Promenade au pays de la vieillesse: Re-viewing Literary and Cinematic Representations of Ageing in Simone de Beauvoir

TY - JOUR

T1 - Promenade au pays de la vieillesse

T2 - Re-viewing Literary and Cinematic Representations of Ageing in Simone de Beauvoir

AU - McIlvanney, Siobhan

PY - 2017/12/1

Y1 - 2017/12/1

N2 - The following article examines two important but critically neglected representations of ageing: Simone de Beauvoir’s La Vieillesse (1970) and, more briefly, Promenade au pays de la vieillesse (1974), a Swedish documentary film directed by Marianne Ahrne featuring Simone de Beauvoir and her philosophy on ageing. This article challenges the view that La Vieillesse provides a representative portrayal of the lived experience of ageing, arguing that the work focuses above all on male-authored literary accounts of the ageing process, with the voices of women surprisingly muted. It suggests that the inclusion of more individual women’s positive experiences of the ageing process may have potentially undermined the thesis of the work. It goes on to propose that Beauvoir’s drive to raise awareness of the social neglect of the aged, combined with her existential perspective, inhibits her ability to see ageing positively and thus to situate herself outside of a highly conventional aesthetics of ageing.

AB - The following article examines two important but critically neglected representations of ageing: Simone de Beauvoir’s La Vieillesse (1970) and, more briefly, Promenade au pays de la vieillesse (1974), a Swedish documentary film directed by Marianne Ahrne featuring Simone de Beauvoir and her philosophy on ageing. This article challenges the view that La Vieillesse provides a representative portrayal of the lived experience of ageing, arguing that the work focuses above all on male-authored literary accounts of the ageing process, with the voices of women surprisingly muted. It suggests that the inclusion of more individual women’s positive experiences of the ageing process may have potentially undermined the thesis of the work. It goes on to propose that Beauvoir’s drive to raise awareness of the social neglect of the aged, combined with her existential perspective, inhibits her ability to see ageing positively and thus to situate herself outside of a highly conventional aesthetics of ageing.

KW - women's ageing, Simone de Beauvoir, grandmotherhood, female body,

U2 - 10.3828/jrs.2017.22

DO - 10.3828/jrs.2017.22

M3 - Article

SN - 1473-3536

VL - 17

SP - 275

EP - 292

JO - Journal of Romance Studies

JF - Journal of Romance Studies

IS - 3

ER -