In what ways does John Fowles play with textual form and feature in order to

transform ideas, experience and acts of reading? Discuss with close textual
analysis to support your response.
The French Lieutenants Woman is both a formal imitation of the Victorian novel
and an elegant endeavour at assessing the historical and mental difference
between such a story and a modern reader. John Fowles 1969 novel The French
Lieutenants Woman , experiments with textual techniques and strategies to
produce a postmodern pastiche of the Victorian romantic novel. Emerging in the
1960s, postmodernism is both the continuation and development of modernism.
The literature of this period represented a break from nineteenth century
realism as modernist literature had, yet emphasized manipulation of existing
forms and styles. Fowles interweaves the historical backdrop of Victorian society,
the intrusive narrative voice and the uncertainty of multiple endings to break the
fictive illusion which brings the novel from objectivity of modernism into the
subjectivity of postmodernism to transform the ideas and experience of the
reader.
Fowles sets his novel in context of conservative Victorian society, and his use of
intertexuality and his focus on certain aspects of Victorianism, namely the idea
of the fallen woman, create a postmodern parody. Intertexuality and allusion in
The French Lieutenants Woman is an important element in its recognition as a
postmodern text, and Fowles uses this narrative technique to provide further
commentary to his novel. He begins each of his chapters with an epigraph, an
excerpt taken from notable Victorian literature, reports or medical documents.
This technique reinforces the idea that it is set in Victorian England, and also
foreshadows the events in the chapter. For example, the epigraph to Chapter 12
is from Tennyons poem In Memoriam, And was the day of my delight/ As
pure and perfect as I say? This rhetorical question in this epigraph hints at
Charles engagement to Ernestina, questioning whether his intentions are true,
or perhaps only dictated by the mere need to marry. The alliteration in pure and
perfect references Ernestinas obvious Victorian values, which exemplified her
as a perfect woman of the time. Another point of intertextuality is the reference
to Victorian medical perspectives towards women is notable in the text,
exemplified by Dr Grogans diagnosis of Sarah and his attempt to convince
Charles that she is in fact ill and unsafe, an example of female hysteria. As for
Charles to love a fallen woman, is contrary to the typical Victorian romance in
which the female protagonist was a pariah of virtue and untouchable. That girl,
Smithson, has a cholera, a typhus of the intellectual faculties[] You are not to
blame that upon yourself The doctors dismissal of Sarahs actions as an
illness demonstrate the sexual repression of the time towards women, as desire
or forwardness could be diagnosed as a disease. The contextual reference that
Dr Grogan gives of the trial of Emile de La Ronciere in 1835 further emphasises
the misunderstanding of female hysteria, which forged links between female
desire and illness. By using frequent references to Victorian literature and

parodying its conventions, Fowles reinforces to the reader that his novel is not a
self sufficient text, but rather is a text influenced by literature and ideas of the
past.
As an example of historical metafition, Fowles uses the intrusive narrative voice
also influences the act of reading, reinforcing the fictionality of the novel and
allowing the reader to compare and contrast 20 th century perspectives to his
representation of the past. Fowles frequently addresses the reader directly so
one is constantly aware of the presence of the narrator, and this is exemplified
throughout the novel. In chapter one, the narrator gives an extended
commentary on the comparison between the Victorian era and his own eras,
offering a translation for the contemporary reader. The colors of the young
ladys clothes would strike us today as distinctly strident[]but the world was
then in the first fine throes of the discovery of aniline dyes. The contrast of the
nouns today and then deliberately emphasizes the difference between
setting of the novel and the time the author is writing, revealing that the novel is
written by a 20th century narrator who is not himself writing from a 19 th century
perspective. This difference in eras is then further emphasised by the
continuous reference to the year 1867. The technique of the intrusive narrator
is also exemplified in chapter 13 where the narrator interrupts the story entirely
and speaks directly to the reader about the process of writing and the ideas
behind the text. But I live in the age of Alain Robbe-Grillet and Roland
Barthes[]So perhaps I am writing a transposed autobiography[]Perhaps it is
only a game[]. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us
that they begin to live. Fowles use of anaphora in his playful repetition of
perhaps to directly engage the reader, drawing them from the fiction back to
the mind of the author and encouraging them to form their own ideas about the
text. The metaphor in our characters and events begin to disobey and the
literary allusion to Roland Barthes, whose influential essay was The Death of the
Author, also emphasises the idea that the author was not the central authority
of a text any longer. He creates the illusion that his characters are independent,
and to understand the text one must interpret the actions of his characters and
not the voice of the narrator. Therefore taking the position of an omniscient but
not dominating narrator, Fowles is able to set a distance between himself and
the fiction, but draw closer to the reader to direct the opinions of the reader,
reiterating the subjectivity of the text.
A prime example of postmodern literary technique is the multiple endings of the
novel, and Fowles uses this to avoid giving the novel definite closure, leaving the
ending up to the readers own interpretation. There are essentially three endings
in the French Lieutenants Woman, and one of these is presented halfway
through the narrative arc in chapter 44, in which Charles abandons the thought
of Sarah and lives the rest of his life with Ernestina. Fowles uses alliteration in
his description of this conclusion as thoroughly traditional, emphasising his
contempt for the expected resolution of a Victorian romance, dismissing it as not
the true ending , but rather what convention would have expected. The other
two endings to the novel can be regarded as the more complex. Fiction usually
pretends to conform to the reality: the writer puts the conflicting wants in the

ring and then describes the fightbut in fact fixes the fight, letting that want he
himself favors win[]The only way I can take no part in the fight is to show two
versions of it. The metaphor of a fight is used to describe the conflicted mind of
the author in his attempt to reconcile the differing desires of his characters.
However, like any match, one must be declared the winner, and this winner is
ultimately to the preference of the author. Therefore by offering two endings,
Fowles, as the writer, is still in control of the novel, as the God of his fictional
world, but his position can be considered as one of a scribe rather than dictator,
simply recording two possibilities and leaving the decision to the subjectivity of
the reader. By constructing a multiplicity of endings, Fowles leaves the reader
the ability to exercise the same freedom he gave to his characters, allowing
them to speculate about the true ending of the novel, taking away the absolute
control of an author to determine the fates of his own characters.
In The French Lieutenants Woman, John Fowles experiments with the use of
intertextuality, the intrusive narrative voice and multiple endings to transfer the
experience of the modern reader. His postmodern techniques reiterate the
fictionality of a text by engaging directly with the reader, creating a work
historiographic metafiction.