On The Subversion In The French Lieutenant’s Woman

John Fowles is one of the most innovative English novelists in literature since the 1960 s. His masterpiece The French Lieutenant’s Woman has been praised by academic attention and attracted the reader’s attention since its publication. The French Lieutenant’s Woman is a typical work of subverting Victorian tradition; both in characterization and narrative technique. This article investigates Fowles’ subversion of Victorian tradition, omniscient narration and the question of history from the perspective of content, form and ideology. The first chapter focuses on subversion of characterization in content; the study is conducted in two protagonists Sarah and Charles, they both live in the traditional Victorian era when ideas are imprisoned. Sarah represents a new woman who subverts the patriarchal male-female relationship and traditional master-servant relationship. As a typical Victorian gentleman, Charles’ concept is totally different from other English gentlemen in the aspects of politics, religion and marriage. They endure a difficult struggle against the tradition and eventually win the rebirth. The second chapter shows subversion of narrative techniques in its parody, changeable narrative point of view and the spatial structure respectively. Fowles, breaks the line between fact and fiction, tradition and reality, overturning the synchronic linear narrative structure. Changeable narrative perspectives give reader, author and narrator the highest degree of freedom. The third chapter digs into Fowles’ subversion of ideology in depth. Fowles deconstructs the history of Victoria Age through application of knowledge, power, and marginal discourse. He subverts traditional grand narrative by exploring ignored details of the official history so as to make people pay more attention to historian fault in the process of human history. The subversion in The French Lieutenant’s Woman embodies the author’s new understanding of 20 th century novel aesthetics. Besides, it provides diversification and flexibility to the development of contemporary novel.