In this final chapter, Beauvoir's negotiation of biography will be considered initially as a corporeal encounter with the Other, focusing on Une Mort très douce (1964) and La Cérémonie des adieux (1981). The subsequent focus for discussion will be Beauvoir's reworking of prior autobiographical self-representations in these biographical texts and her attempt to convey the lived experience of the Other. For Beauvoir, writing autobiography was, as we have seen, an intersubjective testimonial enterprise and a continuing exploration of the parameters of alterity. In these Other-oriented texts, although the apparent focus is the representation of the ailing Other's situation, they cast crucial light on Beauvoir's auto-biographical self-representation, developing her concern with inter-subjectivity in new directions.

Before considering Une Mort très douce and Adieux, it should be noted that these texts are not the only examples of biographical writing in Beauvoir's corpus. There are also short biographical portraits in her memoirs, some of which may be described as psychologically-oriented case studies. This juxtaposition of the auto/biographical and the perpetual imbrication of self and Other in Beauvoir's philosophy suggests that, although this chapter focuses on her Other-oriented texts, it will be more productive to consider Une Mort très douce and Adieux as auto/biographies.

The first of these, Une Mort très douce, was written after the first three volumes of Beauvoir's memoirs and is concerned with the illness and death of her mother. Adieux is the final, major text which was published in Beauvoir's lifetime.