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    Ana Hernandez French Lieutenant Woman

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    Catalina Aprodu
    The French LieutenaThis novel is based on the nineteenth-century romantic or gothic novel, a literary genre which can trace its origins back to the eighteenth centurynt's Woman

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    Ana Hernandez French Lieutenant Woman

    Uploaded by

    Catalina Aprodu
    27 views19 pages
    The French LieutenaThis novel is based on the nineteenth-century romantic or gothic novel, a literary genre which can trace its origins back to the eighteenth centurynt's Woman

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    AnaHernandezFrenchLieutenantWoman

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    The French LieutenaThis novel is based on the nineteenth-century romantic or gothic novel, a literary genre which can trace its origins back to the eighteenth centurynt's Woman

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    27 views19 pages

    Ana Hernandez French Lieutenant Woman

    Uploaded by

    Catalina Aprodu
    The French LieutenaThis novel is based on the nineteenth-century romantic or gothic novel, a literary genre which can trace its origins back to the eighteenth centurynt's Woman

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    The French Lieutenants Woman: a struggle for female emancipation

    Historical background of the novel


    Published 1969. A XXth c. perspective of a XIXth c. story. Victorian England hypocrisy. Evidently patriarchal society with two only possible ways for women: motherly figure or the prostitute. Setting: England 1860s. Beginning of female emancipation in England: March 1867.

    Female emancipation
    Victorian reaction: One response was the virulent antifeminism of the later nineteenth century (Woodcock, 85). Creation of a whole mythology of masculinity to keep male power.

    A male writer portraying female characters


    Main character (not the protagonist): Sarah Woodruff. The stereotypical Victorian woman: Ernestina Freeman. The servant, representative of the surviving class: Mary. A prostitute.

    A silent protagonist
    The title itself, much like V. Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway. A subject defined in relation to masculine subjects: Sarah is never able to fully express herself because Fowles largely relegates her to silence and consistently presents her as an object of vision for men. (Rewriting womens stories: Ourika and The French Lieutenants Woman, 4).

    Sarah, the new Hester Prynne?


    Sinners, social outcasts, objects of desire, role of nature and mystery, the fallen from Grace: It is in this context of the observation of feminized nature that Charles discovers the sleeping figure of Sarah as a specimen to be observed and categorized (Rewriting womens stories: Ourika and The French Lieutenants Woman, 4).

    Several interpretations of Sarah (I)


    1. Feminist: The increasing scope of women who were gaining emancipation during the last decades of the XIX c. Selfish female?: gives freedom to Charles partly because she wants to keep hers: I wish to be what I am, not what a husband, however kind, however indulgent must expect me to become in marriage (Fowles, 385). Revenge on all men through Charles. Reason why she likes to keep like an outcast.

    2.

    Several interpretations of Sarah and Charles (II)


    Psychoanalytic: i. Freudian: women as
    the dark continent: [Sarahs] sexuality consistently takes on the stereotypical connotations apparent in the Freudian notion of woman as the dark continent. (Rewriting womens stories: Ourika and The French Lieutenants Woman, 7). an Oedipus complex: The mystery and shadow which Sarah comes from is maternal. Charles embodies the male deprived of his mother Sarah is made the enigma of his Oedipal quest (Woodcock, 99). Oedipal castration: The relation of Charles and his manservant
    may be also regarded as an inverted Oedipal castration performed by the junior one both socially and biologically it is presented in the novel as a constant obsessive metaphor of the extinction of species and a metaphor of Darwins theory. (Kirillova, n. pag.)

    Several interpretations of Sarah (III)


    ii. Displacement as the underlying force
    The seduced woman, identifying with her seducer, obtains the right to seduce men herself. She compensates for her initial total defencelessness by occupying the active, aggressive position through this displacement. From that lack, or nothingness, she used to consider the essence of her existence, escape is only possible through such a radical change of identity. In other words, if the French Lieutenant never existed, he is worth being invented. (Kirillova, n.pag.)

    Several interpretations of Sarah (IV)


    iii. Jungs new woman:
    She [(Sarah)] is what Jung considers the new woman whose masculine aggressiveness brings her near facultative homosexuality (Huffaker, 17). Sisterhoods against sexist behaviors. An animus in Sarah?

    The relationship of the protagonists in The French Lieutenants Woman by Fowles proves to be really one of transference (Kirillova, n. pag.)

    iv. Transference:
    Justification for the time setting: The choice of the Victorian Age as a setting is explained by the unstable position of sexuality, favourable for any emotional involvement, in particular, the transference. This is realized in the gap between Victorian Puritanism and the cult of refined sensuality by the Pre-Raphaelites. (Kirillova, n. pag.) o Love?: she provokes the psychoanalytical situation where love is only possible in the situation of transference, towards the one involved in the field of trauma (Kirillova, n. pag.).
    o

    Male characters
    Representative of misogyny and patriarchal scientific community: Dr. Grogan. Believed Sarah had hysteria and was addicted to melancholia. Protagonist: Charles
    Does not fit in Victorian society, although: Prejudices against women. Disillusionment with the prototypical Victorian woman. So, in search of a new woman although she may threaten patriarchal order.

    Charles, or the Victorian male dilemma


    His relationship with Sarah: Charles views Sarah as an external observer who invades rather than interacts with the object of interest (Rewriting womens stories: Ourika and The French Lieutenants Woman, 4). To himself, selected for survival.

    Charles aims to obtain freedom through an idealization of a woman: In her [(Sarahs)] challenge to convention Charles sees his own liberation This has to do with the idealization of her. (Woodcock, 93). Trapped in his society and in the restrictions for his sex: repressed by the maternal controlling super-ego British land (Kirillova, n. pag.).

    Intertextual notes
    Lots of references to feminist writers and books (Austen, The lady of La Garaye by Caroline Norton, J.S.Mill fighting for womens right to vote, etc.). At one point Emma Bovarys name sprang into his mind. Such allusions are comprehensions; and temptations. (Fowles, 106).
    Both aimed for a better future than the one they were determined to face. But: one fulfills it (Sarah) and the other doesnt (Emma).

    The femme fatale stereotype


    Sarah Woodruff Rossettis Lady Lilith

    A completely feminist novel?


    In one ending she becomes the model of PreRaphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Some argue that: Rather than achieving independence and emancipation ... Sarah merely plays the role of the passive female object (Rewriting womens stories: Ourika and The French Lieutenants Woman, 7).

    What are we faced with in the nineteenth century? An age where woman was sacred and where you could buy a thirteen-year-old girl for a few pounds a few shillings if you wanted her for an hour or two Where the sanctity of marriage (and chastity before marriage) was proclaimed from every pulpit Where the female body had never been so hidden from view (Fowles, 231).

    Works cited and suggestions for further research


    Fowles, John. The French Lieutenants Woman. London : Pan, 1987. Print. Huffaker, Robert. John Fowles: The French Lieutenants Woman. From: <ecmd.nju.edu.cn/UploadFile/25/12483/jfflw.doc >. Olga Kirillovas article If the French Lieutenant Never Existed, He Should Have Been Invented from <http://www.lacan.com/olgak.htm>. Rewriting womens stories: Ourika and The French Lieutenants Woman. South Atlantic Review 62.2 (1997): 74-87. Woodcock, Bruce. Male mythologies : John Fowles and Masculinity. Totowa, N.J : Barnes & Noble Books, 1984. Print.

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