The girl’s emptiness and lack of achievement intensify her transcendent passion toward Nature

Evidence

The girl throws herself passionately into things, because she is not yet mutilated in her transcendence; and the fact that she does not accomplish anything, that she is nothing, will make her drive even more fervent: empty and unlimited, what she will seek to reach from within her nothingness is All. That is why she will devote a special love to Nature: more than the adolescent boy, she worships it. Untamed and inhuman, Nature encompasses most obviously the totality of what is. The adolescent girl has not yet annexed any part of the universe: thanks to this impoverishment, the whole universe is her kingdom; when she takes possession of it, she also proudly takes possession of herself. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 907

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The paradox — that having nothing, the girl’s nothingness seeks All and makes the universe her kingdom — is a dense reversal worth sitting with, pairing negation with transcendence.
• XREF: Echoes Sartre’s nothingness as the ground of freedom, but Beauvoir turns it to a gendered, sharply material reading. — connects to: The girl’s dreaminess substitutes for action because she lacks grasp on the world. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 859; The girl’s marginalized situation deepens her interior life and critical clarity — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 904; The girl’s rejection and nothingness can become the springboard to freedom (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The girl’s rejection and nothingness can become the springboard to freedom #expands (0.75)
• Woman embodies Nature, whose ambivalence makes her both ally and enemy to man #corroborates (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 324