Who Shall Die or Les Bouches inutiles (The Useless Mouths) is the only Drama written by Simone de Beauvoir.
The Useless Mouths centers around the d’Avesnes' family and their adopted children, Jean-Pierre and Jeanne during the siege against the Burgundians.
[1] Simone de Beauvoir's other popular work includes, The Second Sex, The Mandarins, The Prime of Life, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, and The Force of Circumstance.
During this time, Beauvoir created a social ethic for existentialism and titled this stage of her writing her, “moral period”.
This was also during a time when French existentialist philosophers such as Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre were seeking fame in not just France, but America as well.
Therefore, the authors started addressing both French and American audiences, trying to make their existentialist philosophy more accessible.
Catherine spends most of the play feeling powerless, especially to her husband, Louis who holds a lot of authority and power in the city of Vaucelles.
Georges d’Avesnes is very jealous of his adopted brother, Jean-Pierre, and wishes that his father, Louis would entrust him with more power.
Jean-Pierre asks them if their intentions are to let the women die, but Louis tells him to leave the soldiers alone and let them eat.
They discuss how Vaucelle has changed since Jean-Pierre left three months ago, particularly with the rise of townspeople without food.
Two masons and the Master builder discuss how tired they are and that they don't understand how they are supposed to finish construction on the Belfry with only being fed grass porridge.
Jacques responds that the workmen accept their suffering because they have the Belfry to look forward to in the future, and if they were to stop construction then they’d be force to live in the present.
Louis doesn't want to make a decision spur of the moment, so he decides to hold a city council meeting in the near future.
Georges eventually lowers his weapon, but Jeanne starts crying, knowing that he would have killed the townspeople.
Clarice threatens Jean-Pierre and says that she intends to marry Jacques Van Der Welde because at least he can admit that he loves her.
Georges, who has been hiding during the remainder of this scene calls his sister a whore for sleeping with Jean-Pierre and threatens to tell their father.
Louis walks in from his council meeting and Georges immediately tells his father that Clarice is pregnant with Jean-Pierre's baby.
Louis admits that the council has decided to get rid of any useless townspeople by putting them in the ditch at the foot of the fortifications.
Jacques speaks with Clarice privately and tells her that she can come hide in his house to stay safe until the end of the siege.
Catherine tells him that it's too late, and if he had accepted the position of Food Controller yesterday he might have been able to stop their decision.
The three aldermen, Louis, Rosbourg and Jacques enter and Jean-Pierre threatens the three men by stating that he will revolt against them if they go through with their decision.
Catherine enters after hearing the aldermen's announcement and tells Jeanne and Clarice how after the bells rings, the guards will round up all the women and children and chase them into the ditch.
Jacques tells Jean-Pierre how he plans to set the Belfry on fire and how the city will be in flames before the Burgundians have a chance to come through.
Catherine fears that perhaps she should have let the council go through with their decision to throw the women and children down the ditch because now she is sentencing the men to death.
Who Shall Die brings up questions surrounding feminism, power and the violence that comes along with that, and suffering in the present in order to live free in the future.
Jeanne is forced into a loveless relationship with Georges, and once she finally finds out the truth about him, he beats her and leaves her to die in the middle of the town square.
Jean-Pierre doesn't assume power when asked to be Vaucelles Food Controller because he is afraid that he will let the townspeople down.
[6] For the masons, they prefer suffering while reconstructing the Belfry with little to no food, so they can impress the King of France next spring.
Although Who Shall Die is one Beauvoir's more unheard of plays, she has received much attention for her feminist work and has been referred to as the mother of post-war philosophy for feminism mostly for, The Second Sex.
[8] In, Who Shall Die, Beauvoir uses a story about political power being taken advantage of, and a somewhat historically accurate setting to divulge into her existentialist philosophy and touch upon questions surrounding feminism.