Freedom in the French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles Essay Sample

“Lock up your libraries if you like. but there is no gate. no lock. no bolt that you can put upon the freedom of my head. ” ? Virginia Woolf. A Room Of One’s Own ( p. 96 )

Specifying freedom as a construct that exists on the restricted field of the novel is most absorbing. as the construct of freedom itself has many beds. The philosophical attack towards freedom has been altering throughout history and accordingly impacting diverse countries of life and art. The philosophical attack towards freedom dates back to ancient Greece and continues to develop. still animating farther scrutiny. Therefore. when it comes to literature. this multidimensional assortment of freedom creates an chance for the writer to experiment on signifier and inspires him to determine the kingdom of the novel more freely. John Fowles’ most celebrated novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” is a wide and multilayered geographic expedition of the subject of freedom in the Victorian period. The survey of autonomy is presented from a modern position and refers to such extremely of import contexts as: societal escape. the character’s single way to uneasiness. void. moral criterions every bit good as novelistic codifications.

Furthermore. the complexness of both the abovementioned contexts and the construct of freedom itself. set in the peculiarly stiff times of Victorian England. necessitate a multidimensional analysis. The geographic expeditions are to be crowned with the interesting and advanced accomplishment in the field of narrative. since the evildoing from novelistic Victorian codifications is besides a critical signifier of freedom. In fact. John Fowles deliberately becomes a meta-narrator and through the stream-of-consciousness he considers renaming his work “The Aetiology of Freedom” . This important and symbolic illustration demonstrates to what extent Fowles depicts the profound and calculated illustration of freedom within the conventional Victorian paradigm. Harmonizing to Prof. Dr. Theo D’Hean: “The negation of societal and cultural norms ( … ) all point to a remarkable “pragmatic meaning” of the novel: to do the reader aware of freedom as an issue. ” ( p. 25 ) .

Socio-literary background of the Victorian age.

The Gallic Lieutenant’s Woman concerns the freedom of the person. the 1 that liberates from the imposed societal conventions and outlooks. regardless of the position or the function that one undertook. D’Hean provinces that the most important subject of the book is the denial of sexual freedom in Victorian times. but it is merely one case of the book’s negation of puritanical morality. as “it is closely linked to the negation of other Victorian restraints. in the first topographic point those upon economic and societal freedom. ” ( p. 26 ) . The supporters appear in the world. which was constructed on a extremely hierarchal system with exactly described and socially accepted function theoretical accounts. The narrowness of possibilities. particularly sing the possibilities for adult females. can be seen most expeditiously in the legion publications at that clip. written by both work forces and adult females.

Harmonizing to Sarah Stickney Ellis. Victorian author and laminitis of Rawdon House. female instruction should hold been focused on domestic accomplishments merely. She wrote The Women of England and other extremely popular ushers to female behavior The Daughters of England. The Wifes of England. works that unluckily did non stand for the voices in defense mechanism of female rational promotion ( Black. p. 96 ) . To the contrary. those novels were advancing the function of a adult female as an implement for male development and pleasance. A comparable illustration of a perfect married woman was depicted by male writer. Coventry Patmore. in his celebrated sentimental verse form The Angel in the House. It is normally believed that this “angel” was the prototype of dreams and wants of many Victorian work forces. The undermentioned extract shows obviously plenty the citation for wife’s limited free will. but more crucially for female captivity.

Man must be pleased ; but him to delight
Is woman’s pleasance ; down the gulf
Of his condoled necessities
She casts her best. she flings herself.
How frequently flings for zero. and yokes
Her bosom to an icicle or caprice.
Whose each impatient word provokes
Another. non from her. but him ;
While she. excessively soft even to coerce

His repentance by sort answers.
Delaies by. anticipating his compunction.
With forgiveness in her pitying eyes ;
And if he one time. by shame oppress’d.
A comfy word confers.
She leans and weeps against his chest.
And seems to believe the wickedness was hers ;

Or any oculus to see her appeals.
At any clip. she’s still his married woman.
Dearly devoted to his weaponries ;
She loves with love that can non pall ;
And when. ah suffering. she loves entirely.
Through passionate responsibility love springs higher.
As grass grows taller unit of ammunition a rock.

