Gone With Victorianism

John Robert Fowles has been regarded as one of the most talented writers of the twentieth century in both British and world literary arena. He represents the turning point of English literature and new development to the western literary criticism. His representative work The French Lieutenant’s Woman published in1969brings him universal academic praise with its distinctive features of writing techniques and artistic achievements. The speaker tells a story about love triangle happened in the Victorian era, and from the perspective of the20th century John Fowles parodies the realistic novels in Victorian age in the19th century. The subversion of tradition and perfect combination of tradition and innovation make the novel a permanent art.This thesis aims to analyzing how this novel—The French Lieutenant’s Woman deconstructs itself from two embodiment of deconstructionist thought reflected in this novel—the values and narration. In terms of the values, this thesis focuses on analyzing this novel from deconstruction theory to reverse the two binary oppositions of male/female, reason/emotion. In terms of narrative, the novel is a postmodernist one which violates to the traditional literary works. Fowles uses postmodernist narrative art including the first person narrator and multiple endings to disturb traditional narrative of The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Through this approaches, this narrative art not only disturbs the dominate traditional narrative art in the Victorian society, but also makes the author no longer the ominipotent God who has the power to control characters, narrator and the readers. To this extent, the novel deconstructs itself for the traditional Victorian values and the novel writing mode which is the unique characteristic of postmodern fictions.