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I have mixed feeling about Simone de Beauvoir’s first novel, She Came to Stay. I suspect that if I had no previous interest in existentialist philosophy, I would not have put the effort into finishing this 400 page book. It is a story about the relationship between three main protagonists – Francoise, Pierre and Xaviere – and their failed attempt to form a happy “threesome,” in which they try to allow their mutual romantic attractions to flourish alongside their friendship. I found much of the narrative tedious, with characters so foreign to my own experiences that at many points I became confused, unable even to understand their motivations.
The characters in Beauvoir’s story live lives of urban boredom and decadence. Francoise is writing a novel, but most of her time is spent in bars, cafes and restaurants, where, night after night, she smokes, drinks, dances and socializes with a circle of friends and acquaintances. Pierre is part of an acting troupe. He splits his time between rehearsing for his latest play, drinking and going to parties. Xaviere is a young woman from Rouen, a small town outside of Paris, who Francoise and Pierre take under their wings, exposing her to Parisian urban life, encouraging her to become an actress while also competing for her attention and affection. The drama that develops between these characters is reportedly similar to the situation in real-life that threatened to drive a wedge between Beauvoir and Sartre when, in pursuit of their own free and open relationships, jealousies erupted between them. As a biographical detail, this last point is more interesting to me than is the actual novel itself, which drags along, really going nowhere in terms of the action. The characters sit around, drink, smoke, dance and talk. Hostility recurrently erupts, is smoothed over, and then erupts again. In terms of the content of the story itself, then, I found the book monotonous and strange. I kept wondering, “Why are these people bothering with this?” Their “threesome” seemed to me more like an annoyance than anything titillating or exciting.
But since I do have an interest in existentialism, and since I am a fan of Beauvoir’s other philosophical works (such as The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity), I was motivated to look past the superficial dullness of this novel’s story in order to try and understand its deeper, philosophical intent. And that intent is there, scattered in clues throughout the novel’s pages. What I think Beauvoir was attempting to do with She Came to Stay was to illustrate the various ways that people fall into “bad faith,” the primary “sin” that existentialist philosophy counsels us to avoid.
All human consciousnesses are free according to Beauvoir. We live our lives pursuing our own chosen projects while also having to negotiate and contend with people around us who also pursue their own freely chosen goals and projects. According to existentialists, human beings are “thrown” into a world populated by others, and while we cannot avoid living among other people, we can choose how it is that we will comport ourselves toward them. In the course of life, human beings choose to enter into partnerships with one another, sometimes encouraging each other in their freedom and working together to help one another fulfill goals. When people consciously and enthusiastically embrace one another’s freedom, they act “authentically.” However, there are also times when people pursue goals that come into conflict with the goals of others. It is then that we often find the eruption of hostility, and one of the common responses to this is to fall into a state of “bad faith.” In bad faith, we become resentful against the forces around us that keep us from doing what we want, and so we lash out, coming to treat others and ourselves as if we are not at all free, but as if we are objects capable of being manipulated like any other non conscious “thing” in the world. Bad faith can offer a kind of psychological comfort, since it makes us feel as if we are not responsible for our own mistakes and failures, but it is “bad” precisely because it is a lie, according to Beauvoir. Whenever I think of myself as a mere “thing,” capable of being manipulated by others, or when I think of others as mere “things,” to be manipulated by myself, I falsify the reality of what it means of be a human.
In She Came to Stay, all three main characters seem to illustrate differing manifestations of bad faith. The story is told from the perspective of Francoise, whose bad faith is a reaction to her own boredom with empty routine and her increasing awareness of mortality. She realizes that her Parisian lifestyle is a pointless tedium; her most pressing decisions consisting of which restaurants to eat in, and what sort of liquor to drink. “There was nothing but an accumulation of meaningless moments, nothing but a chaotic seething of flesh and thought, with death looming at the end.” (p. 130) Because of this awareness, Francoise uses Xaviere, a pretty young country girl, to distract herself from the ugly truth, hoping that the young woman will inject new excitement and vitality into her life. She wants to initiate Xaviere into the bohemian world of Parisian artists, acting as a mentor and (it seems) romantic companion. Instead of grabbing hold of her own existence by herself and making the decision to change its course altogether, Francoise drags another human being into her tedious world in order to spice things up.
Francoise tells Xaviere, in beginning pages of the story, “as long as you stay in Rouen you will never do anything,” (p. 33) suggesting that the young woman’s destiny lies in where she lives, not in the choices she makes. Consequently, Francoise encourages Xaviere to move to Paris, where she will be supported by Francoise and Pierre, who treat her as raw material with the potential to become a hedonistic bohemian, just like themselves. Xaviere will live in the same hotel as Francoise, she will go dancing at the same clubs, eat the same food, drink the same liquor, and become an actor. She will be a possession; an ornament that others will admire. And Francoise and Pierre will be admired as well for their efforts to save this uncultured country girl from backwardness. In all of this, Xaviere is treated as a mere thing rather than as a full, free human being. When she starts to assert her own will, and threatens to compromise the relationship between Pierre and Francoise, Francoise panics, and begins to see the young woman as a threat rather than as her personal pet.
