French Lieutenant's Woman
Analysis of Voice and Character of The French Lieutenant’s woman
Shima Nourmohammadi Shino964@liu.student.se Voice Analysis. The novel begins with voice of Thomas Hardy’s ″The Riddle″ which is quoted by the author. This quotation is an apt description for The French Lieutenant’s woman which portrays a singular figure, alone against a desolate landscape. The novel portrays Victorian characters living in 1867, but the author, writing in 1967, intervenes with wry, ironic commentary on Victorian conventions. In fact, it is parody of Victorian novel with chatty narrator and narrative juggling. The most striking fact about the novel is the use of different authorial voices. Voice of the narrator has a double vision: The novel starts off with an intrusive omniscient, typically Victorian, voice: “I exaggerate? Perhaps, but I can be put to the test, for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; [...]” (Fowles, p.10). In chapter 1 we hear an extensive, detailed description of Lyme Bay. The narrator makes it a point to insist that very little has changed in Lyme Regis since the nineteenth century to the present day. The narrator deftly moves between the two centuries and comments on the present day events in the same tone in which he comments on the Victorian period. We hear the voice of narrator as a formal, stiff Victorian tone while narrating the events in the novel yet the content of what he says is contemporary. The illusion of a Victorian novel is soon broken by a narrator, who introduces his modern 20 century point of view. For example, in Chapter 3, he alludes to devices totally unknown to Victorian society and the illusion of the typically Victorian novel is broken. “[Charles] would probably not have been too surprised had news reached him out of the future of the air plane, the jet engine, television, radar: [...]” (Fowles, p.16). In Chapter 13 he finally reveals
Shima Nourmohammadi Shino964@liu.student.se Voice Analysis. The novel begins with voice of Thomas Hardy’s ″The Riddle″ which is quoted by the author. This quotation is an apt description for The French Lieutenant’s woman which portrays a singular figure, alone against a desolate landscape. The novel portrays Victorian characters living in 1867, but the author, writing in 1967, intervenes with wry, ironic commentary on Victorian conventions. In fact, it is parody of Victorian novel with chatty narrator and narrative juggling. The most striking fact about the novel is the use of different authorial voices. Voice of the narrator has a double vision: The novel starts off with an intrusive omniscient, typically Victorian, voice: “I exaggerate? Perhaps, but I can be put to the test, for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; [...]” (Fowles, p.10). In chapter 1 we hear an extensive, detailed description of Lyme Bay. The narrator makes it a point to insist that very little has changed in Lyme Regis since the nineteenth century to the present day. The narrator deftly moves between the two centuries and comments on the present day events in the same tone in which he comments on the Victorian period. We hear the voice of narrator as a formal, stiff Victorian tone while narrating the events in the novel yet the content of what he says is contemporary. The illusion of a Victorian novel is soon broken by a narrator, who introduces his modern 20 century point of view. For example, in Chapter 3, he alludes to devices totally unknown to Victorian society and the illusion of the typically Victorian novel is broken. “[Charles] would probably not have been too surprised had news reached him out of the future of the air plane, the jet engine, television, radar: [...]” (Fowles, p.16). In Chapter 13 he finally reveals