The Riddler Riddled: Reading the Epigraphs in John Fowles's "The French Lieutenant's Woman" Author(s): Deborah Bowen

Source: The Journal of Narrative Technique, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Winter, 1995), pp. 67-90 Published by: Journal of Narrative Theory Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30225424 . Accessed: 09/09/2013 22:29
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Journal of Narrative Theory and Department of English Language and Literature, Eastern Michigan University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Narrative Technique.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

in TheRiddler the Epigraphs Riddled: Reading

Lieutenant's Woman JohnFowles'sTheFrench Bowen Deborah
It may be valid to suggest, as JerryVarsavadoes in his book Contingent Meanings:PostmodernFiction, Mimesis,and the Reader,thatself-reflexivity in the novel has become faddishandmannered throughcanonizationand overuse (Contingent146). But does this mean that a self-reflexive novel of the 1960s has lost its audienceby the 1990s? Perhapsit is, rather,a call for new points of departure and return.I should like to propose a fresh reading of JohnFowles's TheFrenchLieutenant's Woman thatis informedby attenuse of epigraphs.In particular, such a reading tion to Fowles's paratextual will foregroundthe power of the readerin a text wherethe writerplays with pluralvoices but at the same time desires masteryof them. In a brief but fascinatingpaperon the subversiveand ironical effect of Fowles's epigraphto The Collector,David Leon Higdon refers in passing to The French Lieutenant'sWomanas exhibiting a paratextof epigraphsand footnotes in which "Fowles creates an interplaywhich broadensand deepens the implications of his text." Higdon suggests that the contrastingin paratextandtext of Victorianandmodernviewpointson issues such as time, sex, and progress, has the effect of "judgingeach age as lacking in some 571). This implied reciprocitybetween paratextand text way" ("Epigraph" Genette,who points has,however,beenmorecarefullyinvestigated by Gerard item is less out thatthe obligationfelt by a readerin relationto a paratextual thanthe obligationthe readerfeels towardthe text. In otherwords,the reader does not have to read a paratext:"Theparatext,in all its forms, is a fundamentallyheteronomous,auxiliary,discoursedevotedto the service of somethingelse whichconstitutesits rightof existence,namelythe text"("Paratext" 269). At the same time, a paratext,"thefringe of the printedtext,"may by its suggestiveness "in reality control the whole reading" (Lejeune, qtd. in

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

68

"Paratext" 261). Leo Hoek refers to paratextas "cette peau qui facilite ou occulte l'acces au texte" (al0). What happenswhen the readerchooses to pay attentionto the skin, the fringe, the textualthreshold? Genettecalls the paratexta "zone of transaction" thatis "definedby the intentionand responsibilityof the author"(262). He quotes approvinglyJ. Hillis Miller's descriptionof "para" as: an antithetical at onceproximity and prefixwhichindicates and and distance, similarity difference, interiority exteriority. is notonly at onceon bothsidesof the ... A thingin 'para' frontier whichseparates theexterior andtheinterior; it is also thefrontier whichcreates a permeable memitself,thescreen brane between theinside andtheoutside. Itoperates their confusion,lettingthe outsidecome in andthe insidego out, it as Host" dividesthemandunitesthem.("Critic 219) Genettecommentsthat this is "a very fine descriptionof the activity of the paratext"(271). He, like Hoek, discusses many aspects of paratextualitycover, author'sname, title, "blurb," preface,notes, publicity,notoriety,and so forth-and he assertsthat specific paratextual functionmust be decided The author's as Foucault has name, empirically. pointed out in his now-cacohernonical "Whatis anAuthor?", to the reader an anticipated may signal ence and stylistic uniformityin the text to follow-or, perhaps,it may signal as in the case of Foucaulthimself. certainkinds of deconstructive enterprise, A prefacemay confirman expectationof traditional readingpractices-or it if it disengageswriterfromtext and questions may functiontransgressively, An epigraphmay reinforcean irreversiblemovement totextual authority. ward a satisfying closure-or it may suggest, instead, textual plurality.In item is each case, however, the relationshipof the readerto the paratextual differentfrom the relationshipof the readerto the primarytext. Genette's translatorMarie Maclean, in a companion paper to "Introductionto the Paratext"in New LiteraryHistory, elaborateson Genette's point that this of writerto text andparatext.The differenceextends also to the relationship will be message always illocutionaryin status,whetheror not it paratextual is honest, for here is the place wherethe writerdisplayshis or her intentions and"speaksdirectlyto the readeras senderto receiver"(278). However,like abouta varietyof paratextual Genette,Macleanis makinggeneralstatements elements that need to be contextualizedand specified in orderto be interpreted.How must this notion of paratextas a free space for authorialinten-

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

theEpigraphs inThe French Lieutenant's Woman Reading

69

be moderated in thecase of theepigraph, whichis already written tionality a author? Maclean herself that between inby previous suggests "[t]he gap tention andpractice ... is alsothe sphere of theartof theperipheral." Postmodern interested in disrupting the reader's traditional aswriters, about the status of the have made with this text, sumptions particular play "artof the peripheral." In his 1977jeu d'esprit"LivingOn,"to offer an extreme Derrida as writer a instance, playsathis ownexpense by producing footnote his of to thetext,andhaving its own generated by title, equallength title. He calls this secondary text a "telegraphic band" that"produces an untranslatable I whether wish or it not" and (Deconstruction supplement, Criticism andvice versa:theyare 175).In effectthetextbecomesparatext, to be distinguished, nature of theparatext barely exceptby thetransgressive as supplement, which herespecifically of the control the rather writer, escapes thanspeaking withhis voice.Thisnotionthatwriting is not easily directly andthatparatextual function mustbe defined finds containable, empirically, rich in the of an especially expression supplement epigraph. common as thesiteof authoritative in thenineteenthFairly commentary romantic hasbecomewidespread in latetwentinovel,theepigraph century where its in texts, plural eth-century transgressive potential maybe realized that or exceed even contradict thoseof thetext.Unlikea preface meanings or a footnote,an epigraph almostalwaysoriginates witha different writer fromthe text, thusformalizing the notionof the "intertextual event"and a polyphony of voices. Evenwhensuperscribed consciously admitting by the writer of thenew text,epigraphs arewritten in different modes,spoken withdifferent tonesof voice, anduttered fromthose by different personae, of thetextthatfollows.Theyarenotfirst-order acts but second-,and speech thewriter distanced fromorevenusurped medirepresent by writing, overtly tativeaboutit, andbothdirective andplayfulin reference to thereader. The becomes a of kind comment the whole epigraph particular writerly upon of thebook,a palimpsest thatholdsout a false promise of direcenterprise tionto thereader-to thewriter?-whileit unfolds intothetextits ownprior context. As a result, theseparatextual voicesmay,forthereader, havea life of theirown. "Epigrapher est toujours un geste muetdontI'interpr6tation restea la charge du lecteur": becauseanepigraph is "souvent 6nigmatique, d'unesignification ne ou qui s'6claircira, confirmera, qu'hla pleinelecture du texte,"its interpretation is "a la chargedu lecteur,dont la capacit6 est souvent miseg l'apreuve" Seuils145-46). (Genette, herm6neutique
Thus,whenin a self-reflexivefictionlike TheFrenchLieutenant's Woman

