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JOHN FOWLES: THE INWARD JOURNEY

Posted on:1988-06-12Degree:Ph.DType:Dissertation
University:The University of Texas at AustinCandidate:GARDNER, ADRIENNE KUULEIFull Text:PDF
GTID:1475390017457621Subject:Literature
Abstract/Summary:
John Fowles's novels are primarily explorations of the psyche. His goal, as he disclosed in 1982, is to discover himself during the process of writing fiction. His goal for the reader is no less challenging; he wants the reader to discover him- or herself through the process of reading Fowles's novels.; Fowles has suggested that the most fertile approach to his novels and to his journey of self-exploration combines a psychoanalytic and psychiatric perspective with the literary. This study is tailored accordingly. The approach is threefold: formal, mythic, and psychological.; Although no single study of Fowles's novels approaches them from the above perspectives, critical work on Fowles adequately covers the novels up to Daniel Martin. But Daniel Martin marks a turning point in Fowles's novels: one that has been insufficiently explained in existing analyses of the later novels. Though Fowles still believes that there are masculine and feminine aspects of the self and that psychic unity depends on their reunion, Daniel Martin lacks the erotic magic of the earlier novels, in which the romance between the hero and heroine was a compelling metaphor for the Jungian process of individuation. With Daniel Martin, Fowles begins to employ a different metaphor and psychological model for the hero's (and reader's) quest for self-knowledge. To achieve personal understanding, the hero must make a regressive journey back to the lost mother of infancy: the neo-Freudian version of the inner voyage.; After an introductory chapter that outlines the critical approach and analyzes the pattern underlying Fowles's early novels, this study makes a detailed analysis of his latest two major novels, Daniel Martin and A Maggot, interpreting in a psychological framework the myths which underlie these novels.; Analytic theory holds that it is possible to "read" the psycho-history of a novelist, get a sense of his shifting self as he grows and changes, by looking at the artifacts left behind, the novels. This study of Fowles concludes by trying to chart his current position on his inward journey.
Keywords/Search Tags:Fowles, Novels, Journey, Daniel martin
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