1945- Postmodern Following World War II (1939-1945), the Postmodern

present: Period Period of British Literature developed. Postmodernism

blends literary genres and styles and attempts to break
free of modernist forms.

While the British literary scene at the turn of the new

millenium is crowded and varied, the authors still fall
into the categories of modernism and postmodernism.
However, with the passage of time the Modern era may
be reorganized and expanded.

The French Lieutenant's Woman was John Fowles' third published novel, and it has achieved enduring
commercial and critical success.

The novel attracted the attention of critics soon after it was published, and was better received in literary
circles than either of Fowles' previous novels. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote a very positive 1969
review for the New York Times titled, "On the Third Try, John Fowles Connects," in which he praised the
elegant language and "enchanting mysteries" of the novel. Like other critics, Lehmann-Haupt was
shocked by Fowles' diverging from the form of the Victorian novel, particularly with regards to the
inclusion of a second, alternative ending: he writes that this ending "explode[d] all the assumptions
our Victorian sensibilities had so willingly embraced," and such innovation signaled the "sudden but
predictable arrival of a remarkable novelist."

Such critical acclaim was accompanied by more than one literary award: Fowles received the Silver Pen
Award from PEN International for The French Lieutenant's Woman, as well as the W. H. Smith Literary
Award. The French Lieutenant's Woman also experienced success in other media: in 1981, Meryl Streep
starred in a film adaptation of The French Lieutenant's Woman, which was nominated for five Academy
Awards and won three BAFTAs. The novel continues to be well regarded today. In 2010, TIME magazine's
critics selected The French Lieutenant's Woman as one of the 100 greatest novels since 1923, with the
rationale that it is a "magnificent game of a novel" where postmodernism brilliance perfectly marries
Victorian poignancy.

More than anything, readers in 1969 were puzzled by the genre of the novel. This ambiguity lent The
French Lieutenant's Woman a lot of its intrigue and appeal: it was clearly not a Victorian novel, although
the first few chapters could be read quite happily as belonging to this tradition. Some have called it a
"pseudo-historical" novel, as James R. Baker does in his Paris Review interview of Fowles, while critic
Linda Hutcheon has opted for the term "historiographic metafiction."

John Fowles has said in interviews that he views his daring third novel as a turning point in his career.
"Certainly I hope that...The French Lieutenants Woman marks a real change and a new openness," he told
James R. Baker of the Paris Review. He explains that he had learned enough about writing novels, and had
practiced enough "set pieces" - quasi-derivative reworking of traditional material - to be able to have the
freedom for genuine experimentation. The The French Lieutenant's Woman was born, according to
Fowles, from one central image - that of Sarah on the Cobb - which "simply welled up from the
unconscious" and eventually expanded itself into a groundbreaking piece of fiction.
 Part of the novel's reputation is based on its expression of postmodern literary concerns through thematic
focus on metafiction, historiography, metahistory, marxist criticism and feminism. Stylistically and
thematically, Linda Hutcheon describes the novel as an exemplar of a particular postmodern genre:
"historiographic metafiction."[5] Because of the contrast between the independent Sarah Woodruff and the
more stereotypical male characters, the novel often receives attention for its treatment of gender issues.
However, despite claims by Fowles that it is a feminist novel, critics have debated whether it offers a
sufficiently transformative perspective on women.

Summary

Charles, a 30-year-old independently wealthy Londoner with an amateur interest in paleontology, is engaged
to the stylish socialite Ernestina. Both are staying in Lyme Regis: she, because of her parents' strict wish that
she recover from an imagined consumptive disease, and he to be with her. The novel opens with the two of
them walking on the famous Lyme Bay Cobb, a stone quay, at the end of which sits a mysterious black-
cloaked figure.

The figure is Sarah, commonly known as "Tragedy," or "the French Lieutenant's Woman." She has a bad
reputation in Lyme Regis because of her scandalous affair with a French sailor who was shipwrecked in
England and came to stay with the family whose children she was tutoring. The story goes that he promised
to marry her, and she followed him to Weymouth, where she was seduced and abandoned. Whenever she
can, she goes to sit at the end of the quay to look for her French lover, and wait for him to return. At the time
Sarah encounters Ernestina and Charles on the Cobb, she has been living with Mrs. Poulteney for a year,
acting as a companion and charitable ward of the pious and vaguely sadistic old lady.

Charles is struck by the absolute sorrow on Sarah's face, but more or less puts her from his mind until he
runs into her again, when he is searching for fossils on a piece of wild land called Ware Commons. Sarah is
sleeping; he approaches and wakes her. She does not respond to his apologies, and later that day, when they
meet again, she firmly asks to be left to walk in peace. Sarah, upon returning home, is chastised by Mrs.
Poulteney for walking in a place with such a bad reputation; that night she cries and contemplates suicide
but does not jump.

Charles, Ernestina, and Ernestina's Aunt Tranter visit Mrs. Poulteney, and Sarah sits by in silence while the
others discuss the impropriety of the blossoming romance between Charles' manservant, Sam, and the
bubbly and feisty Mary, Ernestina's aunt's maid. Charles sides with the servantshe and Ernestina quarrel
but quickly make up, and spend five uneventful days together. Charles finds himself becoming increasingly
dissatisfied with the smallness of the society life he is leading, and he wonders whether he isn't making too
conventional choice by marrying Ernestina and settling down with her.

