Les Belles Images by Simone de Beauvoir ( Translated by Patrick O’ Brian)

A social analysis, the novel focuses specifically on women in France’s elite class, known colloquially as the bourgeoisie. De Beauvoir deconstructs women’s roles, the expectations imposed on them by society, and their own, often very private anxieties, establishing a multi-perspective view on their difficult position in contemporary life. The novel is told from the point of view of a French woman, Laurence, who strives to fulfil the roles of wife, lover, mother, daughter, homemaker, and career woman; though she succeeds in many respects, she still feels unfulfilled. The novel challenges the view that women can enact their own liberation by working within the patriarchal system, arguing that this system will always subjugate by limiting women to its imagined roles, affective potentials, and other existential conditions.