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

70

John Fowles reintroduces the Victorianromantictechniqueof providingan not at the epigraph just opening of the book but at the openingof each chapter, the plural functions of both readerand writerin the text are inevitably foregrounded.Fowles creates with epigraphsa runningand heterogeneous subtextthathe uses to counterand interpret the main text and to function in a kindof dialogicwith it. But only a kindof dialogic,becauseFowles straddles the late twentieth-century and the Victorianperiod with considerablediscomfort: he appearsto desire not only the play of textuality but also the traditionalrole of omnipotentauthor.Criticalattemptshave been made to of the justify this apparent inconsistencyby readingthe text as an illustration function."RobertSiegle, complexityof whatFoucaulthas called the "author for instance,identifies"atleast threecontrarystrands" in the authorial voice, but explains them as instances of the interplayof codes ("Conceptof the Author"132). WilliamNelles describes TheFrenchLieutenant'sWoman as is to be closely identified "anexample of a novel in which the publicnarrator with the extra-fictional voice. These narrators arealso identifiedwith Fowles himself' ("Problems" 209). Borrowinghis theoreticalmodel from Genette, Nelles tries to extend it to allow for the narrativevoice to others, among exceed and conflate the given categories. In a paper on "The Paradox of " Frederick Omnisciencein TheFrenchLieutenant's M. Holmes arWoman, gues thatFowles is in fact "ableto have it both ways" because "[b]y exposing the artificiality of the form in the very act of using it, . . . he avoids

writing in bad faith"(185); Holmes goes on to assertthat "[t]he success of this novel is inseparable from its reflexive character" (196). On the contrary, I am suggesting that the failures of the novel can be similarly attributed: Fowles's complicitoususe of artificedispersesthe authorityof the narrative in voice, thus destroyinghis power to speak as a moralist.It is particularly the paratextualuse of epigraphsthat this tension between pluralityand authorialcontrol becomes evident. Late in the book Fowles makesspecific authorial commenton the writers he has cited in the epigraphs.This comment,like Fowles's ubiquitousintrusions elsewhere, has the dual effect of unsettlingthe natureof the reader's engagement with the text and enlightening her about authorialintention; Fowles's commentarystandsin relationto the epigraphslike an object to its reflectionin a glass. It may be helpfulto quote at lengththe specific passage in question, where in Chapter49 Fowles writes:

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

inThe FrenchLieutenant's theEpigraphs Woman Reading

hadtwo minds... is the one [T]hefactthateveryVictorian of we must piece equipment alwaystakewithus on ourtravItis a schizophrenia els backto thenineteenth seenat century. itsclearest, itsmostnotorious, inthepoetsI havequoted from so often-in Tennyson, but Arnold, Clough, Hardy; scarcely less clearlyin theextraordinary fromRight political veerings to Left andback againof men like the youngerMill and in theubiquitous neuroses illandpsychosomatic Gladstone; nesses of intellectualsotherwiseas differentas Charles in theexecration andDarwin; on the at firstpoured Kingsley who seemed to be Pre-Raphaelites, tried--or trying-to be one-minded about bothartandlife;in theendlesstug-of-war andRestraint, Probetween ExcessandModeration, Liberty and the man's between cry for priety Conviction, principled of Universal Education andhisterror transUniversal Suffrage; in so also the mania for and that if we editing revising parent we canlearnfar wantto knowtherealMillortherealHardy morefromthe deletions andalterations of theirautobiograversions ... morefromcorrephiesthanfromthepublished thatsomehow fromprivate diaspondence escaped burning, of the concealment ries, fromthe petty detritus operation. so completely nevera public Neverwastherecord confused, facadeso successfully passedoff as the truthon a gullible to the andthis,I think,makesthe bestguidebook posterity; Dr Mr and Behind its Hyde. Jekyll latterday ageverypossibly lies a veryprofound andepoch-revealing Gothick truth. (28889)

71

How is the readerto respond to such stridencyin tone, when encouraged earlierto questionthe whole conventionof authorialcontrol?It seems that, if Fowles the story-telleris willing to submit to his charactersand to his readers,Fowles the moralistis decidedlynot willing to do any such thing. In the passage quotedabove, Fowles declaresthatthe Victoriansmade fictions of their lives not only in poetry but also in politics, medicine and scholarship. He singles out a work of literaryfiction as the profoundestexpression of "truth" aboutthat age because it allows the endemic schizophreniato be explicitly contained and revealed. By thus privileging the recognition of a coexistence of contradictoryterms, he provides a perhapsunwitting commentaryupon his own text, where, like that of his heroine Sarah,his own subtlepresence may be describedin terms of oxymoron:"luring-receding,

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

72

(267). By creatinga moderately simple,proud-begging, defending-accusing" the conpluraltext, he inevitablycreatesa pluralauthor,and thusundercuts fident conclusions of the authorialvoice. Fowles's analysisof Victorianschizophrenia has two consequencesfor a of the the reading epigraphs.First, epigraphsmay themselvesbe expected to demonstrate andthereforeto be overlaidwith authorialirony. schizophrenia be Second, they may expected to create, out of their tension with the main text and perhapswith one another,a recordof schizophrenicrealitythat allows for the coexistenceof unreconciled dataandmayeven exceed the meanforeseen the author" (see Spivaklxxiv-v). If, for instance, ings by "sovereign Fowles believes thatit is not in social documentation butin Dr Jekylland Mr a true that of the Victorian is most Hyde picture age likely to be found, then the readermustbe suspiciousof the pictureofferedby the variousextractsof social documentary that Fowles includes in the epigraphsand in the text of the novel itself. By the narrator's own definition,a fiction that is truly "epoch-revealing"will manifestitself in paradoxand in the coexistence of apparentlymutuallyexclusive points of view. His use of paradoxis not, however, a deconstructivestrategyto undermineoppositions by showing their how one termof an antithesisinheresin anddemonstrating interrelationship the other.Though The FrenchLieutenant'sWoman is a novel that "systemflaunts its own of artifice" this conscious artifice condition (Alter x), atically works to highlight the necessity for moral choice ratherthan to explode a conventional metaphysic.Fowles's privileging of fiction as that multi-dimensional world in which truthneed not be propositionalor singular still requiresa kind of authorialabsolutismalien to self-conscious fictions. Furtherevidence of a desire to be simultaneouslywithin and above his own text is evident in Fowles's "endeavour to renegotiatethe terms of our of realism" as he the felt need to keep history and understanding exploits fiction apart(Johnson291). Peter Conradirefers to this phenomenonas a "reductio ad absurdumof the principles of authentication,exposing the premissesof realismandexciting in the readera pleasingdiscomfortcomparableto mild epistemologicalvertigo"(69). Nowhereis this renegotiationof realismmore apparent thanin Fowles's use of epigraphs,throughwhich he the boundariesbetween artand life, the fictive and the effectively collapses real. That he will necessarilythen createa text of greaterpluralitythan can be contained within the "author-function" is a consequence that extends those traditional bounds textualitybeyond implicitly assumedby Fowles as sovereign author.

