An Analysis Of Metalepsis In John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman And The Magus

John Fowles(1926-2005)is one of the most innovative writer in the history of English literature and enjoys high prestige in the contemporary British literary arena.The structure of Fowles’ novels has the features of discontinuity and randomness,openness,and symbiosis of reality and fiction,which makes his works different from traditional novels.This thesis takes Fowles’ works The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Magus as the research objects.Based on the theory of metalepsis of Marie-Laure Ryan,Monica Fludernick,Jan Alber,Alice Bell,and other narratologists,this thesis focuses on the elements of metalepsis in these two novels.After the intensive reading of the text,this thesis finds that the two novels are full of transgressive elements.The narrator,some characters,and even the author from the real world all show characteristics of transgression.In The French Lieutenant’s Woman,the narrator seems to exist in the storyworld he tells and adds self-comments in the story from time to time without authorization.The author even descends into the storyworld and changes the ending of the novel.In The Magus,the character belonging to the real world enters another world,and some characters even alive again.Strictly speaking,these are all the phenomena of metalepsis which violate the real-world paradigm and give readers a magical reading experience.Based on the theory of metalepsis and the theme of existential freedom,this thesis attempts to embody the free ideas promoted by Fowles in the narrative technique of metalepsis so as to achieve the perfect combination of narrative approach and theme.This paper analyzes the text through the theory of metalepsis and finds that both two novels can present four types of metalepsis in total.The combination of the metalepsis and the novel’s content will help to understand Fowles’ existential free thoughts entirely and realize Fowles’ deep concern and reflection on society and human living conditions at that time.Therefore,this thesis uses the theory of metalepsis to analyze Fowles’ novels,exploring the existential freedom thoughts contained in the novels and providing a new perspective for Fowles’ studies.