Charles and Sarah keep on bumping into each other when Charles is hunting for fossils and Sarah is walking
by the coast. Charles is fascinated by her and feels pity for her; one time when they meet, he offers to help
her find a job somewhere away from Lyme Regis, so that she can get back on her feet. She refuses this offer.
The next time she is out walking she follows him and asks him to listen to her: she wants to tell him
everything that happened with the French lieutenant. He is reluctant to cross this line of respectability, but
during a later encounter he hears the 'full story' of how she fell in love with Varguennes and "gave herself"
to him, even after she realized that he would never marry her. The sexual tension builds between Charles
and Sarah; he cannot help but imagine the scene in his mind. Despite - and because of - his attraction to
Sarah, Charles advises her to leave Lyme Regis, and says that he will help pay for her travel. Sarah agrees to
go, and Charles insists that they never meet alone again.

An urgent telegram arrives from Charles' uncle, demanding that Charles come visit. He learns that Uncle
Robert plans to marry a younger woman, and that if she produces an heir, Charles will no longer inherit the
family estate. Ernestina is furious, and Charles is also upset - he will now have to be financially dependent
on his future wife.

When Charles returns to Lyme, he receives the news that Sarah Woodruff has been dismissed from Mrs.
Poulteney's service, and that she has disappeared. He receives a desperate note from her, begging for one
last meeting. Unsure of how to proceed, Charles visits Dr. Grogan, who offers to deal with the matter
himself by meeting Sarah and bringing her to a private asylum to cure her melancholia. Charles returns
home and broods about Sarah's treachery, but soon realizes that he and Dr. Grogan have both misjudged her.
Desperate to make amends and to exert some free will over a situation in which he feels helpless, Charles
sets out to find Sarah.

Charles finds Sarah asleep in a barn. They kiss, and Charles pushes Sarah violently away - as he rushes
away from the barn, he meets Sam and Mary, and asks Sam not to mention this encounter to anyone.
Charles returns to Sarah, and leaves her some money on the understanding that she will leave Lyme Regis
and seek employment elsewhere. They say goodbye for what is ostensibly the last time.

When he arrives back in town, Charles visits Ernestina and explains that he must go back to London to
discuss financial matters with her father; meanwhile, Sarah leaves Lyme and settles into her new life in
Exeter. Charles' meeting with Ernestina's father ends with Mr. Freeman inviting his son-in-law to consider
going into the Freeman family business - an idea which shocks Charles' aristocratic nature. That evening,
Charles goes to his club and gets incredibly drunk. He and his friends visit a brothel, but Charles leaves
early in a taxi. On the way home, he stops a prostitute who reminds him vaguely of Sarah Woodruff. He
pays her and they take the taxi back to her apartment, where Charles becomes sexually aroused but then
vomits on the bed after learning that the prostitute's name is also Sarah. She takes care of him and he wakes
up in his own bed the following morning, very hung-over. Charles receives a note from Sarah Woodruff
containing her new Exeter address.

On the train from London to Exeter, where he should change to go to Lyme Regis, Charles thinks about his
future. He plans out the whole thing in his head: his dull marriage to Ernestina, their children, and his
eventual involvement in Mr. Freeman's business. In an attempt to avoid this dire future, he tells Sam that
they are staying the night in Exeter, and he goes to Sarah Woodruff's hotel. The tension between him and
Sarah when he goes up to her room is unbearable; Charles clasps her to him and covers her with kisses. He
undresses and penetrates her, ejaculating on impact. Afterwards, Charles notices a bloodstain on his shirt.
He realizes that Sarah has lied about her affair with the French lieutenant: she is a virgin, or was, until
Charles deflowered her. Charles is racked by guilt toward Ernestina and her father, and anger toward Sarah -
why has she lied to him? Is she trying to manipulate him? Sarah will not answer his questions regarding her
motives. She only says that she loves him, and she doesn't expect him to leave Ernestina for her. Charles
storms out of the room.

Charles walks around Exeter, until he comes to a church and goes in to pray, despite being an atheist. After
long self-examination, Charles realizes that he wants to live without caring what others around him think,
and he imagines what it would be like to marry Sarah. He returns to his hotel and writes her a love letter,
which he entrusts to Sam. Sam, thinking of how Charles' and Sarah's relationship would affect his prospects
of marrying Mary and opening his own clothes store, chooses not to deliver the letter, and tells Charles that
there was no response from Sarah.

Charles travels to Lyme Regis to break the news to his fiance. Ernestina is predictably furious, and
threatens that her father will drag Charles' name through the mud. She falls into a swoon, and Charles goes
to fetch Dr. Grogan, who reproaches him harshly when he hears what Charles has done and says that he
must spend the rest of his life doing penance for the harm he has caused.

When Charles tries to call on Sarah at the Endicott Family Hotel, he is told that she has left for London,
without giving an address. After Charles signs a statement of guilt for Ernestina's father, in which he
renounces his right to be called a gentleman, Charles spends time trying to find Sarah, to no avail. He
eventually leaves for Europe, and spends almost two years roaming from country to country. Although he
has been dreaming of traveling, Charles is far from happy - he realizes that he wanted to leave England with
Sarah, and that exile without her is boring and meaningless. Eventually, Charles travels across the Atlantic
to America, which he enjoys more than Europe: at least he is not bored anymore. One day, while in New
Orleans, Charles gets a telegram from his lawyer in London: Sarah has been found.

In the first ending to the novel, the narrator describes Charles' visit to the address given by the anonymous
source. Charles is let into a relatively nice house, and recognizes the artist Rossetti as he climbs the stairs to
find Sarah. Sarah is dressed like a modern woman, and she tells Charles that she is Rossetti's assistant and
model - there is nothing sexual or romantic in their relationship. Charles begs Sarah to come marry him, but
she says she doesn't want to marry anyone - she is very happy with the life she is leading. Charles suspects
that she is still suffering; he begins to angrily accuse her of bringing him there to torment him. Sarah calmly
tells him that he misunderstands her. There is someone, she says, whom he should meet. Charles reluctantly
agrees, and a small girl child is brought to him - he understands that she was conceived during his first and
only sexual encounter with Sarah. Charles and Sarah embrace, and it seems - although we are not told
explicitly what will happen - that the two will stay together.