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

theEpigraphs in The French Lieutenant's Woman Reading

73

is from an early The initial epigraphof The FrenchLieutenant'sWoman work of KarlMarx: is a restoration of thehuman worldand Everyemancipation of human to manhimself. relationships -Zur Judenfrage (1844) Genette curtly cites "cette phraseexemplairementinsignifiante"as an exampleof an epigraphwhose sole value dependsuponthe nameof the author, "quifonctionneun peu ici commeune d6dicace'in memoriam'"(Seuils147). Certainlya case can be madefor a sympathybetweenearlyMarxandFowles the author: Marx's early writings have been described as disclosing "a strangelymodem youthfulMarx speakingin accents almost of an existentialist philosopher," for "a new, morallyaware, and as providinginspiration critical Marxism"(Tuckerxxvii). What Fowles means by "emancipation" and what Marxmeantare dependenton differentunderstandings of the posis of human but to the central choice, each, sibility emancipation concept. Marx is in fact discussing the necessity for the individualto transmuteinto the "abstract citizen" and become a "species-being"in orderto enjoy freedom (Tucker46), which is a notion far fromFowles's understanding of personal individuation.Ratherthandeveloping in the novel the notion of freedom as an inalienableright, Fowles emphasizes"theanxiety of freedomthatis, the realizationthatone is free and the realizationthatbeing free is a situationof terror" (FLW267). The epigraphthereforestandsas a type of the will be interpreted differentlyin way in which materialfromone "episteme" controlbeing another,andremindsthe readerof the high degreeof authorial exercised in this text, at the same time as suggestingthe possibility of quite otherintertextual relations. In severalof the novel's epigraphicparatexts,it is to Fowles's purposeto highlight ratherthan elide conflicting polarities.In extending the implications of such polaritiesinto the text, Fowles's manipulation of intertextual voices is particularly suggestive.The epigraphto Chapter14, for instance,is from JaneAusten's Persuasion: MrElliot,is thecompany of "Myideaof goodcompany, who well-informed have a deal of conclever, people, great thatis whatI callgoodcompany." versation; "You aremistaken," saidhe,gently, is notgoodcom"that requires only birth, pany-that is the best. Goodcompany

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

74

andmanners, andwithregard to education is not education, nice." 84) (Persuasion very In the ensuing chapter,Charles and Ernestinapay the expected call upon Mrs Poulteney.WhereAustenhas given one set of criteriafor a definitionof "good company,"Fowles ironically implies several more. The "good company"beloved of Anne Elliot is as absentfrom the Poulteneyparlouras the "good company"defined by Mr Elliot is shown to be a misnomer.The visit to Mrs Poulteney arouses no expectation of pleasure on either side, Mrs the frivolous Poulteney anticipatingthat it will be her "dutyto embarrass" young people, and Charlesand Ernestinapreparingto endureboredom.In the event, the visit is more unpleasantand embarrassing than any of them could have foreseen, since Ernestina revealsher shallownessandprovinciality, Charlesis snubbedby his hostess and respondswith cold sarcasm,and the general absence of that humanitythat would validate the possession of birthand mannersis broughtinto sharprelief. Like JaneAusten in the wider contextof Persuasion,Fowles moves froma societalto a morebroadlymoral definition of "goodcompany," in which the social circles of Lyme are sorely lacking. While Fowles extends the implicationsof JaneAusten's social criticism, he both illustratesand reinterprets the personal tensions felt by a poet like A. H. Clough. In the passage quoted earlierwhere Fowles describesVictorian schizophrenia,he declaresit to be "seen at its clearest, its most notorious" in poets like Clough. The epigraphto Chapter31 provides a striking example of what he has in mind: Whenpanting sighsthebosomfill, chance united thrill Andhands by At oncewithonedelicious pain Thepulsesandthenervesof twain; Wheneyes, thaterstcouldmeetwithease, Do seek,yet, seeking, shylyshun Ecstatic conscious unisonThesurebeginnings, say,be these, to thestrain Prelusive of love Whichangelssingin heaven above? Oris it butthevulgar tune, Whichall thatbreathe beneath themoon

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

in The French Lieutenant's Woman theEpigraphs Reading learn-so soon? So accurately -"Poem" (1844)

75

This is the epigraphto the chapterin which Charlesfinds Sarahin the barn and kisses her.Farfrom engaging in that"concealment operation"of which Fowles accuses the Victorians,Clough here representsthose fiction-writers who were most awareof conflicting polarities,and he explicitly articulates the tension between love and lust, soul and body, sublimityand vulgarity,as of Sarahin this chapter perceived by the Victorianeye. Charles'streatment of the seesaw emotion and demonstrates expressedin the exactly physically poem: he takes her into his arms, feels her tenderness,and pushes her viothe epigraphin clearly privileging the lently away. But the text reinterprets existential moment of action above the tensions it embraces. In this way, culturally-specifictheory of truth, though he too is espousing a particular, Fowles patronizesClough as an instanceof limited sensibility.The narrator has commented,two pages earlier: minded werenota dialectically Inspiteof Hegel, theVictorians in opposites, and of positives naturally age;theydidnotthink troubled as aspectsof the samewhole.Paradoxes negatives thanpleasedthem.Theywerenotthepeoplefor exisrather tentialmoments, butfor the chainsof causeandeffect;for studiedandstuditheories, carefully positiveall-explaining (197) ouslyapplied. Appliedto Charlesand Sarah,the question"Isit love or is it lust?"expresses a meaningless polarization.In Charlesthe physical nearnessof Sarahproduces a conditionedresponseof recoil-but just beforehe kisses her,thereis a momentof fusion between body and soul, so that"[t]hemomentovercame the age" (199). The reader'suncomfortableawarenesshere of a sovereign authorof coursesuggeststhatFowles too likes all-explaintwentieth-century ing theories of cause-and-effect,as long as they are his own. is a significant Fowles's privilegingof literaryfiction over documentary in whichan ironicparatextual of doubleepigraphs, elementin his construction juxtaposition may suggest a paradigmfor the novelistic text. Presumably Fowles intends that the dialectic between oppositions will generate the "whole"of which they are aspects and which he wants his work to embrace. But by foregroundingboth the paradoxicalnatureof reality and the transhe also alertsthe readerto the effects of gressive effects of contextualization, contextualizingwriterandepigraphicparatextoutsideof the novel as well as

