The French Lieutenant's Woman Viewed From A Postmodernistic Perspective

John Fowles is one of the famous English novelists in 20th century. The French Lieutenant's Woman is very important in his creation. The prologue gives a brief introduction to the contemporary studies on this novel at home and abroad. It has been done rather deeply abroad. However, among these studies, there is only few attention paid to the postmodernistic character of the novel through female figure. This thesis aims to inquire deeply into The French Lieutenant's Woman viewed from postmodernistic perspective on the basis of the former researches.The text includes three sections as follows:The first chapter intends to place Sara into the gallery of Victorian females, comparing her with other female images in Victorian novels, so as to highlight Sara's unique character and unremitting spirit for the absolute freedom. This is not for the sake of comparison per se but to gain insights of the postmodernistic character of the novel.The second chapter interprets the life course of Sara and Charles parallelled with the orbit of Sartre's existentialist philosophy of freedom thematically, highlighting such a capitalised epithet as freedom via their action and diction rather than serving as a mouthpiece of such ideas. In the grave and hostile circumstances, they never give up profound affections for Nature, nor burry their sincere and simple feelings of benevolence. This suggests the difference between Fowles and Sartre in terms of the concept of freedom.The third chapter expounds the novel's postmodernistic techniques, such as parody, the God's play idea, anachronism, three endings, and so on, stylistically. Inheriting the tradition of realism, the novel tells good stories in an experimental way, with its plot tightly knitted and highly integral, and also philosophically contemplative and artistically experimental. The conclusion emphasizes the unique figure of Sara, different from but at the same time belongs to the group of"Victorian rebels"in 19th century. As is created by Fowles who lives in 20th century, it must reflect on the thoughts of the author. Facing various crises in all aspects of English novels in the 1960's, Fowles, by his own work, disapproved the thesis that"the novel will die", and therefore explored an avenue for English novels in the post-war era.