The French Lieutenant's Woman

Abstract

For this work of thesis I chose a rather interesting novel which deserves in my opinion, a thorough analysis: The French Lieutenant's Woman. John Fowles, the author, wrote in 1967 but curiously decided to set it exactly one century before, in 1867. This choice turns out to be interesting even as far as its analysis is concerned. The French Lieutenant's Woman embodies postmodern features especially looking a, not only the narration but also the author's choice to provide three different and possible ending; and at the same time both because of its setting, its plot and the characters chosen, the novel seems to belong to a work of fiction typical of the Victorian age. This thesis also deals with another significant aspect, which is the recurrent theme of the novel, which is freedom. Freedom not only in the characters, but aslo freedom of the reader. Fowles hints at this theme since the very beginning through the use of epigraphs which introduce each chapter. The first one, at the beginning of the Whole novel, comes Fromm Marx's Zur Judenfrage: "Every emancipation is a restoration of the human world and of human relationships to man himself". Emancipation concerning particularly the main character: Charles Smithson.