Men, women, power, and narrative in the novels of Simone de Beauvoir

This thesis draws on sociolinguistic, narratological, and feminist theory to study the presentation of the main characters\u27 discourse in the novels of Simone de Beauvoir, L\u27Invitee, Le Sang des autres, Tous les hommes sont mortels, Les Mandarins, and Les Belles images. Although many studies analyze Beauvoir\u27s novels, none focuses on the way in which she represents the speech and thought of men and women to determine her view of the power status of each sex in society. Using stereotyped masculine and feminine roles and traits as a base to investigate the relationship between these characteristics and gender in Beauvoir\u27s novels, this thesis examines focalization, modes of discourse, types of conversation, topics of conversation, speech acts, attributive discourse, and the relationship between power and manner of speaking. Other studies of Beauvoir\u27s novels often criticize her for having created negative female characters and thereby conclude that she is anti-feminist or misogynist. In contrast, this analysis suggests that Beauvoir does not dislike women but loathes how society teaches them to behave. The discourse in her novels suggests that women are not innately weaker than men but are victims of the dominant social order promoting mythical male supremacy and encouraging women to actualize their own inferiority by accepting man\u27s myths and rules. Beauvoir stresses that although society believes that female speech is inferior, both sexes express themselves similarly. As if to overcompensate for the views of society, as her novels progress, Beauvoir gradually allocates more narrative power to her main female characters than to their male counterparts. Just as Beauvoir often presents realistic but socially unattractive or unpleasant women, so she also depicts unlikeable men. Attempting to expand the breadth of woman\u27s horizon, she shows her female characters to be active and involved in stereotypically masculine affairs as well as in more feminine domains. Conversations in all of her novels stress and question gender roles. Overall, Beauvoir offers an innovative view of women, who experience both rewards and difficulties as their possibilities expand