Page "The Second Sex" Paragraph 4

Chapter 2 examines the bodies of work of five example writers, in six sections, Montherlant or the Bread of Disgust, D. H. Lawrence or Phallic Pride, Claudel or the Handmaiden of the Lord, Breton or Poetry, Stendahl or Romancing the Real, and an unnamed summary.

Beauvoir writes that these " examples show that the great collective myths are reflected in each singular writer ".

" Feminine devotion is demanded as a duty by Montherlant and Lawrence ; less arrogant, Claudel, Breton, and Stendahl admire it as a generous choice ...." She finds that woman is " the privileged Other ", that Other is defined in the " way the One chooses to posit himself ", and: