Introduced to Fowles’ psychological experimentation, we are made subject to associationism, a popular theory in Victorian psychology. Allure and mystery surround Sarah as our first image of her is one of an abandoned lover, standing at the bay, staring out to sea, awaiting the return of her lover. There they come across the embodiment of scandal: a woman named Sarah, known for aiding a French Lieutenant following a shipwreck with whom she strikes up a romantic relationship, only to be abandoned just before marriage. It is the late nineteenth century and soon-to-be-married Ernestina Freeman and Charles Smithson have embarked on a stroll along the shore of the English seaside town of Lyme Regis. The wind moved them, but the figure stood motionless, staring, staring out to sea, more like a living memorial to the drowned, a figure from myth, than any proper fragment of the petty provincial day. Intrigue jumps out at us from the very first chapter where, Fowles flaunts his contrarian nature as he refuses to provide any context, including the names of the characters we will grow to know so well. The novel removes us from the twenty first century and deftly dropping us in the Victorian era. Essentially, this is the outline of The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles, except add the Victorian setting, frequent diversions into psychology, and the poetic writing. Boy meets girl boy falls in love with girl boy falls in love with another girl.
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