A Study On Beauvoir's Feminism And The Contemporary Significance

Simone de Beauvoir(1908—1986), who is acclaimed by Frenchpre-President Mitterrand as "the most outstanding writer of France and the world", is well-known as one of the most important women in the 20th century. As a vanguard of feminist literary, she has been concerned and studied by her peers and later generations. Her feminist thought and literary theory have a far-reaching influence on the development of the woman movement and feminist literary theory throughout the world.Since the western feminist literary affected China in the 1980' s, her works have been preliminarily translated and studied. However, all in all the studies of Simone de Beauvoir and her works are not thorough and systematic. In Europe and America, the development of feminism is riper. In view of her profound analysis of women' s history and social situation, her works' concerns and concentrated representation of women' s condition, and her practice and vanguard role in the aspect of improving the women' s situation, Beauvoir' s theories, works and practice have been studied all-sidedly, systematically and thoroughly, except that there is not a book on the studies of her feminist literary theory and practice because all the analysis as to those aspects are scattered in the studies of Beauvoir herself and her works. The breakthrough and significance of the thesis is that after carefully studying the books and reviews in existence at home and abroad, and sorting out Beauvoir' s feminist theory and practice, the author has taken initiative in giving prominence to the initiation of Beauvoir' s ideas and to her great contribution on the basis of excellent research achievements. Moreover the author hopes that the thesis will help the scholars at home correctly understand and accept Beauvor' s feminist criticism theories and thoughts, and promote our country' s practice and development in the field.The thesis lays emphasis on The second sex(1949) that systematically expresses her feminist theories and philosophy. It consists of three parts. The first part introduce the background of her feminist theories etc. The second part emphasis on the concept "the other" and focuses on expounding Beauvoir' s feminist thoughts centered on the idea that women are changed into instead of being born to give prominence to the initiation of Beauvoir' s ideas, expounds the major attainments of her feminist theory based on the formation theory of women being changed into. The last part takes up the influence of Beauvoir' s far-reaching feminist theory to the later ages.