Monologue

Name: Monologue
ISBN: 9787532756858

Simone de Beauvoir / 张香筠Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaSep 2018

4.1

Word count: 113K words
Chapters: 4
ISBN: 9787532756858

Report an error Find this book

Summary

Published in 1967, The Monologue is a collection of short stories belonging to Simone de Beauvoir's later literary output, alongside her published essays, novels, autobiographies, and letters. All three stories center on women. "The Age of Discretion" tells of a middle-aged professional woman's discontent with her son's marriage and career prospects; "The Monologue" is the rambling of a single mother, whose neurotic words conceal the anguish of her younger daughter's suicide; "The Woman Destroyed" uses diary form to trace a housewife's inner journey through her husband's affair. Beauvoir thus portrays three women in crisis: one who prides herself on being a good mother and tries to control everything; one full of resentment and anxiety about her family and children; and one abandoned by her husband, at a loss. The collection carries considerable sociological significance, reflecting Beauvoir's view of women's fate and living conditions.

Editor's review

The Monologue is a strikingly powerful novella by Simone de Beauvoir, first published in 1967. Unlike her widely known philosophical work The Second Sex or her autobiographical novels, it probes, with an almost clinical detachment, the psychological predicaments of three women caught in marriage, family, and emotional relationships. The book consists of three independent yet internally connected "monologues," presenting the inner worlds of a wife betrayed by her husband, a mother consumed by the need to control, and a young woman driven to despair. Beauvoir abandons grand social narrative to focus on the flow of consciousness, the sophistry of self-deception, and repressed anger and loneliness. Her prose is sharp as a scalpel, precisely peeling away the warm surface of middle-class family life to expose the emotional desert and spiritual suffocation beneath. The work is another profound literary enactment of Beauvoir's existentialist thought, asking: when women are trapped in the cage of roles society assigns them, how can their "self" speak, and how do they move toward alienation and destruction in their relations with others? Reading The Monologue demands a certain psychological fortitude; it offers no consolation but holds up an unsettling mirror, forcing readers to confront the spiritual tragedies overlooked in everyday life.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in existentialist literature and philosophy who wish to see thought embodied in fiction
Literary lovers drawn to deep psychological portraiture and the analysis of complex inner lives
Readers seeking to know Beauvoir's important literary work beyond The Second Sex
Readers reflective about the power structures behind gender roles and family relations

Not a good fit for

Readers looking for light entertainment or warm, healing stories
Readers uncomfortable with stream-of-consciousness technique or a bleak, oppressive narrative style

Reading tips

Read the three monologues as a whole, to see how Beauvoir uses different perspectives and social classes to sketch a three-dimensional picture of women's existence.
Pay attention to the self-contradiction and self-persuasion in the characters' speech, the key to Beauvoir's exposure of "bad faith," a core existentialist concept.
After reading, consider in light of Beauvoir's philosophy how far these women's predicaments stem from external social structures and how far from personal choice and responsibility.

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

版权信息
懂事年龄
独白
筋疲力尽的女人

FAQ

What is the relationship between The Monologue and Beauvoir's The Second Sex?

The Monologue is a literary, concrete enactment of the theoretical views in The Second Sex. If The Second Sex systematically analyzes women's situation as "the Other" on philosophical and sociological levels, The Monologue vividly shows, through three specific women's stories, how that situation erodes individual freedom and authenticity in daily life, leading to psychological distortion and breakdown.

Is the book's style very oppressive?

Yes, the style is cold, oppressive, and tense throughout. Through extensive interior monologue and sharp psychological description, Beauvoir presents her characters' pain, jealousy, hatred, and despair directly, offering almost no outlet for emotional release. This oppressiveness is part of the work's power, designed to provoke deep discomfort and reflection.

Why is the book called The Monologue?

"Monologue" carries a triple meaning: formally, the book consists of three women's interior monologues; thematically, these women often have no one to listen to them in real life, so their pain and cries can echo only within their own minds, a forced, solitary "monologue"; and existentially, it suggests the fundamental separateness between people, each individual ultimately confined within their own consciousness.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Simone de Beauvoir Author · French · 1908–1986

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French existentialist writer, philosopher, and pioneering feminist theorist, born and died in Paris. She graduated from the Sorbonne, passed the philosophy agrégation in 1929 and met Sartre, and in 1945 co-founded Les Temps modernes with Sartre and others. Her landmark work The Second Sex laid the foundation of modern feminist theory, examining women's condition through facts, myths, and lived experience; her novel The Mandarins won the 1954 Prix Goncourt. Her autobiographical works, including All Said and Done, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, A Very Easy Death, and The Ethics of Ambiguity, combine philosophical reflection with literary quality and span biography, social and cultural criticism, and foreign literature, earning her a wide readership in the Chinese-speaking world.

张香筠 Author · Chinese

Zhang Xiangyun is a Chinese author about whom little public information is available; neither her dates of birth and death nor her educational background are clearly recorded. According to the holdings in this database, she has two works, the representative one titled Monologue (Dubai), and her books are commonly classified under foreign literature. This classification suggests that her writing may relate to translation, cross-linguistic writing, or the study of foreign literature, though the available material is not sufficient to confirm her specific identity or the scope of her work. The title Monologue points to an inward, soliloquy-like mode of narration, implying that the work may emphasize the presentation of individual experience and the portrayal of characters' inner lives, with a language that may favor introspective and restrained expression. Because biographical and authorial statements are lacking, it is difficult to judge the full range and development of her style, or to assess the actual influence of her works among readers and in academic circles. This description is based solely on the cataloguing information in the database and offers no speculative additions regarding her life, honors, or the content of her works.