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

76

within it, as partof a web of textualityand historywhose meaningsescape the author. A particularly productiveinstanceof Fowles's use of pluralvoice occurs at the beginningof Chapter2: In thatyear(1851)thereweresome8,155,000 females of the ten of in the British as with age upwards population, compared males. it will be if clear that the 7,600,000 Already accepted of theVictorian destiny girlwasto becomewife andmother, it wasunlikely thattherewouldbe enough mento go round. Documents -E. Royston Pike,Human of the Victorian Golden Age I'll spread sailof silverandI'll steertowards thesun, I'll I'll spread of sail silverand steertowards thesun, Andmy falselove will weep,andmy falselove will weep, Andmy falselove will weepforme afterI'mgone. "AsSylvieWasWalking" (11) -West-Country Folksong, These two epigraphs,which by theirjuxtapositionsuggest thatthe shortage of eligible men will resultin female brokenhearts,in context imply a number of things that the subsequentchapterdoes no more than hint at. This is the chapterthatintroducesthe threechief protagonists of the book, Charles, Ernestinaand Sarah,Charlesat this stage being engaged to Ernestinaand aboutto be fascinatedby Sarah.The epigraphsimply thatthese two women will be rivals for the attentionof the man,long beforethis is madeexplicit in the story.The epigraphsfurther imply thattherewill be a brokenrelationship in which one partysails off leaving a desolatelover behind.But the termsof both epigraphsare renderedambiguous. The conclusions of the statisticalfirst citationmay after all be premised upon a differentkind of girl fromthe ones in Chapter2. Will Sarahwant the "accepteddestiny of the Victoriangirl,"and will Ernestinabe able to fulfil to "go round"? it? Is Charlesin any case the kindof manwho will be prepared Fowles will play with the disparitybetween the impersonaland collective personaland individual assumptionsof the statisticianand the traditionally raisesthe questionof of citation the novelist. The second assumptions lyrical whetherthe conventionsof romanceassumedwithin the song are to be upheld or undercut by this text. Tradition supportsa plot in which the man sails as the French Lieutenant has away, supposedlysailed away from Tragedy. But in this novel Sarahsails away from Charlesjust as surely as he from

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Lieutenant's Woman inTheFrench the Reading Epigraphs

77

Ernestina.When he initially sees the figure of Sarahat the end of the Cobb "Goodheavens,I took thatto be a fisherman. more clearly,Charlesremarks, But isn't it a woman?"(13).In the event, Sarahis both. The new context of the song allows a furtherambiguityover the identityof the "false love": is this a lover to whom the one sailing away is being false, or a lover who has proved false to the sailor? The contrastbeing drawn between reality and romance will be redrawnwith fresh parameterswithin the novel-indeed In this kindof redefinitionlies muchof the pleasure withinthis very chapter. of the text for the readerwho is "misea l'6preuve,"becauseFowles's skilful evocation of voices muted in the epigraphssprings not so much from an attitudeof historicalsuperiorityas from an unfoldingof their contradictory epistemologies. 2 has foundthe readeras yet undisturbed This paratextual play in Chapter of his own reflexive technique.In Chapter4, the author's foregrounding by of the double epigraphcontrastingpoa similar however, problematization intentionthat foregrounds questionsof authorial etryandsocial documentary are more unsettling: What's Ah,blessedthey done,is whatremains! tasksof love to stay Wholeavecompleted forthem,beingdead, Andanswer mutely life be fled. not Life was purposeless, though TheLadyof La Garaye -Mrs Norton, (1863) andupper classeslived of themiddle families MostBritish abovetheirowncesspool... Documents -E. Royston Pike,Human of the Victorian Golden Age The lines of poetryare from a much longer narrative poem which Ernestina is laterto be foundreadingaloudto Charlesas theirevening's entertainment. Fowles uses that occasion to convey some informationabout Mrs Norton herself: wasa mereinsipid Youmaythink thatMrsNorton poetastrix herverseis ... ; butshe was a farfrom of the age. Insipid for one granddaughter insipidperson.She was Sheridan's Melborne's mistressso it was she had rumored, been, thing; therumor believed herhusband hadcertainly strongly enough actionagainstthe great to bringan unsuccessful crim.con.

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

78

andshe was an ardent feminist-whatwe would statesman; calltodaya liberal. (95) The narrator undercutsany condemnationof the insipidity of the scene by his appeal to "real"facts about the poetess. Humanbeings are paradoxical tales but live strident lives. The illusion creatures,who can write sentimental createdby the text is brokenthroughthe use of externalinformationwhich, the sense of the real, in fact works thoughit might be expectedto strengthen to confoundthe reader'sexpectationsand unsettleher from traditional conventions for reading. The contrastbetween the two epigraphiccitations in Chapter4 lies not only in this many-leveledlife of the poet herself, who had her own cesspool to contendwith, but also in the paradoxthat"tasksof love" may springfrom base motivations. Of course Fowles means the cesspool initially to refer metonymicallyto Mrs Fairley's "Stygiandomain,"but within a few parato the murkyconscience of graphsthe referenceis extendedmetaphorically MrsPoulteneyherself.Herverypracticalattitude to the afterlife,which spurs herto actionshe otherwisedetests,presentsa facetiouscommentary on those highminded"blessed"of the Nortonlines. Whatlooks to the outsiderlike an act of love may springfrom fear,greed andenvy; what seems romanticmay be utterlypedestrian;ennobling fictions may spring from sordid realities. Fowles says as much in the infamousChapter13, in the course of his most blatantfirst foregroundingof his reflexive technique-"novelists write for countlessdifferentreasons:for money,for fame, for reviewers . (81). The .." problemarisesin the disclaimerhe makesaboutplayingGod, andhis dictum that"a genuinely createdworldmustbe independent of its creator." By situof writer himself fichimself within the network the the renders text, ating the of fictionalized both are authoritative a writer tional; pronouncements and are not the statementsof a god. If the collapsingof the traditional boundaries between artandlife creates a textual playgroundfor Fowles, nowhere is this more evident than in his treatmentof the relationshipbetween the FrenchLieutenantof the text and the historicalFrenchLieutenantwhose case Dr GroganinstructsCharlesto readwithcare.Chapter La Roncibre, the case of Lieutenant 28, whichconcerns is prefacedby anotherpair of epigraphs: andvain, crude, hasty, Assumptions, Fulloft to use will Sciencedeign;

