Being and Nothingness
In 1944 Beauvoir wrote her first philosophical essay, "Pyrrhus et Cinéas", a discussion on existentialist ethics. She continued her exploration of existentialism through her second essay "The Ethics of Ambiguity" (1947); it is perhaps the most accessible entry into French existentialism. In the essay, Beauvoir clears up some inconsistencies that many, Sartre included, have found in major existentialist works such as "Being and Nothingness". In "The Ethics of Ambiguity", Beauvoir confronts the existentialist dilemma of absolute freedom vs. the constraints of circumstance.