( Black. p. 104 )

Having respect to this imprinted. extremely stereotyped and deeply know aparting theoretical account. “Virginia Woolf famously instructed her audience that “part of the business. . . of a adult female writer” was to kill the “Angel in the House” ( NALW2 p. 246 ) . ” ( Gilbert. overview ) ” .

Selected back uping characters of the novel in the context of freedom.

John Fowles continues the abolishment of the theoretical account and reprobate this type of misogynous thought. for case by making the most detestable character of old. puritanical Mrs. Poultney and by multiplying those utterly negative characteristics of her. She is a great truster of Ellis’s and Patmore’s doctrine. “the pillar of the community” ( Fowles. p. 19 ) . the incarnation of societal conventions and of the dictatorship of category bias. Obviously. by knocking Mrs. Poultney’s dogmatism Fowles implies a congratulations for free thought. acceptance. regard and humbleness.

Furthermore. to advance credence and freedom the writer creates a strong group of varied characters who manage to cover with the societal restraints of the late Victorian period. For case. Dr. Grogan. who was under no duty to pay court to Mrs. Poultney. cognize exactly how to chasten her ruthless behavior and derive some peace and release for Sarah. both by ordering “more fresh air and freedom” ( Fowles. p. 60 ) to the evildoer. and by telling afternoon slumbers to the lady. His intelligence. instruction and regard among the community. for being a truly good physician. derive him a permission to portion his single beliefs and disregard some facets of rigorous societal criterions and category segregation. Even the manner in which Grogan expresses his sentiments is more direct and free than it would hold been required for respectable gentlemen.

Charles Smithson – an challenging Rebel ; his manner towards experiential and societal freedom.

However. the abovementioned illustration of chase of societal escape seems to be less heroic than it is in the instance of Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff. Critics have by and large characterised Charles as a type of Rebel who is conventional to some extent. comparatively comprehendible in his behavior. nevertheless. weather and deeply enduring from societal force per unit area. To my head. this character is wondrous created and represents more equivocal type of Rebel than it used to be believed. as he lives in an semblance of freedom. strongly comprehending himself to be ideologically independent. This makes his rational development more dramatic and surprising even for him. As it was put by the writer: “Laziness was ( … ) Charles’s separating trait” ( p. 17 ) and this characteristic let him warrant the life he led. On one manus. in his dreams he strive for a originative finds. on the other. he is cognizant of his restrictions and resigns from the chance to stand out. Due to the fact that Charles initial freedom was illusional. one can detect the holistic procedure of the birth of the true signifier of release. with his moral quandary and his profound analysis of the Victorian rigidness. The undermentioned extract demonstrates Charles false province of head after a visit to Dr. Grogan.

“ ( … ) and in Charles particularly. ( … ) was one of elevated high quality. rational distance above the remainder of their fellow animals. Unlit Lyme was the ordinary mass of world. most obviously sunk in immemorial slumber ; while Charles the of course selected ( the adverb carries both its senses ) was pure mind. walking awake. free as a God. one with the unslumbering stars and understanding all. All except Sarah. that is. ” ( Fowles. p. 163 )

At the same clip. Charles is thirty-two-year-old English gentleman. engaged to conventional beauty Ernestina Freeman ( “it is no happenstance that her name is Ernest-ina” ( D’Hean p. 134 ) and her family name is an antonymous word ) . the girl of an highly affluent store proprietor. The apposition of two ways of comprehending Charles. first his ain and 2nd the existent 1. proves how profoundly ingrained in subconscious the societal constrains were. Charles matrimony with Ernestina would tag the terminal of his self-chosen individuality and would be the most conventional of agreements. suggested in the chapter forty four in the first stoping of the novel.

“It was simple: one lived by sarcasm and sentiment. one ascertained convention. What might hold been was one more topic for degage and dry observation ; as was what might be. One surrendered. in other words ; one learned to be what one was. ” ( Fowles. p. 339 )

In this manner. the visual aspect of Sarah Woodruff maps as a moral thrust that saves Charles from the resignation that was described above. She becomes a accelerator in his development. However. the route towards possible freedom is full of economic quandary supported by Victorian upbringing. These jobs make Charles reactions more comprehendible for the reader. As it is described earlier in the novel. Charles being under strong influence of familiarity with Sarah misjudges his emotions. His ideas are tangled to such extent that tilting more on responsibility than on free will. he suppresses all sympathetic physical feelings towards Miss Woodruff. This internal battle is described in following extract.