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

theEpigraphs in The French Lieutenant's Woman Reading Thecorksthenovicepliestoday Theswimmer soonshallcastaway. -A. H. Clough, "Poem" (1840) to makemy choice; AgainI spring in tones of ire Again I heara God'stremendous voice"Becounsel'd, andretire!" -Matthew Arnold, "TheLake" (1853)

79

Inthecourseof thechapter it becomes thatLaRoncibre didnotdo apparent whathe wasaccused of doing,butthathe diddo something else, of a highly nature. Thisinformation is not,however, available to Charles: compromising it is communicated to the reader as paratextual information in a footnote. Fowleshasargued forthesuperiority of fictionas a hermeneutical Although inclined to give the last wordto fact.But if each tool, he is by disposition of knowledge construction is contextually is valid,thenthereader's position as limitedandas freeas Charles's: an awareness of textual is not plurality for Charles's moment of choice,so thatthe senseof superiority significant suchan awareness fostersin thereader is rendered ineffectual by the emotionalheartof the text,locatedin the fatesof the characters. Fowlesis not to allowdifferent textssimplyto coexistin theirplurality, because prepared theextentto whichhe cannot control themis theextentto whichthereader him his and as apprehends judgments fiction. Charles's initial to reading theLieutenant's is to feelbound response story a in particular because "thedaythatotherFrench universe, by deterministic Lieutenant was condemned was the very sameday thatCharles hadcome intotheworld" Science is reduced to for him in this realiza(188). astrology tion. But his desperation spurshim to action:feelingthathis allowingDr to judgeSarah forhimwas "because he hadno morefreewill than Grogan an ammonite," he comesto a placeof "indecipherable determination" and setsoutto findherforhimself(189).If scienceis to be equated withdeterminismand bondage,then he will disregard its verdictsand follow the of his own integrity, to writehistory rather thanto be promptings choosing written it. Fowles wants the reader to feel thatCharles's reby apparently fusalto acceptthe storyof theLieutenant as written in stoneis justifiedby the actualcontradictions of thecase.Theunfolding of thechapter therefore the of the Itbecomes unclear whether questions authority-figures epigraphs.
Science is to be trustedin affairs of human conscience. Which "assump-

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

80

J N

as "hasty, andvain"-those of theorigitions"areto be categorized crude, in the La of in thecaseof Sarah, nalparticipants Ronciere those Grogan trial, in dismissing the"historical" or thoseof Charles evidence? Thereis a quesin tionmark, over of "God" is the voice Arnold's too, poem: thisthevoiceof orof a transcendent Is it counOther? Science,or of individual conscience, or to Charles to retire from retire from document? Sarah, seling Grogan's Andin making his choice,is Charles of thenovice,or the usingthe"corks" skillsof the fully-trained swimmer? Fowlesuses the epigraphs not to shed on a wise to thefact whether Charles has made but choice, emphasize light in whichthegrounds that"being freeis a situation of terror" fordecisionare and unclear. dangerous Thisforegrounding of Fowles'sexistential is themorenotesympathies a reading of theClough linesoutside thecontext of thenovel because worthy for the a one does not different that generates quite meaning poem, tallywith in lightof his conceptof Fowles'sironicexposure of Victorian narrowness of the freedom. First,Fowleshaschosento use a less well-attested reading and The edition standard reads, crude, poem. hasty, Clough "Assumptions Full oft to use with Science / vain, 11, my emphasis). deign"(Mulhauser thanthe Fowles'ssubstitution of "will"for "with" makesScience,rather in thestandard too is where of thesentence, reading Clough poet,thesubject an to the reader. individual choice Second, by issuing imperative privileging in theiroriginal context thelinesarespoken by thecynicwhomthepoetis at of intuition, Thepoemis aboutthe importance perpainsto leave behind. in the face of apparent factual sonalconviction evidence,andthepowerof backagain,my olden the heart--everystanzaopenswiththe line, "Come It is a poemaboutnot Sciencebutsentiment, to heart!" andis muchnearer in Fowles interested Fowles's case for him than seems showing. fighting there is Evenin theArnold theGod-figure doescarry authority, poem,where in whichthepoetshowsmuchmorestrength of personal cona finalstanza "Yeguiding whojoin and victionthantheepigraphic linessuggest: Powers, / Whatwouldye havewithme?/ Ah,warnsomemoreambitious heart, part, of other texts / Andletthepeaceful be!"Fowles's invoking misrepresentative his own narrative once authority. bringssuspicion againupon of readerly discomfort withFowles'sanxithe primeinstance Perhaps is in the notorious eties of authorship 55. Here,Fowlesintroduces Chapter in whichCharles is himselfas a Victorian novelistintotherailway carriage do with how the novel end? to he can London. What can Charles, traveling

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

in The French Lieutenant's Woman theEpigraphs Reading

81

The epigraphto the chapteris from Lewis Carroll'sThroughthe LookingGlass: his aboutyou!"Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping "Why, "Andif he left off dreaming aboutyou, handstriumphantly. wheredo you suppose you'dbe?" I amnow,of course," saidAlice. "Where "You'd retorted "Notyou!"Tweedledee contemptuously. of his a sort in dream!" be nowhere. thing Why,you'reonly "If thatthereKing was to wake,"addedTweedledum, go out-bang!-just likea candle!" "you'd Aliceexclaimed "Ishouldn't!" (315) indignantly. Here is an extractfrom a fictional tale, in which two charactersare telling a third characterthat she is more fictional than they are. Of course, in the story,Alice would not "go out"if the King woke up, for in this storyAlice is effectively "morereal"thanTweedledeeandTweedledum,by virtueof having come from a "real"world into a looking-glass world. In fact, since the characterof Alice is based upon that of the little girl for whom Charles Dodgson wrote the book, one might argue that she has a still more solid the Looking-Glassis a story.It is not partof the claim to reality.But Through to characters have through the glass question their own reality: story have no doubtthatthey arematerially"there." TweedledeeandTweedledum is a story.Sarahand the FrenchLieuAnd The French Lieutenant'sWoman have like tenant, Alice, may analoguesin the everydayworld, but these analogues are not underthe author'scontrolin the way his own charactersare. Or can this argumentbe turnedon its head? Fowles, like many more dictateto himnovelists beforehim, suggests thathis characters traditional of his but also characters thus he calls into questionnot only the fictionality the reality of their analogues. Fiction, he seems to say, is the game we all play. The author,like the King in Throughthe Looking-Glass,controls the fiction from within its own conventions;at the same time, like Carroll,the the fiction from outside.But the King sleeps and Carroll authormanipulates does not intrude:the "real"presences are those of the characters,each sure of his or her existence above that of the others. And here is a significant difference between the looking-glass world and the world of The French The levels of fictionality revealed in the CarrollepiLieutenant'sWoman. controlover the looking-glassreflecimply an authorial graphparadoxically tions thatFowles lacks over his material,since Carrolltakesthatsilent stance

