Reinterpreting The Woman Destroyed through the Perspective of The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity

In this article, Simone de Beauvoir’s story The Woman Destroyed is reread through the philosopher’s two main works, the Second Sex and Ethics of Ambiguity. The reason for this is to reveal that the story of “Monique”, a self-sacrificing wife/mother, who seemed to be destined for her immanence, is a story of hope and subjectification, which progresses towards destruction through her daily narrative. Because this feature of the text is closed and has been subjected to intense criticism, even at the time it was written with the claim that it emphasized the failure of women. For this rereading, this research struggles to reveal the existential foundations of Beauvoir such as freedom, authenticity, subjectivity, and transcendence, while it reads the Beauvoirian concepts of the story through metaphors such as home, sculpture, death, and image. While tracing through Beauvoir’s philosophy about the patriarchal structure, which has not changed in favor of women, this study reveals that “The Woman Destroyed” is a “hope, subjectivity, taking responsibility and transcendence”.