“By the clip he came in sight of the White Lion. he had free-willed himself most convincingly into a province of self-congratulation … and one in which he could look at Sarah as an object of his past” . ( Ibid. . p. 190 )

From fright of exposing the truth of his restrictions he is get awaying Lyme. where he feels stifled intellectually. towards London “a metropolis of the blind” . where he could be hidden from his ain impractical. romantic and “dutiless” feelings. After a strong battle. evoked by “the three-word letter” . Charles eventually comes to the point where there is no flight from freedom. He is given a echt right to take between disregarding the missive. therefore. taking the life of conventional English gentleman and accepting this subtly provocative invitation. therefore. following the enigma – his fate. The writer. by playing the function of the all-knowing novelist. reads wondrous through Charles head unwraping the fact that. ” what he felt was truly a really clear instance of the anxiousness of freedom—that is. the realisation that one is free and the realisation that being free is a state of affairs of panic. ” ( Ibid. . p. 343 )

Afterwards. Charles achieves an dry version of freedom through rejection of “Freemanism” and through negation the chase of money as a sufficient intent in life. Fowles besides emphasises the fact that Charles abovementioned refusal had besides baronial elements and consequences in.

” queer kind of fleeting dignity in his void. a sense that taking to be nil ( … ) was the last redemptive grace of a gentleman ; his last freedom. about. ” ( Ibid. . p. 297 )

Finally. by the terminal of the novel. Charles additions a sort of “nothingness” equal to single release. It is Sarah’s concluding refusal that propels him into freedom. He walks towards some vague finish. therefore. go forthing behind his old individuality and imposed responsibilities. But what is deserving adverting in footings of his rational development is a statement. by some critic. stating that Charles ne’er does agitate off his restrictions finally. The fact is disclosed in the formal linguistic communication of the lost missive to Sarah. and in the gender theoretical account. as he continues to believe in male domination and can barely understand his rejection.

Sarah Woodruff’s function in making the kingdom of freedom.

Following component of the probe is an scrutiny of “one of the major advocators of freedom” ( coursework. info ) . the chief female character. Sarah Woodruff. who is considered to be more echt and superior Rebel against societal and economic restraints than Charles. For Charles Sarah was an incarnation of. “himself freed from his age. his lineage and category and state ; in the premise of a shared expatriate. He no longer much believed in that freedom ; he felt he had simply changed traps. or prisons. But yet there was something in his isolation that he could cleave to ; he was the castaway. the non like other work forces. the consequence of a determination few could hold taken. no affair whether it was finally foolish or wise. ” ( Ibid. . p. 430 )

Therefore. her function as a symbol of changeless chase of freedom. with its brave and extremely controversial Acts of the Apostless. is enriched by the writer with the function of a religious leader who awakes Charles from his semblance. However. this secondary map is non a load for Sarah and does non resemble any traits of Victorian heroines. She evokes Charles’s religious pursuit by her complexness. consciousness and singularity. The following facet is the fact that the demand to make a adult female with multilayered personality and an attach toing aura of enigma. so strongly contrary to the established Victorian theoretical account. provides a reader with bleary illustration of an intriguing. unhappy adult female. Unhappy. chiefly due to her two expletives in life. first being “fine moral justice of people” and the 2nd being educated “above her status” ( Ibid. p. 53 ) . D. ’Hean notices that. “by birth and ownerships she should hold been a peasant adult female. class of life her genteel instruction has made unpalatable to her. At the same clip. her humble birth and deficiency of fortune preclude her marrying into higher class” ( p. 28 ) .

However. the fact that she is socially uprooted by no agency is able to halt her from being echt and to turn to her sentiments to puritanical Mrs. Poultey. in a low but direct manner. This act of utmost courage is shared merely by those persons who are free and self-aware plenty. since Mrs. Poultney has her ways to enforce restrictions and conventions on everyone. What is deserving detecting is the fact that holding defined single freedom as a state of affairs in which a individual can retain oneself. regardless of disagreement between outlooks and worlds. it can be easy stated that the female supporter for good protects herself from conventions. This self-defense from being determined in any signifier prevents Sarah from being understood. even by herself. Therefore. Fowles portraits his supporter in such a manner that her actions are hardly comprehendible by other characters. During one of her first brushs with Charles she presents herself. stating.

