Indeterminacy In The French Lieutenant's Woman

John Fowles is a contemporary novelist who enjoys high prestige in English literature world. His novels suit both refined and popular tastes and are widely loved by readers and critics alike. Among his novels, The French Lieutenant's Woman is considered his masterpiece. Since its publication, The French Lieutenant's Woman wins tremendous recognition of academic reviewers for its high aesthetic accomplishments. Critics probe into the novel from different aspects such as postmodernism, traditional historicism, neo-historicism, existentialism, and feminism etc. No doubt these explorations have enlightened our studies of the novel. After reading the novel and various critical reviews, it is easy for us to see that critics have neglected indeterminacy this one major postmodern aesthetic characteristic that is embodied in this novel. Fowles, as one of the contemporary novelist who faces the accounts that novels of the WWII have exhausted their forms, realizes that the creation of novel faces serious challenge—how to use new creative ways to represent the realities of 20th and the life experience of people. Fowles adopts an attitude of succeeding to and surpass the traditional literature and experimentally uses indeterminacy this postmodern feature in creating this novel The French Lieutenant's Woman. The indeterminacy in character images, plots, the themes in his novel not only accords with people's indeterminate feelings towards to world around them but also provides an alternative writing technique for the development of novels after the WWII.This thesis consists of introduction, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three and conclusion.Introduction first introduces the significance achieved by The French Lieutenant's Woman and various critical reviews towards it. Then it gives a brief survey of indeterminacy of postmodernism under the social and literary backgrounds of WWII and analyzes the indeterminacy in the character images, the plots and the themes of The French Lieutenant's Woman.Chapter one analyzes the indeterminacy in character images of heroine Sarah and narrator. The French Lieutenant's Woman is full of mysterious and indeterminate factors. The real self and identity of Sarah are always in a state of mystery and indeterminacy. She is an enigma that no one can solve. Although the narrator, the hero Charles and other characters of the novel have their narrations and discussions,they still do not give us a complete and determinate recognition of Sarah. The indeterminacy in the narrator's image, however, is created by Fowles, on the one hand, as a traditional omniscient narrator who has absolute control over his Victorian characters and introduces the stories and activities of the little town's characters; on the other hand, the narrator jumps out to give his comments to the story he is telling when the readers think they know whatever the narrator does. The narrator even appears in the novel as characters who have various identities, thus the narrator's omniscient image is broken.Chapter two discusses indeterminacy in the plots. Fowles adopts the unique writing technique of interweaving two ages in the same story and providing open endings so as to systematically reveal the realities'indeterminacy. The interweaving of the two ages shows in Fowles's creating the"real"Victorian age while inserts some descriptive things of the modern society. At the same time Fowles provides three endings for readers to think over and choose instead of providing a clear clarification of cause and effect that is typical in the ordinary traditional novels. The interweaving of the two ages and the three endings break through the traditional way of using one fictional story to create a true story and allows the reader get different meanings from the indeterminate story and also provides readers a creative imagination.Chapter three deals with indeterminacy in the themes. Traditional novels nearly all have its single theme. However when Fowles uses creative techniques to create the indeterminate character images and plots of the novel, the readers surely will find out the different themes that are represented by the indeterminate character images and plots. The multiple themes are represented mainly in two ways. One is Fowles's severe attack on the repressive Victorian age. The other one is Sarah and Charles's pursuit of freedom.Conclusion points out indeterminacy that embodies in the character images, plots and themes of The French Lieutenant's Woman's not only makes the readers and critics feel deeply the indeterminacy of the 20th century and the various and indeterminate interpretations of the novel, but also provides an alternative for the development of postwar English novel.