Simone Weil was born in Paris in 1909 into an agnostic Jewish family. Her mother, having been denied education and career by Simone’s grandfather, demanded the best education possible for her own children. Simone’s brother Andre was a genius at mathematics, and Simone herself attended the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure at the same time as Simone de Beauvoir. The two Simones were among the first women students at the Ecole, and they finished in first and second places on the entrance exam (Weil in first, de Beauvoir in second).

Once she received her degree in philosophy, Weil alternated between teaching philosophy and working in factories, often sharing her teaching wages with laborers. She believed that intellectuals needed to be connected to their world, rather than leading isolated, strictly contemplative lives, and she emphasized the meditative power of work.

Mrs. Weil’s germ phobia imposed on the children strict rules about hand washing and kissing. Perhaps not surprisingly, Simone grew up to have a deep mistrust of desire, maintaining a chaste and ascetic discipline in all things. She also suffered from idealistic anorexia, refusing to eat at various times in her life to show solidarity with different groups with whom she felt affinity. In 1943 she arrived in America, after escaping France just before the Occupation. Weil refused both food and medical treatment for her TB in support of her French comrades, and died at the age of 34.

Her frequent anorexia, migraines, and frail physique may have been tied to her spirituality as well as her philosophy. In 1938, while suffering from a debilitating migraine, Weil had a mystical experience with Christ—the first of several—while listening to monks chanting the liturgy. Though she refused baptism into the Catholic Church, these experiences had a profound effect on her faith.

Like her religious fervor, everything about Simone Weil’s life was complex. She was a leftist but lost faith in Marxism. Her pacifism was complicated by her visit to Germany to understand Nazism. Her search for a society without oppression drew her to Anarchism, an attraction complicated by her Christianity.

Perhaps it was her complex ideas and life that drew playwright Megan Terry to her story in 1970. Born in Seattle in 1932, this playwright—frequently called the Mother of American Feminist Drama—is known for challenging culture with nonlinear, nonrealistic theatre. A key figure in alternative theatre, Terry has written over 60 plays that have been produced worldwide.

For more information on Weil, try the article on Simone Weil at Hermenaut.Com.
For more information on Terry, try Broadway Play Publishing.

[September 2004]

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