The second ending begins with the author appearing outside Rossetti's house and rewinding the hands of a
pocket watch by fifteen minutes, before leaving in a carriage. We are taken back to the point in Sarah and
Charles' conversation where he accuses her of lying to him in order to hurt him. He starts to leave - Sarah
touches his arm to restrain him - but he storms out of the room and out of the house. At the very end of the
novel, he comes to the conclusion that life must be endured, no matter how empty or seemingly hopeless it
is, and that there is no 'quick fix' that will make everything all right.

Themes

The artificial nature of fiction

The French Lieutenant's Woman is certainly an unconventional novel in terms of its determination to
constantly remind us that it is exactly that - a novel, a work of fiction. Novels traditionally try to
convince us to suspend our disbelief and plunge ourselves into the narrated world, so that we come to
sympathize with the characters as 'real people' going through real trials and tribulations. How can we feel
affected or moved by a story if we're absolutely certain while reading it that it never happened?
There is literature in the novel that the characters read and interact with, and in these interactions, fiction is
always portrayed as false on some level, especially when compared to the depiction and explanation of
nature that science offers us. Charles is a "despiser of novels" because he likes to view himself as rational
and scientific man (15). In contrast, Sarah's ex-employer Mrs. Talbot reads highly sentimental and
melodramatic "romantic literature" that has nothing to do with reality, and plants outrageous images in her
mind (47).

The author's interjections into the narrative keep reminding us that there is a consciousness behind
the novel, an author who is creating it as a work of art. He comments on the "novelist's craft" in
Chapter 61, nothing that he is breaking the rule of not introducing new characters toward the end of a novel
(361). Other authors may well have similar thought processes lying behind the final piece of literature that
they produce, but most keep this scaffolding hidden. Not Fowles: he comments liberally on all aspects of
writing the novel, down to remarking that he is "overdoing the exclamation marks" (167) or "mixing
metaphors" (153). We are continually reminded that what we are reading is a piece of fiction that has
artificially produced, according to conventions of writing.

The double ending is the last dramatic trick that Fowles employs to break his readers' illusion. We are
provided with two endings between which the narrator explicitly decides, and flips a coin to choose
which goes first - we cannot continue to pretend that everything in the novel is true, because the two
endings directly contradict each other. There is also an element of the supernatural involved, when the
author-character takes out his watch and rewinds it to allow the second ending to occur. The author
refuses to let us believe that what happens is reality, and he makes us choose which ending we prefer -
even though we know neither ever actually happened.

So, The French Lieutenant's Woman is a fiction, and Charles and Sarah are "figments" of the author's
imagination and never existed in "real life" (317). But the question Fowles is posing is the following: does it
matter? The narrator is asking us if we should care whether something is fiction or not, and he seems to
suggest that we can still stay invested in the story even when explicitly told that it is only a story. Fiction is
powerful, regardless of its reality, and there is a difference between something being 'real' (existing in the
world) and 'true' (having the potential to exist, and being able to affect us on an emotional level). As the
narrator points out in Chapter 19, "Genesis is a great lie, but it is also a great poem" (130). The fact that the
Bible is probably fiction does nothing to mitigate the powerful impact it can have on its readers. The
conclusion we seem urged to draw is the following: "naked beauty matter[s] far more than naked truth"
(143). In other words, the aesthetic and emotional value of a piece of art is less important than whether
or not is subject matter is real or imaginary.

In a 1977 interview with the BBC, John Fowles said the following about his unconventional narration in
The French Lieutenant's Woman: "I don't really consider that the games I played in The French Lieutenant's
Woman are games. You know, I gave two endings or three endings possibly. I did at one point step out of the
sort of illusion of fiction, into another illusion. I don't really feel that those are games. I think those are in
fact literary truths, which can be stated. The ones I've just mentioned in The French Lieutenant's Woman are
in my view truths about the artificial nature of fiction, but that has nothing to do with other kinds of truths
in the book, which really are about feeling, and which of course do express opinions about life."
Freedom

We can split the theme of 'freedom' in The French Lieutenant's Woman into different types of freedom -
some large, some small, some within the context of the novel, and some on the level of meta-fiction.

Let's start with a relatively narrow type of freedom: social freedom, or the freedom to act as one wants in
a social environment without fear of negative consequences. Victorian society is famously rigid and
constrictive, but not quite so bad when compared to earlier eras. Charles and Ernestina are mutually
happy that they are so free compared to a millennium before, and can be more flirtatious than at other points
in history. Of course, compared to our contemporary society, they are actually very constrained. Sarah
manages to break out of this narrow social world to some extent, because she intentionally chooses to go
against what is acceptable and thereby ejects herself from the social sphere, essentially becoming a pariah.
The intentional and deliberate nature of this choice is key: Sarah says that she "owed it to [her]self to appear
mistress of [her] destiny" (141).

But not all the characters feel free to act on the world around them, and some doubt that they can shape their
own destinies at all through their willpower. Typically, people throughout history have felt some degree of
free will, but this period is interesting, because it sees the introduction of Darwinism. Although a scientific
theory, Darwinism also can be interpreted philosophically: it seems to imply determinism and
therefore lack of freedom. We are what we are because of millions of years of evolution, and to think
that our actions are the products of our own unique consciousness and will is a delusion.

Charles is aware of this implication, although he spends much of the novel trying to ignore it. He would like
to think that he has "total free will," and it is on this assumption that he congratulates himself for his own
behavior (152). If he was merely acting out a series of actions that he was evolved to do, then he wouldn't be
able to be proud of himself, since he isn't making any difficult choices - he in himself has no special
willpower.

