Reading Order
She Came to Stay Reading Order
She Came to Stay (1943) by Simone de Beauvoir is the first and finest of her novels — a roman à clef about the famous Sartre-Beauvoir-Olga triangle, in which Françoise (based on Beauvoir) and Pierre (based on Sartre) invite Xavière (based on Olga Kosakiewicz) into their life, and Xavière gradually becomes the third point in a triangle that destroys the couple's certainty about themselves and their relationship. Beauvoir uses the novel to dramatize the existentialist concept of the Other: Xavière's consciousness is opaque to Françoise, and her mere existence as a separate consciousness constitutes a challenge to Françoise's sense of herself as a free subject. The novel ends with Françoise turning on the gas in Xavière's room — killing her to affirm her own existence as a free being. Beauvoir said the novel was her philosophical education: she used the fiction to think through the problems of intersubjectivity that Sartre was investigating simultaneously in Being and Nothingness.
Where to start
She Came to Stay (1943) — the complete novel. Best Beauvoir reading order: She Came to Stay → The Blood of Others → The Mandarins → The Second Sex → Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.
Complete She Came to Stay Book List
- 1Buy
She Came to Stay
Simone de Beauvoir·1943·The complete novel — Françoise, Pierre, and Xavière. Beauvoir's first published novel; the roman à clef about the Sartre-Beauvoir-Olga triangle; the first French novel to put the existentialist concept of the Other into fictional form - 2Buy
The Mandarins
Simone de Beauvoir·1954·The companion — the Parisian intellectual left after the Liberation. Beauvoir's finest novel, winner of the Prix Goncourt; the companion roman à clef about the postwar French intellectual climate, with characters based on Sartre, Camus, Nelson Algren, and others - 3Buy
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
Simone de Beauvoir·1958·The companion autobiography — Beauvoir's childhood and early intellectual development. The companion investigation of how Beauvoir became Beauvoir: her bourgeois Catholic upbringing, her friendship with Zaza, her meeting with Sartre at the agrégation - 4Buy
The Second Sex
Simone de Beauvoir·1949·The companion philosophical masterwork — 'one is not born, but becomes, a woman.' The companion investigation of the same subject that organizes She Came to Stay: the relationship between the female consciousness and the structures (social, biological, historical) that define it as Other - 5Buy
Being and Nothingness
Jean-Paul Sartre·1943·Sartre's companion philosophical masterwork. Published the same year as She Came to Stay; Beauvoir's novel is the fictional investigation of the same philosophical problems: the being-for-others, the look, the intersubjectivity that Sartre investigates theoretically - 6Buy
No Exit
Jean-Paul Sartre·1944·Sartre's companion play about three people locked together in hell. The companion investigation of the same problem that organizes She Came to Stay: the relationship between consciousness and the Other — 'hell is other people' is the compressed version of what She Came to Stay dramatizes at length - 7Buy
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton·1920·Wharton's companion investigation of a woman's consciousness within the constraints of a social system that defines her as Other. The companion investigation of the same subject from a different cultural tradition: both novels are about women who are defined by the social system they are in and who are conscious of that definition without being able to escape it - 8Buy
The Prime of Life
Simone de Beauvoir·1960·The companion autobiography — Beauvoir's life from meeting Sartre to the Liberation. The companion investigation of the years in which She Came to Stay was written: Beauvoir's own account of the Sartre-Beauvoir-Olga triangle and its consequences for both the life and the fiction
She Came to Stay — Frequently Asked Questions
Is She Came to Stay based on a true story?
Yes — She Came to Stay is a roman à clef based on the famous Sartre-Beauvoir-Olga triangle of the mid-1930s. Françoise is based on Beauvoir; Pierre is based on Sartre; and Xavière is based on Olga Kosakiewicz, a student of Beauvoir's who became part of their lives in Rouen in 1935. The real-life triangle was less dramatic than the novel: Olga eventually fell in love with Jacques-Laurent Bost (who later married her), not with Pierre/Sartre's counterpart; the murder in the novel is Beauvoir's fictional resolution of a situation that in reality simply evolved. Beauvoir was explicit about the autobiographical basis of the novel and discussed it in The Prime of Life.
What are the main themes of She Came to Stay?
The main themes of She Came to Stay are: the nature of consciousness and the relationship between the self and the Other; the impossibility of genuine reciprocity between consciousnesses (which Beauvoir and Sartre were investigating in their philosophical work at the same time); the instability of identity when confronted with another consciousness that refuses to reflect back what you expect; the relationship between love (Françoise's love for Pierre) and freedom (Xavière's refusal to be contained by either Françoise's or Pierre's definition of her); and the violence that underlies intersubjective relationship when one consciousness attempts to assert itself as the primary subject. The novel dramatizes the philosophical argument of Sartre's Being and Nothingness in fictional form, but it does so from the perspective of the woman rather than the man, which is where the beginning of The Second Sex's investigation is located.
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