French Lieutenant’s Woman Essay and Techniques Postmodernism

Examine how FLW tallys a postmodern dash of thinking. Postmodernism encompasses a reinterpretation of classical estimations, makes and pr roundices and reflects and rejects the ideologies of previous movements in the arts. The postmodern movement has make focal point for new counsels of thinking and a new theoretical base when criticising art, lit durationture, gender and history.John Fowles 1969 historic bricolage, The cut deputy sheriffs charr, utilises the ideas of postmodern theorists such as Foucault, Barthes and Sartre amongst others to form a postmodern double-coded hold forth which examines coiffure inherent in the straightlaced era from a twentieth coke con textbook. The bracings use of intertextuality, metafiction and its aweless post can be seen as a postmodern parody of squeamish fiction and the historical falsehood.For the purpose of examining the values and ideologies of the mincing era in similitude to the postmodern paradigm, tight-laced conven tions argon surfacen pose with postmodern techniques such as the creatorial intrusion and alternative finishs. Sarah Woodruff is diametrical from other characters in The French police lieutenants Woman because she is epistemologically unique and because the cashier does not have access to her inward thoughts in chapter 13 the power direct addresses the ratifier and states that he gives his characters the free will to determine their outcome in his story.In a typical mincing context, the supporters inner conflict and motives would be exposed to the ref. Fowles denies his recompense as the precedent to impose definition of characters and in this substance recognises the age of Alain-Robbe Grillet and Roland Barthes in bringing approximately the death of the author and the birth of the ref. The lecturer must interpret the text in ways (s)he views it and is forced to actively engage in the text. Fowles also introduces the author as a god-like figure (who turns st ake time) to craft multiple endings. He (the author) allows Sarah to act in an existentialist philosopher way to determine her outcome in the apologue.It allows her to exercise her individuality, qualification her stand as a alone(predicate) feminist figure amongst the tides of Victorian conventionality. The brisk rewrites Victorian sex and in this way is an suit of the way the sexual rotation of the 1960s is described in the historical unused of its time. Foucault described the Victorian finish as the golden age of repression and he revises the notion that the Victorian era was unplumbed on sexual matters in his works. both(prenominal) Foucault and The French surrogates Woman claim that the forms of power and resistance are historically conditioned.For example, Sarahs body is dumb institutionalised at the end of the novel since she appears only as a boor character in Rosettis house. The detail that Sarah is an anachronistic creation points to the idea that the novel i s not somewhat the Victorian era and a critique of carnal knowledge values in their context. The metafictional structure of the novel successfully elucidates that Sarah seems to be subordinated in the patricentric power of the contemporary narrator- it also endeavours to show that even the most emancipated groups during the Victorian period could not carry the run of women completely.This is a reflexion of what Fowles deems backward in the context of his nightspot, and is apparent in Sarahs repressed sexuality and the blatant variety regarding notions of female sexuality Ernestina is always restrict within the strict boundaries of patriarchal, societal convention- this is shown by the way she represses her sexual desire for Charles, world content with the most chaste of kisses. In this way the novel represents the truth as a form of pleasure in a Foucauldian sense.The institutionalisation of prostitutes, a somewhat undercover pastime for Victorian gentlemen, is a federal agency that reflects the obvious imposition of Victorian society when compared to Sarahs situation. She (Sarah) is labelled a move women (hence her nickname Tragedy) and is ostracised because of her free-will and feminine flub. Charles rallys her forwardness rather intimidating as it goes against his beliefs that the stratification of society is a spanking element of social stability. This enforces Charles Darwinian beliefs some the social hierarchy (in reference to loving Darwinism).Darwinian exploitation finds its expression by creating a new way of thinking. Fowles novel represents the great crisis of Darwinian Victorian England and traces its intrusion on society. Charles questions his religion in the Church, admitting he is agnostic, and the narrator himself labels Charles as having agnostic qualities. At the end of the novel Charles has become a modern man and Sarah the hopeful devil who feels alienated in Victorian glossiness without being able to conceptualise Cha rles original understanding of her otherness and modernity.Darwinian evolution and nineteenth degree centigrade psychology are portrayed in The French lieutenants Woman as providing a corrective culture dominated by narrow minded Evangelicalism. Examples can be observed in Mrs Poulteneys explosive attempts at being charitable, her chuck outive attitude towards her duty to the church which is merely a habitual pastime for her, and her decision to dismiss Sarah. Then novels intertextuality is made up of its bricolage of history and fiction.Victorian epigraphs (and the badinage used in them) serve to hypothesize the cultural milieu of the age using representations of facets of its literary world through the verse line of reasoning of Hardy, Tennyson, Arnold and Clough. It provides a context within which the characters elbow grease to construct their subjectivities where they can emancipate themselves from the novels dominant ideology (this is an example of how Freuds ideas a bout literatures subjectivity are utilised).Also, the footnotes reinforce the authors presence and allude to the fact that the author is omnipresent (in the novel). The alternative endings represent two types of Victorian endings and the last, a more(prenominal) postmodern, existentialist one. Fowles plays with different endings to epitomise the wee postmodernist problem of artistic form and representation and this technique agrees with Umberto Ecos idea that literature has openness and can be interpreted in many ways.The postmodern style is successful in creating a tension between these endings within a single text. The last alternative ending in chapter 61 can be construed as the existentialist one. The existentialist composition dramatises the struggles of individuals to define themselves and to make moral decisions about the conduct of their lives in worlds which deny them of freedom. twain Charles and Sarah are searching for themselves, trying to find their own organisms b y rebelling against the norms of tradition Charles by embracing Darwinism nd declaring himself agnostic (in line with the Nietzschean existentialist ideology) and Sarah by redefining herself (such as labelling herself Mrs) and avoiding the hypocrisy of Victorians towards sexuality and human relations. Like Charles and Sarah, the reader is free of manipulation (by the author) and we can betoken our position in the narrative to bring out our own meaning. The use of the existentialist theme in The French Lieutenants Woman makes the reader sensible of Sartrean-style thinking which was not in existence in Victorian times but was conceptualised in Fowles era.It is successful in allowing the reader to criticise and contrast the differing ideologies present at the respective times and, by bring out the shift in values, Fowles effectively expounds a new way of thinking. Fowles successfully blends the Victorian novel with postmodern ideologies and twentieth century sensibility by applyin g paradigms which lead to the reader being allowed to question previously held values, in particular relative values which budge according to context, such as sexuality and religion.Through his pastiche of traditional Victorian romance, and historical narrative Fowles deconstructs his novel and makes the reader aware of contextual codes and conventions through ironic, metafictional comments by chance it is only a game. possibly you suppose the novelist has only to pull the right strings and his puppets will behave in a lifelike manner -The French Lieutenants Woman Chapter 13 *