Although he can sometimes convince himself that he has free will and can act freely, Charles' deep fear, is
that he is the human equivalent of "an ammonite stranded in a drought": stuck in time, helpless in the
face of fate and forces beyond his control. In Chapter 25, Charles comes to the terrifying conclusion that
time doesn't exist and that everything is happening in a single moment, "caught in the same fiendish
machine". Obviously, this leaves no room for free will - his sense that he is acting of his own accord and
shaping the world around him must therefore be an illusion. He develops an awareness of this later in the
novel: in Chapter 38, for example, he feels a "sense of freedom" from the possibility of sinning without
consequences in London, but immediately afterwards admits to himself that "in reality" he hasn't got the
freedom he thinks he has (231).

Sarah the prostitute has a "determined" fate, and Charles also feels as though his fate is "sealed" - although
interestingly, he ends up escaping from the encounter without having sex with her (246, 245). And yet
although Charles has apparently accepted the fact that he is being pushed by "God" or a "malevolent inertia"
along his path like a train track, with no freedom to get off the train or change his destination, he actually
fights back against this sense of inevitability and realizes that he does have freedom. We therefore see a
seesaw in the novel between two schools of thought: one saying that we are free, and one claiming that we
are not. What Charles feels as he makes the crucial decision of whether to go back to Ernestina or visit
Sarah is "really a very clear case of the anxiety of freedom - that is, the realization that one is free and the
realization of being free is a situation of terror" (267).

Academic Naomi Rokotnitz has argued that the conclusion that Fowles seems to draw about the characters'
freedom to make choices through free will is this: "while accidents cannot be foreseen, choices are often
predeterminednot by external forces but by the connective chain of events that leads up to any
given moment." According to this view, there isn't an external force like fate or God pressuring the
characters to make decisions, but that the decisions they make become inevitable thanks to the sequence of
events that has led up to the moment of choice. This is a post-Newtonian way of viewing the world: the
choices we make determine the next choices, and so on and so on. Rokotnitz cites the love story between
Charles and Sarah Woodruff as an example of this type of limited freedom: Charles and Sarah are often
described as (or literally) standing on top of a high place, off which they may fall accidentally or throw
themselves willfully. We might think of Sarah standing at her window at the end of Chapter 12, wondering if
she should throw herself off. The characters could turn back, but they are already entrapped in a way by
virtue of their repeated chance encounters, that throw them together and make the turning-back much more
difficult.

Of course, there is an even larger type of freedom that the characters aren't even aware of: the freedom
accorded to them or withheld from them by the novelist. The novelist compares himself to "a god" in
Chapter 13, and it's easy to see how he might draw this parallel: he and God both are creators of a
world, in a way, and they have some degree of control over what happens in that world. Fowles
occasionally comments on what he allows the characters to do or not do; for example, he writes of
Sarah fixing her hair that this is "the first truly feminine gesture I have permitted her" (221).

But the novelist's control isn't full, because God gave human beings free will. Fowles writes in Chapter 13
that "[t]here is only one good definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist". Thus there
is another bizarre kind of freedom treated in the novel, one step larger than the ones we have already
discussed. Fowles, far from always portraying himself as an all-powerful God-figure, often discusses the
limits to his own freedom. Of Ernestina's spirit and strong will, he writes: "she leaves me no alternative but
to conclude that she must, in the end, win Charles back from his infidelity". In Chapter 61, he says that he
"did not want to introduce" himself as a character in the novel, suggesting that he doesn't have full control
over what even his own character does. At one point, he ruminates about the difficulty of knowing what is
on Sarah's mind: "I preached earlier of the freedom characters must be given. My problem is simple - what
Charles wants is clear? It is indeed. But what the protagonist wants is not so clear, and I am not at all sure
where she is at the moment".This isn't the tone of a fully omniscient and powerful God - the view we are left
with of freedom and fate in the novel is a complicated one, both on the level of the amount of freedom we
experience in our lives as characters in God's creation, and the amount of freedom that a novelist has over
his characters.

Love and sex

Love and sex are treated from an almost sociological perspective in this novel: through his descriptions of
the various' characters attitudes toward sex, the author hopes to create a portrait of Victorian sexuality.
When we think of the Victorians, we tend to think of an extreme prudery - in fact, the adjective 'Victorian'
is basically synonymous with puritanical censure of sexual activity and feelings. Certainly, there are
examples of prudery in this novel. The fact that Sarah has such a bad reputation because of her rumored
sexual encounters is a product of this prudery, and the lack of sexual contact between the 'lovers' Charles
and Ernestina is another result of Victorian denial and willful ignoring of sex. However, Fowles shows us in
the novel that Victorian prudery is more complicated than we might initially think - it isn't by any means
universal, and it depends heavily on class and gender.

Denial of sexual feelings and interaction is primarily the business of the upper classes, whether they
are nouveau riche like Ernestina or aristocratic like Charles. Charles and Sarah have been taught to
suppress their sexual instincts for their whole lives, and this proves a problem when they are trying to
embark on a romantic relationship together. Physical contact between them is unnatural and forced,
as in the scene following their engagement, when we expect them to be thrilled to finally be allowed to kiss
each other, and Ernestina ends up crying. The narrator explains that they "did not kiss. They could not. How
can you mercilessly imprison all natural sexual instinct for twenty years and then not expect the prisoner to
be racked by sobs when the doors are thrown open?".