“What has kept me alive is my shame. my knowing that I am genuinely non like other adult females. I shall ne’er hold kids. a hubby. and those guiltless felicities they have. And they will ne’er understand the ground for my offense. ( … ) Sometimes I about pity them. I think I have a freedom they can non understand. No abuse. no incrimination. can touch me. Because I have set myself beyond the picket. I am nil. I am barely human any more. I am the Gallic Lieutenant’s Whore. ” ( Ibid. . p. 176 )

Through this self-denial and the changeless chase of “nothingness” she achieves freedom. But Fowles by agencies of this character emphasises besides the crisis of sexual freedom and the deficiency of any literary description of confidant intimacy in general. At the same clip he drafts the huge job of harlotry in Victorian England in order to do the reader aware of lip service of that times. It is as if the writer tries to turn out that by avoiding the sexual facets of the relationship one leads to its deformation. In the fresh both lip service and calamity of this subject is highlighted in the character of a cocotte whose name happens to be Sarah as good. This happening in London is besides a signifier of illustration of Victorian stalking fate of many hapless. single adult females.

However. the same black career seems to be in no means a menace to Miss Woodruff independency. despite of her low societal and economic position. Furthermore. in footings of economic security. Sarah Woodruff’s brief sexual brush with Charles is a signifier of surrender from whatever possibility of being governess or married to a baronial adult male. Her gratuitous act of abandoning her virginity means that she clearly rejects the really option of harlotry. It is an unfastened act of rebelliousness against Victorian conventions and conformance. Finally. by fictionalising her hereafter and her past she manages. to some extent. to take control of her life and to cut down herself to work of art as a manner of accomplishing societal freedom. At last she finds such a societal environment in which she can maintain her individuality and at the same clip cultivate her strive for “nothingness” .

Fowles types of narrative as a signifier of release.

The last facet of freedom. which is deserving concentrating on. is go forthing behind Victorian narrative. the procedure wondrous described in the novel. Although. the most cardinal release from moral criterions has already been mentioned. it is besides important in footings of narrative analysis. Sexual familiarity in literature was mostly forbidden in Victorian novel. nevertheless. Fowles manages to liberate himself from these conventions. However. if it hadn’t been for Thomas Hardy this release of The Gallic Lieutenant’s Woman wouldn’t have occurred. Fowles liability is important for the novel. while it provides the reader with profound description of Victorian sexual mores in chapter 30 five and implicates that the novel was patterned after Hardy’s “A Pair of Blue Eyes” . After all. Hardy was a precursor of a battle with rigidness of novelistic codifications. For these grounds. while analyzing the construct of freedom. Fowles is motivated to utilize more direct manner of communicating.

The focal point of the minimisation the distance between the storyteller and the reader revolve in rousing from the omniscient Victorian narrative. This exceeding invention. represented by the passage from chapter 12 to chapter 13. could endanger the readers’ trust. nevertheless. paradoxically the storyteller manages to set up even closer relation. The undermentioned extract opens chapter 13. “I do non cognize. This narrative I am stating is all imaginativeness. These characters I create ne’er existed outside my ain head. If I have pretended until now to cognize my characters’ heads and innermost ideas. it is because I am composing in ( merely as I have assumed some of the vocabulary and “voice” of ) a convention universally accepted at the clip of my narrative: that the novelist stands following to God. He may non cognize all. yet he tries to feign that he does. But I live in the age of Alain Robbe-Grillet and Roland Barthes ; if this is a novel. it can non be a novel in the modern sense of the word. ” ( Ibid. . p. 95 )

Acerate leaf to state that in this game of giving the characters their narrative freedom. the writer tries to emancipate himself. in some manner. from the function of a sheer puppeteer. He achieves this end by roasting the almighty storyteller who can pull strings novelistic clip to such extent that two terminations are possible. On the other manus. the type of narrative in which Fowles uses first individual. easy overcomes the distance between the old omniscient storyteller and the reader. In his meta-novelistic intercessions the writer uses historical authorship or the linguistic communication of news media. hence makes the chance for the reader to place with him. Furthermore. Robbe-Grillet’s accomplishments in the field of a new novel. with a type of psychoanalytical attack towards a character. equip Fowles with varied agencies to accomplish freedom from Victorian novelistic codifications ; for case with the secret plan break. natural flow of ideas or breaks of free associations. By these means the novel additions extra significances and readings.

