Abstract

Simone de Beauvoir's conception of temporality in her novel 'She Came to Stay' is influenced by her reading of Hegel, Heidegger and Bergson. While not explicit in the novel these influences form a background for Beauvoir's original conceptions of time that emerge in the characterisation, the phenomenological descriptions, the focalisations, and the structural devices employed. This article discusses three aspects of this temporalisation: the differing experiences of time represented by the two central characters Francoise and Xaviere; the emergence of a conception of inter-subjective temporality; and the annihilation of an 'immanent' time that is associated with the final murder of Xaviere.