The lower classes seem to take a healthier view of sex, or at least a less repressed one. Mary incarnates
female sexual attractiveness, and she "invite[s] male provocation" and enjoys being looked at and flirted
with. She seems to be much more comfortable with her own body than Ernestina is; although she cries a
little after having sex with Sam Fuller, we might remember that Ernestina bursts into sobs at the mere idea
of kissing Charles. Premarital sex is much more common and even accepted in the lower classes,
although it ends in disaster as often as it does in a marriage. We have a few examples of both cases
provided through the characters of the novel: Mary is an example of someone who has sex before marriage,
but who marries her partner and lives happily ever after, although it does cause her some tears along the
way. Sarah the prostitute is an example of premarital sex among the lower classes gone wrong - the father of
her daughter paid for her delivery, but then went to India to be a soldier and has left her to take care of the
child. The only viable option for her is prostitution.

There is a huge difference in how women and men view sex and are expected to engage or refrain from
engaging in it. It's difficult for a modern day reader to imagine certain aspects of this gendered attitude
toward sex: for example, the narrator reminds us that the prevailing consensus at the time was that women
feel no "carnal pleasure" and therefore cannot physically enjoy sex. Charles believes, like many Victorian
men, that women cannot "enjoy being a receptacle for male lust". This has obviously been disproved;
nowadays we are much more educated about the female sex drive and orgasm. However, we can see that
other aspects of sexual culture have persisted: for example, the Victorian culture shames women who
engage in premarital sex, or who are thought to be enjoying sex too much - and this kind of shaming of
female sexuality is very much alive and well today, in a society where girls who have sex are often labeled
'sluts,' just as Sarah is labeled the French lieutenant's "whore."

Neither gender is particularly well educated about sex in the Victorian period, but the difference is that the
men are allowed to gain knowledge about sex through experience, whereas the women must stay ignorant
until marriage. This may be another similarity with our modern world: although sex education has vastly
improved in many parts of the United States and Western Europe since 1867, in some more conservative
places sex education is still not required to be taught in schools. The consequences of a lack of sexual
education are clear in The French Lieutenant's Woman: Ernestina knows almost nothing of what sex actually
consists of. Her imagination produces "dimly glimpsed" embraces based on animals' coupling, and she is
terrified by how brutal the act of sex must be. Her lack of education makes her hate the idea of sex, which
she considers a "bestial version of Duty" that is a necessary but terrible price to pay if she is to get what she
really wants out of her relationship with Charles: love, stability, and children.

The dynamics between women and men in terms of soliciting sex tend to be quite gendered as well, and are
closely linked with power. In Ernestina and Charles' relationship, Charles is the one who tends to ask for
physical contact, and Ernestina is put in the position of accepting or refusing his advances. For example,
Charles has to "steal" kisses on Ernestina's eyelids, and can only do so when she is feeling sorry enough to
grant him the privilege. In the first sex scene between Sarah and Charles, Sarah is "passive" while Charles is
penetrating her.

Scientific progress and discovery

It is rare that novels deal with science as a major theme - art and artistic creation tend to be much more
popular themes, for obvious reasons. But Fowles has built science into the fabric of The French Lieutenant's
Woman, so much so that to not address science would be to give an incomplete analysis of the work.

First of all, the concept at the center of the novel is, as mentioned several times already, Darwinism.
This is a famous scientific theory by Charles Darwin, who is writing and publishing a little before the
characters of the novel are experiencing their personal dramas, claiming that species evolve over time by a
process of natural selection: the individuals in a species who are best adapted to their environment's
changing conditions survive and reproduce, and eventually their genes become dominant in the
species' gene pool. This was a very controversial theory at the time (as we are told from Chapter 1, when
Ernestina's father and Charles quarrel about whether humans can really be descended from monkeys).

Darwinism is controversial partly for the reason that its implications are huge, and extend beyond the
realm of biology. Thanks to Darwin's ideas, the Victorians are beginning to realize that everything "is in
reality a continuous flux," and species that we recognize have changed and will continue to change over
time (45). Nothing is stable, and soon nothing will be quite as it was. Of course, the Victorians do not like
this idea, since they are very attached to their traditions, and are very conservative in many ways. There are
many huge social changes taking place during this era: changes in the position of women, in the
traditional class system structure, and in people's attitudes toward religion, sex, and a host of other
things. It seems that the shift to the Darwinian perspective precipitates and mirrors other shifts in the
Victorian consciousness.

Charles, who is arguably the protagonist of the novel but is certainly the character on which the narrator
most frequently dwells, is a scientist - or, at least, an amateur paleontologist. Darwinism is one of the main
threats to Victorian society; it's ironic, then, that Charles, who is such a Victorian gentleman, should be a
supporter of Darwin. Its implications menace the fabric of 'respectability' that the Victorians so value; the
narrator of the novel notes that Darwinism could lead to a way of looking at the world in which morality is
reduced to "hypocrisy," and duty "to a straw hut in a hurricane. Charles initially thinks of himself as the
"naturally selected," and appreciates the explanation that Darwinism seems to give for his heightened social
status: he is simply the fittest, the smartest, and the most suited to be on top of the social pyramid. Later,
though, Charles begins to doubt whether this is true. When he is actually in nature, Charles feels
"excommunicated," not like a fit example of life.
In different interviews, Fowles has expressed various views on scientific progress. In a Paris Review
interview, he highlights the importance of Darwinian thought in the Victorian age: this was when "rational
science began at last to cast off the shackles of obscurantist religion, when reason began to triumph over
myth." This seems to be a positive portrayal as science as a force for enlightenment and social good.
However, Fowles mitigates this by claiming that "[o]ur present scientific world...has its faults and problems,
of course, and perhaps the pendulum has swung too far." Seemingly, Fowles is suggesting that there is a
limit to what science can achieve, and that more science isn't always the answer to society's problems, even
though it did a lot of good for the backward Victorians.

