The girl needs another consciousness to fulfill herself beyond solitary self-adoration

Evidence

Nonetheless, this self-provided solitary cult is not enough for the girl. To fulfill herself, she needs to exist in another consciousness. She often turns to her friends for help. When she was younger, her best girlfriend provided support for her to escape the maternal circle, to explore the world and in particular the sexual world; now her friend is both an object wrenching her to the limits of her self and a witness who restores that self to her. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 866

Categorization

• XREF: Beauvoir’s move from solipsistic narcissism to recognition-seeking echoes Hegel’s lord-bondsman dialectic via Kojève, foundational for the Other analysis. — connects to: Lacking a penis to externalize transcendence, the girl makes her whole self an object — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 128; The girl’s rejection and nothingness can become the springboard to freedom; The girl’s marginalized situation deepens her interior life and critical clarity — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 904 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: The friend-as-‘witness’ is an early mechanism in the dialectic of recognition that structures the whole book.

Broader Connections

• The girl’s narcissism follows from an early craving to be looked at by others #expands (0.82)
• The girl’s rejection and nothingness can become the springboard to freedom #expands (0.80)
• The Other’s look makes the self haunt an unreflective consciousness #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 727
• The girl’s marginalized situation deepens her interior life and critical clarity #qualifies (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 904