The French Lieutenant's Wife is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles, written in a dual narrative form alternating between the Victorian era and the present day. Currently, a literary debate surrounding the novel concerns its validity as a feminist text. There are various obstacles in the novel in terms of defining the characters, the plot itself, and the writing methods used by Fowles. The novel fails to achieve certain aspects of traditional Victorian feminist writing, the style in which the writer wanted to interpret it. Sarah Woodruff is a nebulous central figure, as opposed to a strongly defined protagonist usually featured in feminist texts. Say no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay Can Sarah Be Considered an “Independent Female Protagonist”? Since the narrator acts in a voyeuristic, almost manipulative manner, this leads us, as readers, to believe that Sarah is never autonomous since her thoughts remain outside of the novel. In doing so, I feel that the narrator is unreliable since we never fully have the opportunity to empathize with her due to the absence of her point of view. Magali Michael, an anti-feminist critic of the novel, asserts that "if the novel is created within the framework of a masculine ideology and only masculine perspectives are permitted within the text, then it necessarily follows that its characters cannot not transcend this masculine ideology.” Support Michael, in Regarding our image of Sarah, the novelist fails to define her as a character, a human being; Fowles, the narrator, is a man and chooses Charles as his true protagonist. So how can the novel reflect a “true feminist perspective”? The male dominance in the novel, in terms of creation and history, deliberately reflects the male dominance of Victorian society, where only men held positions such as scientists, engineers and MPs, positions of real power. Fowles chose to challenge the traditions of feminist literature in his novel in which he suggests that a male author is never capable of properly capturing a woman's voice. Sarah's elusiveness is deliberate because of this, which forces me to ask: Are we convinced by her? She lacks definition and so it is difficult to interpret her story to define feminist goals in the way that feminist literature is known to do. The real protagonist is Charles. The role of a protagonist encourages the reader to empathize, and often sympathize. Like Charles, we find a sense of fascination in Sarah's mystery that leads us to sympathize with him much more, which also makes the concept of alternate endings more exciting and intriguing to the reader. One could consider Sarah to be more of a technique than a protagonist; a central character who moves the plot forward, sparking a similar interest in Charles as his fossils do, provoking in the reader a desire to “study” him in the same way Charles does with his paleontology. He seems to learn from Sarah in the form of emotional growth; he moves from ignorance to understanding by following the woman he believes is helping and she acts as a mentor in his personal realization. For example, as readers, we are instantly as drawn to Sarah in chapter 2 as Charles, when Fowles describes the sorrow on her face at having "flowed from her as purely, naturally and unstoppably as the water of aforest source”. Although there is a juxtaposition in the "grief" compared to the purity and beauty of nature, nature is portrayed as harsh and violent. The use of the adjective "unstoppable" in relation to Sarah could be indicative of Charles' fascination with being equally unstoppable. Like Charles, as readers, this intrigues us, forcing us to question why his grief is so visible in his appearance, emphasizing Charles's protagonist role due to us as readers sympathizing with him with fascination, as opposed to Sarah.with her sorrow. Connecting the novel to the Victorian era, Charles could be described as a representation of modernism, described as "always asking too many questions of life." This metaphor of questioning the non-tangible name "life" reinforces Charles's intense fascination with mystery. Describing him as a philosophical thinker of the unknown of “life” and asking “too much” emphasizes the desire to study and learn, to the point of unraveling a much-needed mystery. This could foreshadow his relationship with Sarah, as it might have been better if their story remained unknown. Charles considers himself a rebellious new thinker with his interest in Darwinian studies, his academic paleontology science, and his anti-religious beliefs. He finds “English society too narrow, English solemnity too solemn, English thought too moralizing, English religion too fanatical”. This leads me to disagree with the question even more given that the novel almost seems to question the style of a Victorian novel instead of following it, since its true protagonist seemingly goes against all ideals typical of a Victorian man. Another authorial method that draws our attention to Victorian society is Ernestina's character of Sarah. Ernestina is the idealized woman of the Victorian era, but unable to satisfy Charles's desire for mystery, visible in his fascination with Sarah. Fowles' use of opposing female characters proves that Sarah has a sense of power over Charles, even though society views her as damaged. Connecting this to another fantastic literary work by John Fowles, his second novel The Collector, published in 1963, also explores male and female dynamics. In The Collector, Frederick expresses a sinister desire to kidnap Miranda as his moth and force her to fall in love with him. Although this does not fit with Charles' motivations, Sarah does not choose to become involved in Charles' life in the same way that Miranda's involvement is against her will. The similar feeling of being out of control that we see in Miranda and Sarah emphasizes that Sarah is not an independent female protagonist, but rather a technique that brings Charles' self-realization to the surface in a way similar to Frederick in The Collector. Sarah demonstrates, however, that she has already realized that she cannot escape the constraints that society imposes on her. Her choice to simply accept being an outcast for love, as evidenced by the title of the novel and her nickname "The French Lieutenant's Whore", shows the damage Victorian society has done to women. Fowles uses Ernestina to show Victorian society what ideals were valued and if you did not fit in with them, women were forced to become outcasts, deemed unworthy of the future that women like Ernestina were entitled to. This requires me to disagree that Sarah is “independent” because she has no control over her own life and future. Therefore, she cannot make her own independent decisions, because the circumstances Sarah faces are.