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

82

J N

outsidehis text whichFowlesseemsbothto wantandexplicitlyto reject. Carroll's lines exceedthe meanings intended for themby Fowles'ssuperandstand in a transgressive to thenewtext. scription, relationship
Returningfinally to the first chapterof TheFrenchLieutenant'sWoman,

theinitiated reader of epigraphs thenovelis struck throughout by theapproof this initial one which set to priateness epigraph-anenigmatic appears a to the of the but which instead novel, provide key questions may generate confusion. It is fromHardy's "The Riddle": deeper Stretching eyeswest Over thesea, Wind foulorfair, stood she Always Prospect-impressed; outthere Solely Didhergazerest, Never elsewhere Seemed charm tobe.(9) Thetitleof thispoemestablishes themajor theme of thenovel.DavidWalker has described Sarahas "anemblemof the enigmaat the heartof reality" withHardy's lines thatemblemis ("Subversion" 199),andby association rendered timelessandmotionless as a statue. Theepigraph pointsa contrast betweenlandandsea, stability andflux, whichwill in the novelbe elaboratedinto a distinction betweenfossilization andfreedom. Andthe bridge betweenthe two elementsis the woman,"prospect-impressed"-both imand,for anyoneobserving her,impressed pressedby the prospect uponit, her,thoughthe succeeding partof it. It seemsthatonly the sea cancharm statesthatthe land-prospect, if she wouldonly turnto chapter specifically look at it, is a pleasant andharmonious sea"is a one, andthatthe "empty of madness There is an the woman association between (10, 14). place implied of the poemandthe sea-rampart, the Cobb,of the novel.Not only has the Cobbtoo "alwaysstood [in] windfoul or fair," but it too is paradoxical, but as full of subtlecurves delicate; "[p]rimitive yet complex,elephantine andvolumesas a HenryMooreor a Michelangelo; andpure,clean,salt,a of mass"(9-10).It is of the landbutformed for the sea;it hasthe paragon of earth but the flow of and line blend of rawmaterial and stability water--a human And on the of "a farthest this sea-wall stands Sarah, artistry. tip great described atfirstas so integral of thesceneas to be a part figurefrommyth"

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

theEpigraphs in The French Lieutenant's Woman Reading

83

withoutgender:"It stood right at the seawardmostend. ... Its clothes were black" (11). The French Lieutenant'sWomanis the deconstructionof this riddle,the enigma of a charmedand charmingwoman. Fowles theriddleas paradox, But the text is morethanthis. By interpreting of truth,the coexistence of oppomakes it metaphoricof his understanding sites in tension within Sarahandwithinthe landscapeof the text. The reader, however, experiencing the authorialpresence itself as riddle, and Fowles is less able to solve the riddle by recourse himself as "prospect-impressed," to the notion of paradox,since the terms of this riddle do not coexist in the same dimension.The Fowles impressedupon his own createdworld speaks with a quite differentvoice from the Fowles impressedby it. Moreover,the readerhas access to Hardy'sfull text, and knows that his "riddle"was of a differentorder.Hardy'spoem has a second stanza which draws a contrast between the stance of the woman as she used to look out to sea and her presentgaze in preciselythe oppositedirection:"Alwayseyes east / Ponders she now- / As in devotion- / Hills of blankbrow/ Whereno waves plough. / Never the least / Room for emotion / Drawn from the ocean / Does she allow" (in Momentsof Vision).Hardy'sriddleconcernsthe change from the woman's charmedcommunionwith the sea to her determinedconcentration upon the land. Can this be appliedto Sarah'sturningto the Pre-Raphaelite but it seems clearthatFowles is moreconcernedwith brotherhood? Perhaps; the riddle of her single enigmatic stance by the sea than with any future This image is in any case the one thathe says inconsistencyin herbehaviour. hauntedhim into writinghis novel ("Notes"136-37). Quotingthe first stanza of the poem withoutthe second heightensthe auraof timeless myth around the woman and suppressesthe oppositionsof the poem's originalpuzzle. Of course in his play with textualityFowles is at libertyto make whateveruse he likes of what he finds within a poem. But writing a novelistic text that explicitly encouragescriticaldistancemust also lay him open to losing conintentionby recognizing trol to the reader,who may underminehis apparent the transgressivepotentialof his epigraphs. as if to reinforcethe notion thatin this novel life is a series Furthermore, of riddles, and a series of solutions that open into more riddles, Fowles develops in the readera suspicionof languageitself. The epigraphs,with their ironicaland enigmaticrelationto the text, alreadyfoster a distrustof verbal surfaces and emphasize the power of context. But more than this: an extremely self-conscious and cautious attitudeto language is epitomized in Sarah,the riddlepersonified:her sendingof a three-wordaddressto Charles

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

84

is "perfectlyin key with all herotherbehaviour,andto be describedonly by ..." etc. (267). WhereasCharlesis introduced oxy-moron:luring-receding, as the "scientist,the despiser of novels" who is drawnto mystery and romance (15), Sarahin the final d6nouementspeaksfrom the perspectiveof a highly-disciplinedartistwho is as concernedfor truthas the most meticulous scientist: workthatmightto theama"Ihavesinceseenartists destroy I teurseemperfectly remonstrated once.I wastoldthat good. if an artist is nothis own sternest he judge is notfit to be an I believethatis right.I believeI was rightto destroy artist. wasa falsehood whathadbegun between us.There in it .... "

