LA NOSTALGIE DU PARADIS PERDU DANS LA VIEILLESSE DE SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

Abstract

Paradise, according to Simone de Beauvoir, summarizes the dream of all. Her Paradise is the freshness, beauty, joy, engagement in the world, the perpetual discovery of being, the constant evolution, act and conquest; in other words, the expansion of our existence. Consequently, paradise constitutes the country of eternal youth, where “the world is forever, youth is forever” and life lies ahead. The fact of having life ahead of us implies an abundance of time; a time of happiness, and a time of creation. Thus we understand that youth happens in the time of becoming, of ascending movements; while, old age occurs as a time of retreat, regression and forfeiture. They become the evils of old age. Constrained in a smaller world deprived of hope, action and perspective, old age waives its goals, and projects because it thinks there is not enough time to see them to completion. Yet, even if humans are expelled from the paradise of youth, they must still, according to our author, constantly engage in the world. They must continue the expansion of their existence, and remain open to all possibilities being offered to them until the ‘limiting event’, which is death