In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

103 Saving time Temporality, Recurrence, and Transcendence in Beauvoir’s Nietzschean Cycles Elaine P. Miller this inequality will be particularly noticeable because the time they spend together—and that fallaciously seems to be the same time—does not have the same value for both partners. . . . for a man . . . time is a positive asset. for the . . . woman time is a burden she aspires to get rid of . . . —Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex in The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir primarily uses friedrich nietzsche as a source of quotations that convey, like stinging arrows, exactly what is wrong with the feminine condition. although she writes in her autobiography that she read nietzsche with enthusiasm as a student, and she quotes very different, and more positive passages from his work in her journals, nevertheless in her critique of the historical role accorded to the second sex, she mostly relegates him to the role of spokesperson for—or at least indicator of—the very views of women that she seeks to expose and problematize. nevertheless, i will argue in this essay that nietzsche’s understanding of the will, and in particular of the temporal transformation that can take place through the willing of the eternal return, holds an important place in Beauvoir’s conception of how the relegation of woman to pure immanence (a fixed natural and cultural position reducible to pure “facticity”) might be overcome and transformed. in The Ethics of Ambiguity, Beauvoir criticizes nietzsche’s thought more for being solipsistic than for being sexist, but her earlier writings also manifest a positive appropriation of nietzschean ideas, in particular that of self-actualization through a transformation of one’s relation to time. By looking at Beauvoir’s philosophical writings predating The Second Sex, we can gain a clearer understanding of the nietzschean nature of temporality and will in her understanding of the self-affirmation that must accompany authentic existence, which can then be specifically 104 Be au voir anD WeStern t h ouGh t applied to women’s historical situation. i will illustrate how Beauvoir’s analysis of domestic labor elaborates on and extends a hegelian-Marxist critique of estrangement , calling for a transformation in economic, political, and social conditions for women. at the same time, complementing these changes, Beauvoir borrows from nietzsche the idea of a reattunement of the will as the means by which the mode of circular repetitive temporality—a tiresome existential temporality relegated primarily to women, according to Beauvoir’s critique—might be overcome. in what follows i will first outline what i take to be Beauvoir’s critique of housework along hegelian and Marxist lines, further characterizing this activity in temporal terms. i will then consider the remarks Beauvoir makes on time and temporality in her early writings, in order to situate the discussion in terms of concrete examples of the temporal dimensions of existence. i will specifically focus on Beauvoir’s articulation of authentic temporality, a conception of which i will argue she inherits from nietzsche, by looking at Pyrrhus and Cineas (Beauvoir 2005) and The Ethics of Ambiguity (Beauvoir 1948). i will conclude by revisiting the critique of housework from the perspective of the temporality outlined in these works and explain how authentic temporality transforms the circular temporality of work that merely repeats the cycle of life-labor (domestic labor) into a temporality of eternally renewed willing in a manner that recalls nietzsche’s description of the transformation of “it was” into “thus i willed it” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (nietzsche 1978). however, i will emphasize that for Beauvoir, nietzsche’s critique needed to be supplemented by a specific account of women’s time, in order to shift the focus from resentment to oppression. i will use kristeva’s account of “women’s time” to articulate the distinction between the circularity of biological or thinglike repetition (what Beauvoir calls “immanence”) and the temporality of free transcendence (also Beauvoir’s term), the cyclical nature of which i argue is a nietzschean-influenced theme in Beauvoir’s work.1 although Beauvoir’s discussion of “willing oneself free” is not initially a specifically feminist theme (The Ethics of Ambiguity presents it as a human imperative), it has special implications for Beauvoir’s critique of domestic labor in its repetition, renewal, and transformation of the cyclicality of what has historically been deemed women’s work. DoMeStiC eStranGeD laBor as has already been argued,2 Beauvoir’s reading of hegel was influenced by alexandre kojève’s Introduction to the...

Share