Feminine romantic fantasy scripts the girl as pursued object of another’s desire
Evidence
A tin of sweets helped me a lot: a long tin of rectangular and flat sweets that depicted two girls surrounded by doves. I was the dark, curly-headed one, dressed in a long muslin dress. A ten-year absence had separated us. He returned scarcely aged, and the sight of this marvelous creature overwhelmed him. She seemed to barely remember him, she was unaffected, indifferent, and witty. I composed truly brilliant conversations for this first meeting. They were followed by misunderstandings, a whole difficult conquest, cruel hours of discouragement and jealousy for him. Finally, pushed to the limit, he admitted his love. She listened to him in silence, and just at the moment he thought all was lost, she told him she had never stopped loving him, and they embraced a little. The scene normally took place on a park bench, in the evening. I saw the two forms close together, I heard the murmur of voices, I felt at the same time the warm body contact. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 709
Categorization
- XREF: The fantasy arc — she is ‘unaffected, indifferent, witty’ while he does all the conquering — evidences Beauvoir’s thesis that women learn desire through the male gaze; connects to the Other-as-object apparatus developed in the introduction. — connects to: Feminine eroticism involves becoming an object to snare another — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 845; Fairy tales encode gendered roles of active seeker and passive captive. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 706; Seduction works by presenting one’s object-ness as a fascinating fullness of being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 951 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Feminine eroticism involves becoming an object to snare another
#expands(0.92) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 845 - Seduction works by presenting one’s object-ness as a fascinating fullness of being
#expands(0.88) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 951 - Fairy tales encode gendered roles of active seeker and passive captive.
#exemplifies(0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 706