Double Expression Of Freedom—Existentialist Interpretation Of The French Lieutenant’s Woman

John Fowles is a world-famous British writer in the20th century. The Collector, The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s Woman are his representative works. His works perfectly combine philosophy and literature, tradition and experiment. The wisdom of philosophy and the beauty of literature supplement each other, the entertainment of tradition and novelty of experiment enhance one another, which make his works popular with both the literary circle and the general public.When Fowles studied in Oxford University, French existentialism became a vogue in both philosophical and literary circles. He was extremely interested in Sartrian existentialism, especially the ideas concerning freedom. Just like Sartre, Fowles regarded freedom as the utmost writing principle, writing about personal and literary freedom in a free way. When experimentalism became popular in Europe, the British writers either returned to tradition or hesitated at the crossroads. Experimental works were too obscure for its overdoing of forms and techniques and neglecting the readability of works, while traditional works became inflexible for exhaustion of innovation in forms and techniques. Therefore, Fowles explored a way of his own, tactfully combining traditional narration and experimental techniques, thus bringing new reading experience to readers and injecting fresh blood into British literary world.The French Lieutenant’s Woman is manifesto of Fowles’ freedom concept, describing living individuals’, writers’ and readers’ pursuit of freedom, expressing and arousing people’s freedom consciousness. Expounding the novel’s freedom concept from both perspectives works to see an overall picture of Fowles’ freedom concept, to understand existentialism the philosophical and literary trend, the historical background it prevailed, including people’s living and mental predicament, most importantly, to encourage people to break away from the shackles of reality and boldly pursue the twilight of freedom.The thesis is divided into6parts. Part one is introduction, presenting John Fowles’ literary achievement, especially the unprecedented charm of the target novel. Chapter1talks about theoretical basis and literature review, i.e. existentialist freedom and scholars’ research on freedom embodied in The French Lieutenant’s Woman Chapter2analyzes the expression of freedom from philosophical perspective. The alienation between man and nature and man and man restricts man’s freedom, but the protagonists dared break away from shackles and make a series of choices, approaching freedom step by step. Chapter3analyzes expression of freedom from literary perspective. When both writers and readers were anxious for not being free, Fowles boldly made innovations, wrote freely about freedom, thus endowing a certain degree of freedom to readers. Chapter4probes into the sources of his freedom concept, i.e. his love for nature and philosophy. The last part is a conclusion of the previous parts, summarizing the author’s double expression of freedom and the sources.