In a undermentioned extract the writer portions his ain serious ideas about stating the narrative. but what is important. is the fact that Fowles contemplations are told in a confidential manner and hence gain credibleness. “That is surely one account of what happened ; but I can merely report—and I am the most dependable witness—that the thought seemed to me to come clearly from Charles. non myself. It is non merely that he has begun to derive an liberty ; I must esteem it. and disrespect all my quasi-divine programs for him. if I wish him to be existent. In other words. to be free myself. I must give him. and Tina. and Sarah. even the detestable Mrs. Poulteney. their freedom every bit good. There is merely one good definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to be.

And I must conform to that definition. The novelist is still a God. since he creates ( and non even the most aleatory daring modern novel has managed to uproot its writer wholly ) ; what has changed is that we are no longer the Gods of the Victorian image. omniscient and decreeing ; but in the new theological image. with freedom our first rule. non authorization. ( … ) My characters still exist. and in a world no less. or no more. existent than the 1 I have merely broken. Fiction is woven into all. ( … ) . You do non even think of your ain yesteryear as rather existent ; you dress it up. you gild it or melanize it. ban it. tinker with it … fictionalise it. in a word. and put it away on a shelf—your book. your romanced autobiography. We are all in flight from the existent world. That is a basic definition of Homo sapiens. ” ( Ibid. . p. 97 )

Harmonizing to Richard P. Lynch the narrative freedom of character from its writer is compared to human freedom from God. It is a construct similar to Plato’s coop in which we are deceived by our heads and merely through meeting “the Sun” . hence agitating off the restrictions. we can see rational light that reveals the true world. The function of “the Sun” represents Sarah Woodruff who reveals extremely different position in forepart of Charles Smithson. since Plato besides stated that philosophers should seek to unchain others by conveying them closer to “the truth. ” This truth. in instance of The Gallic Lieutenant’s Woman is in “nothingness” and release from societal norms. stiff morality. novelistic Victorian codifications.

Decision

Gallic Lieutenant’s Woman is a profound analysis of societal. experiential and narrative freedom. The accomplishments and the message of the novel can be applicable in modern times. as the battle for freedom and acceptance is still current. The moral quandary of the characters and the demand to stay self-aware is a signifier of insightful psychological survey of the phenomenon of freedom. Fowles work is a multilayered fresh full of unfastened significances and different readings. He investigates freedom from many angles and allows the reader to make one’s ain decision and larn one’s single moral lesson.

Bibliography

• Black. Joseph Laurence. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian epoch. Broadview Press. 2006.
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Coursework Info. Intertextuality in John Fowles’ The Gallic Lieutenant’s Woman.

23 Jan. 2004. Web. 18 June 2012. hypertext transfer protocol: //www. coursework. info/AS_and_A_Level/History/British_History__Monarchy___Politics/Intertextuality_in_John_Fowles__The_Fren_L50252. hypertext markup language

• D’hean. Theo. Text to Reader: A Communicative Approach to Fowles. Barth. Cortazar and Boon: Tom 16 omega Utrecht Publications in General and Comparative Literature. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 1983. hypertext transfer protocol: //books. Google. pl/books? id=e_k_zwWEmL4C & A ; hl=pl & A ; source=gbs_navlinks_s

• Fowles. John. The Gallic Lieutenant’s Woman. London: Vintage Books. 2004. print

• Gilbert. Sandra. Susan Gubar. “Killing the Angel: Anxieties about Motherhood for Women Writers” . The Northon Anthology of Literature by Women. Third Edition. W. W. Norton & A ; Company
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• Lynch. Richard P. ” Freedoms in “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” . ” Twentieth-Century Literature. Vol. 48. No. 1. Hofstra University. ( Spring. 2002 ) . pp. 50-76 hypertext transfer protocol: //www. jstor. org/discover/10. 2307/3175978? uid=3738840 & A ; uid=2129 & A ; uid=2134 & A ; uid=2 & A ; uid=70 & A ; uid=4 & A ; sid=21100852344221

• Woolf. Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Broadview Press. 2001. hypertext transfer protocol: //books. Google. pl/books? id=858oEyeN1N8C & A ; dq=Virginia+Woolf. +A+Room+Of+One’s+Own & A ; hl=pl & A ; source=gbs_navlinks_s