In a BBC interview in 1977, Fowles casts doubt on the ability of science to answer all our questions, saying
that to think that science "has solved all our problems" is just an "illusion," and that science will never be
able to explain everything. What is left, when science has explained all it can, must be tackled by something
else - maybe spirituality; maybe art. Science isn't as joyful as an unscientific appreciation of nature - when
overwhelmed by the beauty of nature in Chapter 10, Charles is "forced...into anti-science" (60). Only art can
truly capture the perfect loveliness of scenes like this, the narrator comments, and in particular only the art
of the Renaissance era. Furthermore, in Chapter 29, science seems to deny the secret that Nature clearly
conveys to Charles: that all life is equal.

Mystery and uncertainty - the unknowable

In a 1977 BBC interview, John Fowles claimed that "all art also is really bound up with (1), the idea of the
unknown and (2), the idea of the unknowable, the impossible." This may explain why mystery is a major
theme of The French Lieutenant's Woman. The novel emphasizes the importance of mystery in an age
where science can't quite give us all the answers to the questions we really care about. Doctor Grogan
says of Sarah's incomprehensible sadness that Charles' "ammonites will never hold such mysteries as
that," suggesting that the emotional realm of humanity is far less penetrable than science would have
us think (127).

Sarah in the novel is mystery personified. Initially, the reader cannot even tell what gender she is, and
it takes a few chapters for us to learn her real name. Not till she has sex with Charles in the Endicott
Hotel do we learn that she is actually a virgin, and we never seem to learn her true motives for having
acted as she has. Sarah has "darker qualities" (99), she is always dressed in black, and when Charles
sees her he describes her as a "dark movement" in his field of vision (98). She contrasts strongly in
this way to Ernestina, who often appears in pretty, light-colored dresses, and had no real secrets to
hide.

Sarah's mysterious nature is certainly part of her attraction; Charles is fascinated by her "unpredictability".
In the same BBC interview, Fowles commented that he doesn't "think certainty makes for happiness in a
human being," and we definitely see Charles longing for an element of mystery in a high-society life that is
sometimes too banal and predictable for his liking. In his love letter to Sarah in Chapter 49, Charles dwells
on her mysterious nature, calling her his "sweet enigma" and "sweet and mysterious Sarah" (290). It is
interesting how he can feel so strongly about her despite knowing so little about her, and he does recognize
that she is "a being he yet but scarcely understands" (290). Her mystery attracts him - but is this attraction
sustainable?
It would seem that there is a sort of barrier between them that is born of this lack of mutual understanding.
Their relationship is very unbalanced in this way: Sarah knows Charles even better than he knows himself
(she knows that he loves her before he realizes it himself), while Charles "scarcely understands" Sarah. At
the close of the novel's first ending, Charles asks Sarah: "Shall I ever understand...?" and Sarah shakes her
headshe is never meant to be understood. Charles wants to be tender and intimate with her - he loves her,
after all - and yet she will always be "a stranger" to him. Charles' love for Sarah is largely speculative,
because he knows so little about her. He imagines "unknown Sarahs" who dance and laugh and sing. He
imagines what it would be like to be married to Sarah. When he is separated from her, traveling Europe as
an exile from British society, he slowly realizes that he can't really tell the difference between the "real
Sarah and the Sarah he had created in so many such dreams". Sarah's totally mysterious nature leaves her
a blank canvas on which Charles can project his dreams, and create his perfect woman, "Eve
personified".

The dark side of mystery in The French Lieutenant's Woman is deception and concealment. Sarah is
referred to as "the Sphinx," which hints at the potentially dangerous nature of her secrecy. Montague jokes -
a joke that cuts too close for Charles - that Charles must remember "what happened to those who failed to
solve the enigma". Under Sarah's happiness in the first ending of the novel is a great concealed and
continued sadness, which she is willing herself not to perceive: she claims that she is "not to be understood
even by [her]self" and that her happiness depends on her "not understanding". Here, as Charles eventually
realizes, what she doesn't want to understand is that her "supposed present happiness [is] another lie," and
that she actually is still suffering (255). Here, deception is necessary for life to continue.

At the end of the novel's second ending, Charles comes to the conclusion that "life...is not one riddle" (366).
This is an incredibly important realization for him to have - he has spent so long trying to unlock Sarah's
mysteries, thinking that to do so would give him the key to a happy and fulfilled life - and here he realizes
that there is no 'quick fix' and no one riddle to solve that will give him the secret meaning of life. Even
though he was happy chasing the illusion that mystery would bring him happiness, he was ultimately
deluded: life is meant to be "endured," not solved (366).

Duty

Duty is described by the narrator of The French Lieutenant's Woman as "a uniquely Victorian trait" that
creates the order and morality that the Victorians so valued. Duty, rather than passion, is the
motivating force behind many of the characters and behind the era as a whole.

All the characters seem to experience the sense of duty, except for the modern woman Sarah, who is
motivated by "passion". Ernestina feels the burden of the "bestial...Duty" to have sex with one's husband
as a payment for all the enjoyable things that marriage brings. Uncle Robert expects Charles to be more
"dutiful" toward him as a father figure. Mrs. Poulteney feels a duty to give charity - although her charity
must necessarily be false and hollow with Duty as its primary motivator, and it is not an adequate substitute
for compassionate morality; Mrs. Fairley similarly takes a perverse joy in doing her harmful "duty" and
telling on Sarah.

Charles feels a very strong sense of duty to many things. He feels a "duty towards Ernestina" which requires
him to spend time with her and make sure that he follows the proper conventions that an engagement
requires of him. These duties can become "onerous," but Charles is imbued with a sense of purpose in
following them, so he takes some pleasure in making sure he is doing his duty. Even though he is merely a
scientific amateur, Charles feels a duty toward the pursuit of scientific knowledge, as we can see from
Charles' serious approach to fossil-hunting in Chapter 8, when he dresses with a "methodicality" that was
typical of the time period but which seems excessive and pleasure-killing to us now.

