Set in mid-century Paris, Simone de Beauvoir beautifully and empathetically tells the story of three Parisienne women past the first blossoms of youth, each facing her own crisis in life. With unflinching honesty de Beauvoir dissects the experience of the female existence through a uniquely female lens, whilst meditating on the meaninglessness of life, existentialism, and the melancholy of aging.

The sentimentality of aging takes center stage in the first novella, as de Beauvoir depicts a woman at the threshold of retirement and aging, entering the last phases of life, where reflection and retrospection takes prominence over embarking on new beginnings. The disorientation at the resolution of a long career and shifted family dynamics as grown children seek independence. In beautifully written passages, de Beauvoir reflections on the physical and spiritual ailments and losses of aging, disrupting the tranquil trajectory of a previously peacefully led life. In this novella, de Beauvoir also grants us the unique perspective of a working academic woman – quite unusual for the time period.

In the second novella, our attention shifts to another prominent chapter of a woman’s life: Motherhood. Told as a crude stream of consciousness, an abandoned wealthy banker’s wife, beridden by mother’s guilt, is pushed to her limits. Here, in the aftermaths of a family tragedy, we encounter the question of the unproportionally unfair blame placed on mothers rather than fathers for domestic affairs and wrongdoings, and the responsibility and influence – but also the limitations – of parental intervention.

Simone de Beauvoir’s The Woman Destroyed is composed of three novellas, with the last and third story, with the eponymous title of the book, investigating two – often held as oppositional – ways of female life, centring on the classical themes of the self-sacrificing domestic mother and wife, contrasted by the often perceived as selfish and ambitious professional woman. Centring around an extramarital affair, it is not only a raw depiction of the destruction of a marriage and family, but also the destruction of one’s once held beliefs of right and wrong, and of sacrifice and selfishness. The crime a professional woman is plead guilty of is her selfishness – the selfishness of her educational, professional and financial pursuits, regarded as at the expense of domesticity and child upbringing.

As the affair blossoms the marriage succumbs. Over the years, the services of the self-sacrificing domestic wife is taken for granted by the husband, who later in life seeks a professional woman for an equal partnership. With no educational, professional or financial resources of her own, and with the prime of her beauty and youthfulness long gone, the descent into a bleak and unsure future is inevitable. A tragic epilogue, paved by the regrets of the choices made in the youth. Despite dating back further than half a century, de Beauvoir’s depiction of the darker side of womanhood echoes uncannily prevailing until this day.