoun le mien, suggests the maternal stance she seems to assume throughout this text.

Scott, 10. Scott's emphasis here on oral as opposed to written histories may suggest that the use of conventional narrative form tends to suppress the expression of this feminine experience of war. If so, it would provide a further explanation of the recourse on the part of de Beauvoir and Duras to the journal, which more nearly approaches the freedom of the oral form.

Marguerite Duras , La Vie matérielle. Marguerite Duras parle à Jérôme Beaujour (Paris: P.O.L. , 1985). In this text she identifies 'la vie matérielle' as the subject of women's conversations: 'Elles ne parlent entre elles que de la vie matérielle. Elles ne sont pas admises dans le domaine de la spiritualité' (:44).