Charles relies on it to provide him with purpose and guidance. In Chapter 33, Charles is relieved when
"Duty, as so often, [comes] to his aid" and dictates what actions he must take in a given situation. Pleasure
and duty, far from being mutually exclusive, are often wrapped together in Charles' mind, as when he tries
to justify his helping Sarah by saying that there is an "element of duty" as well as an "element of pleasure,"
and that his course of action is justified by the "element of duty" - no one would expect him as a gentleman
not to do his duty (134).

But duty is yet another treasured Victorian value that is threatened by a Darwinian interpretation of
the world, since Darwinism, when its full implications are considered, seems to "reduce...duty to a
straw hut in a hurricane".

Throughout the novel, Charles experiences a loss of a sense of duty, although he keeps trying to hold on to it
as a justification for what he does. Charles' tragedy, he says, is that he no longer feels any "real sense of duty
to anything" and this makes him lack a "moral purpose". In the scene in the church after he has sex with
Sarah, Charles tells himself that "duty" requires him to go back to Ernestina and fulfill his engagement vows
to her. However, his "better self" knows that "Duty is but a pot" that can hold either evil or good, and that
duty isn't necessarily good. Duty is not an objective value to strive toward; Charles has been willfully
misinterpreting it and clinging onto the idea of duty. It is rather a "prison" in which Charles is "comfortably
safe" and feels no urge to leave, because what is outside the prison is too frightening to contemplate . This
ridiculous attempt to hold onto duty is what distinguishes Charles from a "modern man," who
understands that there are more important things in life.

Social mobility and revolution

The main themes of The French Lieutenant are all interlinked in some way, and the theme of social class
and the changing social situation in Victorian England is intimately bound up with Darwinist thought.
Charles can recognize that he lives in an era of change: he exclaims to himself that his time is "such an age
of change!" in which so many "orders" are "beginning to melt and dissolve". He cannot act on this
knowledge, though, and adapt himself to the new social order - other classes are able to make the most of
the changing times and begin to rise through the ranks of society.

Charles believes in Darwinism, and he believes that he can apply its principles of natural selection
and survival of the fittest to his own life. Throughout the beginning of the novel, he refers to himself
as being the "naturally selected". In Charles' mind, he is "undoubtedly" one of "the fittest" specimens that
humanity has to offer. It isn't clear why he believes this, but apart from his good looks and his intelligence,
one of the major factors that contribute to his self-confidence is his social status. Charles is an aristocrat,
and he thinks that nature has put him on top of the social hierarchy because of some merit in himself and his
ancestors - why else would he be so blessed as to never have to work for his food and shelter?
However, the events and the commentary of The French Lieutenant's Woman seem to suggest that Charles is
deluding himself. He may be on top of the metaphorical 'food chain' in Victorian England, but part of what
makes an organism the "fittest" is its ability to adapt to changes in the environment. If a living thing cannot
adapt to new circumstances, it will not survive and reproduce, and will eventually die out . We see in
the novel that Charles is incapable of the sort of change that is necessary for survival in his rapidly
changing environment. In his interview with the businessman Mr. Freeman, Charles is offered a lucrative
position of partnership in his father-in-law's business, and yet he feels he cannot accept the offer because "he
was a gentleman and gentlemen cannot go into trade". Despite Charles being a Darwinist, he is unable to
break free of the conventions that would allow him to build his own fortune and keep up with the
times. To survive and prosper, money is needed - but Charles does not want to be interested in money,
because he is a gentleman and he feels "the pursuit of money [is] an insufficient purpose in life". Charles is
therefore a "victim of evolution". Like the "ancient saurian species" of dinosaur to which Charles'
social class is compared later in the same chapter, Charles will soon be a relic of a bygone era.

Who will replace him? There is a sort of class revolution - or at least softening of traditional social rules - at
the top of the social scale, where the nouveau riche (like Ernestina's family) are appearing in abundance for
the first time. Previously, the top of the social hierarchy was only accessible to those who were born
aristocratic, like Charles; now, we can see "the beginnings of a plutocratic stratification of society" - in other
words, money can now buy you "social standing" more than ever before (67). There is an element of
meritocracy here, as well: "good money" can be supplemented by "good brains," and in combination these
can provide a lucky few with "a passable enough facsimile of acceptable social standing" (67).

It is also important to remember that the philosophy of Marx is being developed in the same year as the
novel's setting. Marx is mentioned - though not by name - in the third chapter of the novel, as the
"German Jew quietly working...in the British Museum library," whose thoughts would produce
"such bright red fruit". Marx would like to have the working-class take over from the bourgeoisie and the
aristocracy, and we do see some indications of upward mobility for a few of the lower-class characters in
The French Lieutenant's Woman. In Chapter 7, we meet Charles' manservant Sam Farrow, who is described
as less satisfied with his low status than previous generations of working-class men, and who works
tirelessly throughout the novel to achieve his dream of opening a clothing store and entering the middle
class. Charles warns Sam that "once you take ideas above your station you will have nothing but
unhappiness," but the fact that Sam is ultimately successful may make us doubt Charles' advice, and
give us hope for increased social mobility (257).

