John Fowles
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The dual ending of John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman is valid because it mirrors life. There is a similar duality in reality. We are not only the product of our social environment, but also a product of our natural selection (i.e., genetics). The novel demonstrates this beautifully in the characters of Ernestina Freeman and Sarah Woodruff, the title character. Ernestina is the robot-like embodiment of her Victorian upbringing and the social norms it promotes. She is wealthy and born of a prestigious family, so she is much more “socially” accepted and “evolved” than Sarah. However, what also makes her so much more socially evolved than Sarah is that she has foregone her free will and personal develop in order to adopt the social norms of her social strata. Ernestina willingly adopts the values of her society, to the point that she cannot even impose upon her husband when ill. For she knows it “was out of the question that she should inflict its consequences on Charles” (Fowles 41). On the other hand, Ernestina does not only sublimate her own personality to that of her husband’s, but she also ends up losing her own self in the process. This is why Charles describes even her emotions as something she must choose to wear or “put on”. He says Ernestina’s humor seemed “as if it were something put on with her French hat and new pelisse; to suit them rather than the occasion” (Fowles 106). In other words, there is
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Approximate Word count = 920
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)
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