Work · Simone de Beauvoir
The Prime of Life
The second memoir volume follows 1929–1944, as teaching, travel, relationships and writing encounter war and the Occupation.
Understanding the text
It retrospectively examines the shift from confidence in individual independence toward a more historical consciousness.
Key points
- 01
Freedom
Personal arrangements cannot shelter existence from collective events.
- 02
Occupation
Wartime narration requires distinguishing actual action, contemporary perception and later reconstruction.
- 03
Work
Learning to write appears as daily practice involving experiments and failures.
How to read it
Compare wartime episodes with the Wartime Diary, a distinct contemporary document.
Editions & sources
- Consult the reference 1plato.stanford.edunew tab
- Consult the reference 2iep.utm.edunew tab
- Consult the reference 3gallimard.frnew tab
Summaries and key points are original editorial interpretations. They accompany reading the work and do not replace an edition of the text. Editorial method ↗