Similarly, servant-girl Mary envies Ernestina her dresses and her fianc, but actually lives a happier
life than the bourgeois Ernestina. She is not plagued by Ernestina's consuming fear of sex - in fact, she
enjoys flirting with and kissing the boys who woo her - and she is too busy and lively to be gripped by the
sulky ennui which Ernestina sometimes wallows in. Ernestina also, in fact, envies Mary - she is jealous
when Mary talks to Charles, and she is jealous of Mary's prettiness. Just as her future husband Sam Farrow
is less than content to be ordered around by Charles, Mary feels "a flash of defiance" when Ernestina tries to
control her life. Ernestina may be right when she complains internally that "servants were such a problem,
as everyone said. Were not what they were, as everyone said," but it is difficult to sympathize with her, and
easy to cheer on the rise of a new, hard-working middle class (67).

There are, of course, lower-class people who are born into greater poverty than Mary and Sam, and
who never achieve their middle-class dream. True poverty and its social effects are incarnated in Millie,
Mrs. Poulteney's maid. Her destitute home life is "too bitter to describe," and a world away from the
idealized images of peasants that art and literature at the time were trying to promote (129). The narrator
declares that he hates the "walls" that the elite of society build around their "Versailles," especially when the
wall is made of art - he intends to show us the true state of the poor as well as the rich (129). Sarah the
prostitute is another example of how terrible conditions for the lower class can be, as she has to sell sex in
order to care for a child that she conceived accidentally with a man who left her.

The upper-class is actually frightened of the lower classes, which is surprising because we assume that
they have so much more power and money that they need not worry about insurrection, but less surprising
when we consider the sheer numbers of lower-class families in England at the time, and the amount of
resentment and anger that they might legitimately feel. In Chapter 19, during Dr. Grogan and Charles'
discussion, Dr. Grogan remarks that the British government "fears the mob". We also learn later that Charles
actually is also "frightened by...those below his own class". He may play with the idea of being a socialist,
but as the narrator tells us, "Charles was no early socialist," and that he is not fully conscious of his
economic and social privilege, but has a vague fear that someone will steal these from him. His delusional
revelation in London in Chapter 38 is ridiculous: he claims that "the lower orders were secretly happier than
the upper" and are "happy parasites" living off the rich.

Fowles paints the Victorian era as a time of great social upheaval and change; by including characters
from all social castes in the text and depicting their ambitions and fears, he clearly shows us which
sort of people are rising in status, and which sort of people are failing to adapt to the circumstances
around them, and will eventually lose ground in the war of the classes.

Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

The crumbling cliffs of Lyme Bay (Symbol)

As Charles walks the Lyme coast, searching for fossils and ruminating about the nature of science and
evolution, he looks at the cliffs and they strike him as symbolizing something. The narrator writes that
Charles "might perhaps have seen a very contemporary social symbolism in the way these gray-blue
ledges were crumbling" (45). The narrator explicitly imbues the cliffs with symbolism here, but the
character doesn't see this symbolism - Charles is not astute enough or self-aware enough to really think
that his social position is in danger. It is for the reader's benefit that the narrator points out the possible and
poignant connection between the crumbling class structure and the crumbling cliffs.

What the cliffs symbolize to Charles is the stately and monumental nature of time, in which nature
builds on top of what exists to create huge edifices. He also sees the cliffs as symbolizing "the survival
of the fittest and best," a subset of humans to which he feels he belongs.

Evolution and the changing class system (Allegory)

Darwinism is a central theme of the novel, and one of the ways in which it is used is as an allegory or
explanation of the changing class system in Victorian England. Charles and his like-minded peers believe
in the survival of the fittest - that the class system is the way it is because those at the top of the pyramid are
most fit to rule. However, there are several indications in the novel that because of changing conditions,
gentlemen like Charles will not be able to solidify their hold on the top echelon of society, and that other
classes - primarily the bourgeoisie, represented by Ernestina's father - will rise to take their place. This
process is described in Darwinian language; the gentlemen are "living fossil[s]," being replaced by
"fitter forms of life". C

Ware Commons (Symbol)

Much of Charles and Sarah's initial interactions take place on the wild Ware Commons, which is used as a
symbol of a world outside of the Victorian sphere of harsh morality and prudery. Typically
conservative characters like Mrs. Poulteney are aware of Ware Commons' significance: for Mrs. Poulteney,
Ware Commons is the "objective correlative of all that went on in her own subconscious" - that is, Ware
Commons symbolizes all the things that she would prefer not to think about, like sex and crime and
immorality (78). There is no supervision of Ware Commons, and so it is one of the only places in the
novel that is free from society's rules - it is likened to "Sodom and Gomorrah" at one point, which
underscores the seedy sexual connotations the place has for Lyme residents (76).

The novelist as God (Allegory)

The author of the novel compares himself to "a god" in Chapter 13: he and God have both created a world,
over which they can exert some (or even full) control. Fowles writes in Chapter 13 that "[t]here is only one
good definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist" (82). He therefore allows, or
pretends to allow, his characters some autonomy; while he has created them and provides the large story
arcs of their lives, he is sometimes surprised by their actions, and they control him to some degree. He
cannot always know what they are saying, thinking, or even doing - he writes at one point that Sarah is "too
far away for [him] to tell" if she is crying or not (364). Fowles may compare himself to God, but the
allegory can only be taken so far - he is a limited deity.

Charles as an ammonite (Motif)

As mentioned before, evolution and the changing class system are huge concerns of this novel, and one of
the recurring ways that the author depicts this theme is through the motif of comparing Charles to an
ammonite. Charles' lack of free will is represented by this analogy: the author writes in Chapter 29 that
Charles felt he had "no more free will than an ammonite". The ammonite motif is picked up repeatedly
throughout the novel, and it is especially powerful because of its irony: Charles is compared to the
ammonites he so loves to collect, and which he feels superior to - he is a thinking person, of course,
and he is still alive, so he must be fitter than the extinct species he collects. But he is actually no freer
to shape his destiny than they are, and he too will be caught up and frozen in time.