(351)
Charlesin responseis awakenedto the dissonanceof: Twolanguages, ontheonesidea hollowness, a foolbetraying ish constraint-but shehadjustsaidit, anartificiality of conandpurity of thought ception-and on the othera substance thedifference between a simple and judgment; colophon, say, andsomepagedecorated all scrollwork, byNoelHumphreys, rococohorror of void. elaboration, The artistrythat is not artificialis, however, deceptive in its simplicity, as Sarah's face is "naturally" tragic though she is supremelyplaying a part. Thereis no such thing as non-fictionalexistence: artistryis necessaryin the as to playingwell if it is interpreted play of life. However,artcan be a barrier static, or if it is mere decorationin reactionagainstthe void. In discussing the horrorsof "real"Victorianlower-class life, Fowles writes, "Each age, each guilty age, builds high walls roundits Versailles;and personallyI hate those walls most when they are made by literatureand art"(129). Fowles calls for the readerto acceptthatbothreaderandwriterare creatingfictions. But Fowles's stronglymoralisticmessage-that distinctionsmust be made between artistryand artificiality,and thatone's fictions must be in dynamic relationshipwith living-necessarily cannot itself escape the suspicion of language. It is significantthat Sarahcreates fictions specifically to escape reality. Her confession sharplycontrastsfor Charlesthe real and the ideal:

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

theEpigraphs inThe FrenchLieutenant's Woman Reading

Itwasnotstrange because it wasmore it was real,butbecause less real;a mythical worldwherenaked mattered far beauty morethannaked truth. (144)

85

Sarah,the "figurefrommyth,"has composeda mythicalworld for herselfto inhabit. She is not, in the sense she leads Charlesto suppose, the French Lieutenant'swoman;but the fiction she has createdis the most flexible and powerful within the world of the novel, because it is constantlyrelevantto the present.It is doubtful,however, whethersuch myth-makingshould escape the censureof Fowles the moralist,since it involves Charlesin a tissue of deceit and pain. ThoughFowles says he wants to privilege noble fictions that will deal realisticallywith sordidlife outsidethe walls of Versailles,he actuallycapitulateshere to the magic of artand the lure of mythicalbeauty. Sarah'sreality is a functionalmeaningthat she has createdfor herself; her being is, as it were, permanentlydeferred,and as such infinitely attractive not only to Charlesbut also, it appears,to Fowles. The riddleof Sarahis the strongestforce in the text to encourageFowles to avoid closure.It is certainlywhen confronting the problemof endingsthat Fowles readsmost clearlylike an authorunderduress.His overt declaration that he privileges fluidity, and his attemptsto escape closure by offering alternative endings, are at odds with the reader'spowerfulsense of Fowles's specific philosophicalpurposesin writing, and with the didactic authorial voice. Thatsuspicionof paradigm thathasbeenfosteredin thereaderthroughout the novel is finally foregrounded by Fowles in his much-discussedplay with the threeendings-but the same suspicionundermines the authorityof his constantneed to be directive.The most generallyacceptedcritical view of the endings is that they are clearly hierarchical, each one, from the perspective privileged by the author,an improvementover the one before, so thatthe thirdending is the least conventional,the least sentimental,the least reductive,and a full-blown apologia for existentialchoice (see Conradi6667; Holmes 190; Olshen 88-89; Wolfe 165). Some criticshave argueddifferently: FrederikN. Smith, for instance,maintainsthat "Fowles has not chosen" between endings, but presents a "bifurcatedconclusion [as] . . . the most obvious formalcharacteristic of a novel bifurcated on every page"(87). But his appealto a historicaltheoryof narrative also historicizeFowles's may final choice as the inevitableone: Smithsuggeststhatan examinationof "the precise kind of narrative realityeach [ending]presupposes" legitimates the of each as "a fictional universe authenticity reflecting intimately tied to a

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

86

J N

andthecharacters' to it"(97-98).This specifichistorical period relationship can be in of the novel, used to the final argument explainhow, paragraph with Sarah's riddlerevealed andre-veiled, andwithCharles cut adrift, the of and is Fowles itself invoked as closure. open-endedness paradox mystery thereader to see theendurance of Sarah andthepredicted endurencourages in ance of Charles as demonstrative of the strength andartistry necessary is to life's sea" The voice here salt, "unplumb'd, estranging (366). response directive. It bringstogether nineteenthandtwentieth-century and diction, anArnold as "perhasearlier described repositions poemwhichthenarrator noblest short of the whole within an the Victorian era" (334) haps poem overtlyexistentialist morality. But the attentive mustfeel suspicious of thisArnoldian cadence reader Themostsignificant of the textual andof the voice of this finaldemi-god. voices thatFowles is not able to controlpointto the tensionswithinthe narrator himself.He has askedthe reader to be distanced andcritical-but notso critical as to be immune to his authoritative He hassuginterjections. havea life of theirown-but notto theextentthat gestedthathis characters of in his philosophy. the can make moves He hasencouraged undreamt they reader to understand him as fictional-but not so fictionalthathe cannot worldfroma about thenineteenth-century makedefinitive pronouncements Fowles wantsto indicatethe contradictory twentieth-century perspective. of reality, his characters thepossibilbutto demonstrate through parameters in of An origiwith such contradictions. of consistent choice light ity living of thenarrative nalapproach to exonerating condescension theinsufferable attitude voice is offeredby JeromeBump.He arguesthatthe narrator's we witness "the of to the extent that the course the novel, changesduring "subof thus view sexuality," conversion of theprotoreader to theVictorian of dualism ourown simplistic how theVictorians transcended tly revealing as "reflexive asceticism" versus with their ("Narrator repression" pleasure this readingactually Protoreader" 18). Too subtleto be helpful,perhaps, in his in thefinalanalysis, Fowlesis notserious reinforces thejudgment that, of traditional his for control is as as that desire any great postmodern play; of thisdesire it bothmoredeviandhis apparent makes novelist, discrediting ous andless effective.
where the title itself In a novel entitledTheFrenchLieutenant'sWoman,

whose of a powerfully will (Sarah's), thereader is the invention controlling must distancefromthe text has madeit possibleto see the contradictions

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Woman inThe French Lieutenant's theEpigraphs Reading

