Negative Thoughts In The French Lieutenant's Woman

John Fowles was an excellent British fictionist and essayist. From then on, Fowles became a full-time fictionist. He was a native narrator, and most of his works were best sellers. He was also a humanist and the idea of equality is a common theme in his works. The French Lieutenant's Woman was one of John Fowles'most popular fictions.Its fine and realistic descriptions and fantastic postmodern techniques create broad room for imagination for readers. It was adapted for eponymous film, which was nominated for Oscar Prize. In 2005, the fiction was selected by Time as one of the one hundred best English fictions from 1923.In this thesis, negative thoughts of the characters in The French Lieutenant's Woman are analyzed in terms of Lao Zi's"In Tao the only motion is returning;"and Zhuang Zi's thoughts of absolute freedom. Negative thoughts are essence of Taoism and hold that people should negate prejudice, fame and fortune and get a peaceful and free heart.The thesis consists of three parts: the introduction, main body and the conclusion. Their main contents are as follows:The first part is introduction. Historical background and important position of John Fowles'literary creation is briefly analyzed, description of this fiction's study situation home and abroad is carried on, and research method and theoretical value of this thesis are explained.In the first chapter, characters are discussed in term of Lao Zi's"In Tao the only motion is returning". In Lao Zi's opinion, Tao is the thing dominating the world and its law of development is to circulate and one of the concrete embodiments of this law is that"the weak overcomes the strong", for the weak side will become stronger and overcomes the original strong side. Thus Lao Zi advises people to venerate softness. In the condition of being inferior to the feudal influence, Sarah negates the prejudice against the weak and struggles against feudal influence by adopting the strategy of retreating in order to proceed and venerating softness. She puts her in the bottom of the society and makes her bear no more moral burden. She also turns to Charles by showing weakness and enlists sympathy and support from him and paves the way for her further struggle for independence. However, Sarah is forced to adopt this strategy because her power is inferior to feudal influence and her anxiety is real to some extent and this is the passive side of her.Another important embodiment of Lao Zi's"In Tao the only motion is returning"is inactivity. In Lao Zi's opinion, since things move in cycles, people should do things moderately rather than obstinately and this is called inactivity. Charles'words and deeds reflect his desire to negate dated and stern social values and go back to human nature. However, Charles'illusion of Utopia is the same as Lao Zi'ideal society of small country with few citizens, which is a kind of escapement from reality and even regression.In the second chapter, characters and the author of this fiction are analyzed in term of Zhuang Zi's thoughts of absolute freedom. Zhuang Zi deems that people should negate prejudice, fame and fortune, keep a peaceful heart, appreciate the world but not possess it. Therefore, Zhuang Zi says that"The perfect man cares for no self; the holy man cares for no merit; the sage cares for no name."As to the aspect of caring for no self, Charles'finds in nature that every species has its own characters and functions. Thus he understands equality between everything and negates stubbornly persisting in his opinions. His sympathy and help for others are all based on these thoughts. However, Charles'thoughts of equating everything exaggerate relativity between them and this is the unreasonable side of him. As to the aspect of caring for no merit, Charles negates the value of fame and fortune. He does not get on well with his uncle and loses the right of succession. He also negates Mr. Freeman's demand of doing business, breaks off Ernestina and is punished by Mr. Freeman. Charles is angry when his loses his gentleman position, but he has to accept it and this is his passive side. Sarah negates marriage and love with Charles to retain her spiritual freedom. However, this shows that she is not confident about marriage life with Charles. She is afraid that she can not be accepted by Charles'friends, meet Charles'requirements, or maintain mysterious and solitary image, independent spirit, and present happy living behavior. Thus she is to some extent forced to negate Charles'proposal and this is the passive side of her.The author also negates fame and fortune and refuses to write for sales volume. Even after he succeeds, he lives in the countryside. His use of parody of Victorian literary tradition is an irony to the disordered contemporary age and an negation of fame and fortune.As to the aspect of caring for no name, Sarah and Fowles negate words'functions in expression. Zhuang Zi holds that words stem from the constantly changing outside world and they are not reliable. Besides, understanding of words is restrained by words itself. Thus people should not persist in words. Sarah negates speaking as a way of expressing her thoughts. She is described as a sage and is indicated as Jesus in the fiction, for she uses beautiful voice to explain Bible and honest eyesight to move people. However, Sarah negates words'function in communication and is totally misunderstood by Charles. This is the unreasonable side of Sarah, who fails to communicate with others.Fowles negates logical words and uses poetic words to express his philosophy on life. This is in accordance with Zhuang Zi's getting the meaning and forgetting the words.The fourth chapter is the conclusion. In this thesis, the author and characters are analyzed in term of"In Tao the Only Motion is Returning"and absolute freedom. It can be concluded that Sarah, Charles and Fowles'thoughts of negating prejudice, fame and fortune contribute to their pursuing freedom,but their negative thoughts also contain passive and unreasonable elements.