Les Belles Images is de Beauvoir's shortest novel. The plot is very slight, covering a span of only a few months.

It revolves around the changing relationships between the few principal characters and Laurence, whose point of view is adopted throughout the novel.

Structurally the novel is built on the characters' various attitudes and reactions to its main themes — inauthenticity and the education of children.

These attitudes are focused and filtered through Laurence. Her resulting struggle lends drama to the narrative.

De Beauvoir uses satire to destroy the bourgeois mask of false values. The satire is contained in the protagonist's point of view and expressed in a language full of cliches. Although there is a single point of view, de Beauvoir's range of techniques is rather broad. For example, Laurence's alienation is illustrated not only in her own comments about others being "different," but also in the...