La Femme rompue

The Age of Discretion

In "The Age of Discretion," the main character is an intellectual in her sixties. Initially, she presents herself as a confident woman with strong convictions. However, she becomes increasingly insecure as she experiences difficulties in her family and professional life. She feels unable to communicate with her husband as she once did and feels betrayed when her son chooses a path against her wishes. Professionally, she also suffers the failure of her latest book. As she approaches old age, she is led to question her life and her future.

Monologue

"Monologue" is, in fact, the enraged monologue of a woman. She has her own ideas about herself and the life she deserves, but reality is disappointing. Her daughter committed suicide, she lost custody of her son, she is divorced, and she doesn't have a satisfactory relationship with her mother. She is revolted and angry at these people and at society as a whole, which grants her little value or respect.

La Femme rompue

The short story, which shares the same name as the collection, takes the form of Monique's diary. Monique is a housewife who has dedicated herself entirely to her marriage and her role as a mother. Her daughters leave home as adults, and she is anxious about her husband's growing distance from her. She suddenly learns that her husband, Maurice, is having an affair with a younger woman, an infidelity that has lasted eight years. Following her friend's advice, she tries to be understanding of the situation. In the end, it is through writing in her diary that she attempts to come to terms with it.

This collection features three different women, all experiencing existential crises. In "The Age of Discretion," the main character is an intellectual in her sixties. She is politically engaged, with strong opinions that sometimes make her too uncompromising for those close to her. In "The Monologue," she is a woman who has lost touch with her family and is enraged by society. In "The Broken Woman," Monique is primarily a devoted mother and model wife. She values human relationships and fulfils the needs of others so completely that she struggles to understand what her own life is like without these relational roles.

This book is one of two collections of short stories written by Simone de Beauvoir. Along with the novel "Les Belles Images", this collection marked a return to fiction for de Beauvoir after a long period during which she published only autobiographical works (1958-64). The publication of "La Femme rompue" also represents the end of her fiction writing. The reception was disappointing for the writer, who felt that her work was misunderstood. According to Beauvoir, readers sympathized too much with the characters and consequently misinterpreted the denunciation of their self-disappointment that was at the heart of the author's approach.^[1]

In the short story "The Woman Destroyed," Monique is a traditional housewife who collapses as a result of her husband's infidelity. This story illustrates Simone de Beauvoir's critique of patriarchal society. By assuming the traditional role of housewife, Monique makes her life overly dependent on the lives of others. She has based her identity on her love for Maurice and her role as a mother. When she learns of Maurice's infidelity and is no longer expected to provide for her now-adult daughters, she struggles to find herself again.^[2] Monique devoted herself to her family because that was what society demanded, but the consequences of this devotion are not favourable. Maurice is cheating on her with a young woman very different from herself; an independent woman who works. Monique herself suspects that she has been too overprotective for her daughters. Through her writing in her diary, she finally tries to shed light on her situation and examine her own life, but she struggles to distinguish herself from her role as a housewife. Monique's situation illustrates the societal pressures to confine women to narrow roles that do not fulfil their existence, but her example also calls for individual responsibility to examine one's choices and cultivate a life of one's own.^[3]

• La Femme rompue, Éditions Gallimard, 1967 ; réédition, Gallimard, coll. « Folio » No. 76, 1972 ; réédition, Gallimard, coll. « Folio » No. 960, 1978