Form, Language, and Self-Understanding in Beauvoir’s “The Woman Destroyed”

Abstract This article examines the form and language of Simone de Beauvoir’s novella “The Woman Destroyed” to argue that the story is a philosophical work in two ways. First, it contributes to scholarship on narrative self-understanding: it moves beyond Anthony Rudd’s and Peter Goldie’s theories by revealing how the instability of language complicates self-understanding. Second, it invites philosophical introspection by representing life as it is and generating questions about self-understanding for readers to ponder instead of giving them ready-made answers.