Irony On The Victorian Era:Transtextuality In The French Lieutenant’s Woman

John Fowles is a representative writer in the postmodern literary world. His novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman is a best representative of his works, and is widely acknowledged in the world due to its combination of both tradition and novelty. Many researchers at home and abroad have already analyzed this novel from many perspectives using different literary theories. In the perspective of intertextuality many research findings have been achieved. However most of them are superficial, which are limited to the study on the intertextual techniques applied in the novel. So in light of Genette’s theory of transtextuality, this thesis sets out from exploring the architexts of transtextuality for the novel, then finds out the transtextual relationship between the text and the architexts, and finally reveals the implied irony on the Victorian ideology so as to penetrate into the profound intertextual meaning in the novel.The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter is Introduction, which gives a brief introduction to John Fowles and his literary creation, and general survey of Fowles studies both at home and abroad. It also explains the focus and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two digs out the architexts of transtextuality for the novel. The most obvious architexts are the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter, and they echo the development of the story. Among the 80 epigraphs,62 are about literature,5 about philosophy and 4 about science. This chapter will focus on these 71 epigraphs and will summarize their main ideas. Moreover, the chapter will discuss the two novels which interact with the text, namely Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Les Gommes.Chapter Three analyzes the transtextuality between the text and the architexts. First, the interaction between the text and the epigraphs. The epigraphs influence the text in ways of setting off the historical background of the 19th century, implying the development of the plot, insinuating the theme of the text and promoting the text’s absorption of part of Marx’s philosophic view and Darwin’s scientific opinion. The influence of the text on the epigraphs is mainly embodied in two aspects, namely the complement of opinions presented in the epigraphs and the challenge to some opinions. Second, the interaction between the text and the two novels. The influence of the two novels on the text is embodied in the text’s imitation of the two novels in aspects such as plot development and characterization while the influence of the text on the two novels is embodied in its adaptation of the two novels.Chapter Four reveals the significance of the transtextuality between the text and the architexts. Based on the discussions in the previous chapters, this chapter is to reveal the novel’s irony on. Victorian view of science, Marx’s theory of revolution and Victorian literary style.The last chapter is Conclusion, which summarizes previous discussions and restates the main arguments of the thesis. It points out that Fowles’s ironic attitude toward the nostalgic feeling of many writers in the 1950s in UK is implied in the novel’s irony on the Victorian era. It is hoped that the present study of the transtextuality of the novel does not only exhibit its postmodernist style, but more importantly, reveals the significance of its postmodernist devices, thus proving the ideological value of postmodernist literature.