Pierre is complicit in Francoise’s project, and together they conspire in their plans to mold Xaviere into a flesh and blood embodiment of their shared ideal. However, Pierre’s interest in Xaviere becomes increasingly jealous as he starts to cultivate a romantic interest in her. Neither Pierre nor Francoise are all that concerned with one another’s sexual interest in Xaviere, but what is troubling is Pierre’s growing obsession with her, his desire to possess her and keep her from other men, such as her boyfriend Gerbert. Outraged when he discovers Xavier and Gerbert having sex (which he observes like a peeping tom by peering at them through a keyhole), Pierre finds himself swept up by covetous desires and emotions that threaten to drive a wedge between himself and Francoise and to destroy the “threesome” they share with Xavier.
Pierre’s bad faith is rooted in a self centered desire for those around him to tolerate his own whims and fancies while denying his effects on others. Throughout the story his irrational jealously for Xaviere bubbles up as hostility, which he then projects onto Xaviere herself. Speaking to Francoise, he says, “We wanted to build a real trio, a well-balanced life for three, in which no one was sacrificed. Perhaps it was taking a risk, but at least it was worth trying! But if Xaviere wants to behave like a jealous little bitch, and you have to be the unfortunate victim, while I play the gallant lover, it becomes nothing but a dirty business.” (p. 295) But it is Pierre who is the jealous one, and he is anything but “gallant.” He is more like a child who can’t understand the confusion that he and Francoise must be causing this young woman – a virgin – whose affections are courted from all sides. He desires her precisely because she is young, vital, naive and unpredictable, but at the same time he derides and insults her for acting like a naive and unpredictable young woman. Pierre insists that Xaviere must be free, but he nonetheless wants to possess her, and thus to curtail and control her freedom. All the while, he assures Francoise that it is she, and not Xaviere, that is really special to him. In Pierre, thus, we find a tangled knot of bad faith that derives from his denial of the inconsistencies in his various projects. Simultaneously he want to have a “threesome” in which no one is sacrificed, he wants to retain a special relationship with Francoise, and he wants to possess Xaviere. But these three projects cannot coexist, and for Pierre to act as if they possibly could is to lie to himself.
Xaviere is, in her own way, the most annoying character in the novel. She pouts, mopes and throws tantrums. She is jealous, at various points, of both Francoise and Pierre. She is frivolous and unreliable. But then again, she is just a young, naive and unexperienced girl, so what are we to expect? One wonders, as the novel progresses, why it is that Francoise and Pierre spend so much energy thinking about her, talking about her and trying to control her. The answer, as stated above, is that she is a distraction, helping them forget their own boredom, fear of growing old and despair over the passage of time. On an existential level, their attraction to Xaviere has to with her relationship to temporality. To Xaviere, time means nothing. She lives in the now, reacting to the feelings that pop up in her, moment by moment. While this is what makes her attractive to Francoise and Pierre, it also what makes her unpredictable and unreliable. She believes that no one should make plans or practice and hone their skills, as if to do so would undermine the vital spontaneity of the moment. This represents a contrary form of bad faith to that found in Pierre and Franciose. According to existentialists, humans are, in their essence, temporal beings, and while reflection on the past or the future may at times cause us anguish, the unwillingness to recognize the role of temporality in our lives is delusional. One cannot plan or pursue projects without stepping out of the present, learning from past mistakes and resolving to act in accordance with future goals. Xaviere mistakes lack of discipline and spontaneity for authenticity, not recognizing that to authentically commit to a life project, one has to take hold of life and steer it in the direction that one has freely chosen. Without this sort of longer term perspective, one’s life becomes a series of fits and stops with no overarching shape, purpose or direction. Life becomes chaotic, tedious and meaningless.
The sorts of bad faith illustrated by Beauvoir in She Came to Stay, then, might be divided into two sorts. On the one hand the characters of Francoise and Pierre are exemplars of a kind of bad faith that stems from the attempt to flee from an overly attuned awareness of temporality. Boredom and fear of growing old are their motivations. On the other hand, the character of Xaviere is an exemplar of a kind of bad faith stemming from a complete ignorance of temporality. Because of her youth and inexperience, she is not even aware of the power that time exercises over human choice.
It is interesting that there are two key points in the narrative when Francoise appears to really become confident, self assured and happy in her own powers. The first is when she sleeps with Xaviere’s boyfriend, Gerbert. The other is when she takes steps to kill Xaviere. Together, these two acts seem symbolic of her complete domination of the young woman that she previously claimed as her protege; the complete reduction of Xaviere into a thing-in-itself. In the first instance, Francoise proclaims to herself, while gazing in a mirror, “I’ve won.” (p. 375) In the second instance, after turning the gas on in Xaviere’s bedroom, Francoise thinks to herself, “I have done it of my own free will.” The novel closes with the assertion, “She had chosen herself.” (p. 404)
To live authentically, and to avoid bad faith, a person must grab hold of his or her situation. But in doing so, it must also be recognized that the human situation is one in which we are thrown among others to whom we have responsibilities. Humans are free, and because of this, as we make our way through life pursuing our own projects and goals, we are destined to run into resistance. When this happens it is our responsibility to honor the freedom in ourselves and others and to avoid lapsing into resentful ways of thought. If we fail to do so, then we will find ourselves surrounded by enemies instead of neighbors, and life will become a hostile struggle for control rather than a stimulating adventure of “being-with-others” in a world freely chosen and enthusiastically shared. The characters in She Came to Stay have not learned this lesson, and perhaps that is why all of them are so petty, hateful, jealous and unlikable.
