UPSC Prelims Practice Questions — Simone de Beauvoir, feminist icon and existential philosopher, was born on January 9, 1908. Here is a quiz on the renowned personality
Q1. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir mobilised the core concepts of which single philosophical school to argue that womanhood is wholly a social construction rather than a biological given?
- A. Existentialism (the concept of freedom)
- B. Structuralism
- C. Logical positivism
- D. Utilitarianism
Q2. Which single sentence is regarded as the central, defining thesis of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex?
- A. "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."
- B. "Man is condemned to be free."
- C. "Each consciousness seeks the death of the other."
- D. "Hell is other people."
Q3. With reference to Simone de Beauvoir's success in the 1929 agrégation in philosophy, consider the following statements:
1. She placed second in the agrégation, with Jean-Paul Sartre placing first.
2. She passed the agrégation while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris.
3. She first met Sartre only after both had begun teaching in lycées.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- She placed second in the agrégation, with Jean-Paul Sartre placing first.
- She passed the agrégation while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris.
- She first met Sartre only after both had begun teaching in lycées.
- A. 1 and 2 only
- B. 2 and 3 only
- C. 1 and 3 only
- D. 1, 2 and 3
Q4. At which institution did Simone de Beauvoir pass the elite agrégation in philosophy in 1929?
- A. The Sorbonne (University of Paris)
- B. The École Normale Supérieure
- C. The Collège de France
- D. The University of Lyon
Q5. In Simone de Beauvoir's first novel She Came to Stay (L'Invitée, 1943), the philosophical problem of 'the Other' refers to which of the following?
- A. The fundamental conflict between one individual consciousness and another, each being a predator to the other
- B. The alienation of a worker from the product of labour
- C. The subconscious repository of repressed childhood memory
- D. The gap between a signifier and the object it names
Q6. Consider the following statements about Simone de Beauvoir's works:
1. She Came to Stay (1943) was her first novel.
2. The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) was published before her first novel, She Came to Stay.
3. The Mandarins (1954) won the Prix Goncourt.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- She Came to Stay (1943) was her first novel.
- The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) was published before her first novel, She Came to Stay.
- The Mandarins (1954) won the Prix Goncourt.
- A. 1 and 2 only
- B. 1 and 3 only
- C. 2 and 3 only
- D. 1, 2 and 3
Q7. In The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), Beauvoir contended that ethics is inherently situational and therefore resists formalization into general laws of the kind attempted by which philosopher?
- A. Immanuel Kant
- B. G.W.F. Hegel
- C. René Descartes
- D. Edmund Husserl
Q8. Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is credited with laying the intellectual groundwork for which numbered 'wave' of feminism, the one catalysed by Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963)?
- A. The first wave
- B. The second wave
- C. The third wave
- D. The fourth wave