‘The French Lieutenant's Woman’ is a postmodernist novel, which embodies a Victorian novel in which a battle between modern and conventional qualities takes place. Fowles presents this fight through the two women that Charles falls in love: Sophia Woodruff and Ernestina Freeman. In fact the entire book is based on different antithesis regarding diverse characteristics.
First of all, the most emphasised contrast is between Sophia and Ernestina. One represents the past and the present which is everyday reality and on the future which is not yet accepted and is seen as an outcast. Ernestina is the result of her upbringing and her environment, so she is submissive to what the epoch wanted to produce and to be proud of. The Victorian women were …show more content…
One is formed by Charles and Ernestina and the other one is formed by Sam and Mary; they belong to different social classes, so their relationship and courtship are based on distinct thinks. ‘Sam and Mary's courtship is truly romantic, while Charles and Ernestina's is much more the result of a variety of social, economic, and personal influences that affect both his and her decision to marry one another.’ Sam wants to offer his future wife a stable life and he does everything for that, he even becomes a little businessman and hires Mary a maid to help her in the end, but Charles is unsecure, undecided and does not know what he wants. His personality depends on who is he with and his entire relationship with Ernestina is a formal one, they both being attracted to their social status and they are not so romantically …show more content…
As the Victorian era asks, one should obey God’s will and to be an empathic person. But none of the characters of this book show this quality. Even though Mrs. Poultney offered her help to Sarah, she and Mrs. Fairly spy on her and eventually she is asked to leave. And also Charles, when he had a moment in which he wanted to dedicate his life to the church, his father sent him to Paris in order to sin and to make up his mind acquainted to his life purpose.
In conclusion, Fowles writes a postmodern novel in a Victorian way, not mocking the beliefs of the Victorians, but evidencing a gap between the past and the future. Sophie is a symbol for the recently began feminist movement of that
First of all, the most emphasised contrast is between Sophia and Ernestina. One represents the past and the present which is everyday reality and on the future which is not yet accepted and is seen as an outcast. Ernestina is the result of her upbringing and her environment, so she is submissive to what the epoch wanted to produce and to be proud of. The Victorian women were …show more content…
One is formed by Charles and Ernestina and the other one is formed by Sam and Mary; they belong to different social classes, so their relationship and courtship are based on distinct thinks. ‘Sam and Mary's courtship is truly romantic, while Charles and Ernestina's is much more the result of a variety of social, economic, and personal influences that affect both his and her decision to marry one another.’ Sam wants to offer his future wife a stable life and he does everything for that, he even becomes a little businessman and hires Mary a maid to help her in the end, but Charles is unsecure, undecided and does not know what he wants. His personality depends on who is he with and his entire relationship with Ernestina is a formal one, they both being attracted to their social status and they are not so romantically …show more content…
As the Victorian era asks, one should obey God’s will and to be an empathic person. But none of the characters of this book show this quality. Even though Mrs. Poultney offered her help to Sarah, she and Mrs. Fairly spy on her and eventually she is asked to leave. And also Charles, when he had a moment in which he wanted to dedicate his life to the church, his father sent him to Paris in order to sin and to make up his mind acquainted to his life purpose.
In conclusion, Fowles writes a postmodern novel in a Victorian way, not mocking the beliefs of the Victorians, but evidencing a gap between the past and the future. Sophie is a symbol for the recently began feminist movement of that