87

If as reader she is both andwriter. between reader alsoperceive thedistance she mustfeel thatshe hasthe to suspend disbeliefandto unravel textuality, Thechoiceto be madeis theone that forhis pupils. be onlythatof a teacher desireto masandtraditional Theresultant Fowlesadvocates. metaphysical ideaof a coherent teranxietycreatesin the noveljust that"contradictorily with Fowles's berates. Derrida centre" that techniques postmodernist play a text whosecontrahis own position, by creating effectivelydeconstructs he apparwill not centrethemselves dictionsandpluralities uponthe truth intended. ently of thewayin whichtextuality As a result,thisnovelis a primeexample to andnotto thesovereign If "the text the author. belongs language, escapes himselfas a plural then author" andgenerating lxxiv), by presenting (Spivak of thetext morethoroughly theproducer Fowleshasmadethereader author Barthes whowrites, It is Roland he intended. tonesuggests thanhis strident of theAuthor" of thereader must beatthecostof thedeath birth (Barthes '"The
148)-but the readerof The French Lieutenant'sWomanis never sure if such respect seems to author'srespect;in The French Lieutenant'sWoman

of thetradiis anextension to die.Hisuse of epigraphs Fowlesreallymeans than rather tionalVictorian modelwhichgives morepowerto the author within the the but the effect of him into playful epigraphs calling question, he would one.Without theepigraphs, is a transgressive Fowlescreates context what a book;as it is, he has generated havebeen morelikely to produce of writing" Derrida terms"thedisruption 18).Attention (OfGrammatology wholereadthe it controls indeed that does to theepigraphic paratext suggest be the master. turns out to ing:the servant Butthereis another way to read.Fowleswritesthatthe trulyepoch-reexclusive andapparently fiction manifests itselfin paradox pointsof vealing
the impossibilityof recWoman demonstrates view. TheFrenchLieutenant's

of withtheinterventions of textual plurality strategy oncilinga postmodern I have arguedthat to omnipotence. an authorial narrator clearlyattracted Fowlesseemsto wantto be bothwithinandabovehis text.Neverassume, of The Representation on "Mimesis: in an address Drabble says Margaret is ever reallypreBritishNovel,"thatany author Realityin the Post-War he or sheplays("Mithe whatever to than be other sovereign, games pared inmesis"13-14).Perhaps, then,Fowles'snovelis indeedepoch-revealing, is pecuwriter andreader as meaning-makers sofaras thistensionbetween lead games,arguesDerrida, liarlyan obsessionof ourtimes.Metafictional whether to "anuntranslatable wish[es]it or not," [thewriter] supplement,

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

88

J N

andtheprotective notion of thebookis lostintheriddled of readerly labyrinth intertextual events.I suggest thatFowleshas,after thequintesall,produced sential in the of withsovfiction, because, twentieth-century process playing he has rendered himself and his fictitious too. ereignty, opinions
Universityof Ottawa Ottawa,Ontario

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

inThe French theEpigraphs Lieutenant's Woman Reading

89

Works Cited
Alter, Robert.Partial Magic: TheNovel as a Self-ConsciousGenre.Berkeley:Universityof

California Press,1975. Jane.Persuasion. 1818.London: 1963. Austen, Macmillan, Gian."The Narrative Textas Historical TheCaseof John Artifact: Fowles." Works Balsamo, andDays6.1-2 [11-12](Spring/Fall 97-125. 1988): "The Death of theAuthor." Roland. Trans. Heath. New Barthes, Image-Music-Text. Stephen York: 1977.142-48. Hill& Wang,
" The Vicas Protoreader in TheFrenchLieutenant'sWoman. Bump, Jerome."TheNarrator torian Newsletter74 (Fall 1988): 16-18.

Peter. JohnFowles.Contemporary Writers Series. London & NewYork: Conradi, Methuen, 1982. On:Border Lines."1977.Trans. JamesHulbert. Deconstruction Derrida, Jacques. "Living andCriticism. Ed.Harold Bloomet al. NewYork: 1979. 75-176. Press, Seabury TheRepresentation "Mimesis: of Reality in the Post-War British Novel." Drabble, Margaret. Mosaic20.1 (Winter 1-14. 1987): is anAuthor?" Michel."What 1969.InHarari 141-60. Foucault,
Fowles, John. TheFrenchLieutenant'sWoman.1969. Scarborough: Signet, 1970. . "Noteson an UnfinishedNovel." 1969. Rpt.in TheNovel Today. Ed. MalcolmBradbury.

Manchester & London: Manchester Press& Fontana, 1977.136-48. University G6rard. to theParatext." "Introduction Trans. Maclean. Marie NewLiterary Genette, History 22.2 (Spring 261-72. 1991):
. Seuils. Paris:Editionsdu Seuil, 1987. Criticism.Ithaca,New Josu6,ed. Textual Harari, Strategies:Perspectivesin Post-Structuralist

York: Cornell Press,1979. University Thomas. TheComplete Poems.Ed.James Gibson. London: 1976. Macmillan, Hardy,
Higdon, David Leon. "TheEpigraphto JohnFowles' The Collector" Modem Fiction Stud-

ies 32.4 (Winter 568-72. 1986): M. "The Frederick andReality: of Omniscience TheParadox in The Holmes, Novel,Illusion,
French Lieutenant's Woman." Journalof NarrativeTechnique11 (1981): 184-98.

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

90

J N

Hoek, Leo H. " 'Une merveille qu'intime sa structure':Analyse semiotique du discours Degres 58 (Summer1989): al-a23. paratextuel." Journalof ModernLiteraJohnson,A. J. B. "Realismin The FrenchLieutenant'sWoman." ture 8.2 (1980/81): 287-302. Miller,J. Hillis. "TheCriticas Host."Deconstructionand Criticism,217-53. Mulhauser,F. L., ed. Poems of ArthurHugh Clough. 2nd ed. London:Oxford University Press, 1974. " Style Nelles, William. "Problemsof NarrativeTheory: The French Lieutenant'sWoman. 18.2 (Spring 1984): 207-17. Olshen, BarryN. John Fowles. New York:FrederickUngar, 1978. Palmer,William J. "JohnFowles and the Crickets."Modern Fiction Studies 31.1 (Spring 1985): 2-13. Siegle, Robert."TheConceptof the Authorin Barthes,Foucault,and Fowles." College Literature 10.2 (Spring 1983): 126-38. Woman." Smith,FrederikN. "Revisionandthe Style of Revision in TheFrenchLieutenant's ModernFiction Studies31.1 (Spring 1985): 85-113. by Jacques Derrida.Baltimore:Johns Hopkins, Spivak, Gayatri,trans. Of Grammatology, 1976. Tucker,RobertC., ed. TheMarx-EngelsReader.2nd ed. New York:W. W. Norton, 1978. Varsava,Jerry.ContingentMeanings:PostmodernFiction, Mimesis, and the Reader Tallahassee: FloridaState UniversityPress, 1990. in the Workof Andr6Gide andJohnFowles." Comof Narrative Walker,David. "Subversion Vol. 2. Ed. ElinorShaffer.Cambridge: A Yearbook. Criticism: CambridgeUniparative 1980: 187-212. versity Press, Wolfe, Peter.John Fowles, Magus and Moralist. 2nd ed., rev. Lewisburg:Bucknell University Press, 1979.

This content downloaded from 146.7.113.210 on Mon, 9 Sep 2013 22:29:34 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions