The Pursuit Of Freedom

John Fowles is one of the most prominent contemporary British writers, whose fame is largely based on his novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman. This novel talks about the protagonists, Sarah and Charles, who try to shake off social constraints, struggling to acquire their freedom and independence. It is an excellent postmodern fiction and its creation is heavily influenced by existential philosophy, especially Sartrean existentialism. Fowles not only pursues narrative freedom concerning the author, the characters, and the reader, in form of typical postmodern techniques, but also explores the existential freedom of human beings through the protagonists' free choices and actions.Efforts have been made in this thesis to approach the novel with existential philosophy, particularly Sartrean existentialism. Existentialism is a huge and unbelievable complicated system and this thesis is based only on some of the basic ideas of Sartrean philosophy, such as Sartre's existential literary view, the human anguish, the relationship with other people, and free choices and actions. Therefore, the existentialism will be adopted to interpret the novel from two aspects, the narratives and theme.First, The French Lieutenant's Woman is a typical postmodern fiction, for the narrative techniques, such as the intrusive author and the open-ending, are all imply the postmodernist indeterminacy, openness, plurality and so on. By adopting the postmodern narrative techniques, the narrator, the reader and the characters have freedom to choose. Here the postmodern narrative techniques and existential literary view realize a perfect combination.Besides, the theme of the novel also implies the existential freedom. Emancipation and the pursuit of freedom are the most important theme in this novel about existence, choice and freedom. This theme is displayed through the two protagonists. In this part, three basic existential views—the anguish of human, the relationship with other people and the free choice and actions—will be taken to analyze the main characters, Sarah and Charles.Through the analysis from two perspectives, this thesis tends to show that the existential freedom permeates in every aspects of this novel. Fowles has achieved a unity between the form and content by merging the free narrative and the existential theme into a novel about freedom.