By considering the extent to which individuals and their actions are determined and limited by the rules and conventions of Victorian society, discuss the views conveyed to the reader by Hardy and Fowles.

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‘Jude the Obscure’ by Thomas Hardy and ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ by John Fowles:

By considering the extent to which individuals and their actions are determined and limited by the rules and conventions of Victorian society, discuss the views conveyed to the reader by Hardy and Fowles.

John Fowles and Thomas Hardy both write on very similar subjects; their stories circulate around very strong, rebellious women who are fighting the social conformities set down by their male oppressors. These male writers use their novels to convey their social and political views by placing their characters in situations in which they usually have two courses of action; that is, either to conform or rebel. The outcomes of these choices work to highlight the opinions of the writers, and the hardship of characters in both novels communicates the overwhelming pressures of society.

However, the two writers were writing in completely different time periods, and this gives the messages of each novelist very different meanings. Hardy was writing in the mid 1800s, when his views would have been considered outrageous. Writing about events occurring around him would have put his reputation at great risk, and his views were seen as blasphemy. The first of his kind, Hardy took a great risk in releasing this work to the public, however, in doing so, he was able to draw attention to the very controversial subject of women’s rights, a subject, that was, in his time, taboo.

Fowles, on the other hand, took no such risk. Writing in the post-feminist 1960s, he was able to look in retrospect to many years of women’s liberation, and know that he was conforming to popular opinion. Although he shares views very similar to Hardy, and possibly was influenced by them, there is nothing ground breaking about them, and he only works to reinforce the words of Hardy. However, both writers do make very valid comments on the involvement of society and its conventions in the lives of individuals, and constantly asks the question, ‘How can we strive for individualism in a society which, necessarily, needs rules and conventions to protect its citizens from chaos’, and in the case of each novel, the reader is left questioning their own conformity.

In Hardy’s work, his characters Jude and Sue are both considered to be of inferior social groups; Jude because of his class, and Sue for her gender. Because of the frustrations that they encounter, they fundamentally understand the other’s struggle, and through this they share a common bond and this becomes the basis of their relationship.

Likewise, Charles and Sarah from Fowles’ ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ have a bond born of rejection from society. However, in this case their circumstances are far more complicated. Fowles’ Charles rebels against his society so that he would be able to join Sarah in her exile, believing that she too has acted in a dishonourable way. However, we discover that Sarah did not give away her chastity to the ‘French Lieutenant’, and that her exile has been of her own choosing. Although publicly her reputation has been tarnished, she is safe in the knowledge that she had acted honourably, something that Charles tragically failed to understand.

As Diane Saunder says, ‘[Sarah] prefers to be a visible social pariah rather than one who attempts to reform and assimilate into society’, and this is one of Sue’s characteristic traits throughout the novel. Although she favours her social disapproval because she is able to live a ‘free’ life, she also acts as a Martyr in order to be a representation ‘of the woman who was coming into notice in her thousands every year’, the woman who was forced to undergo the same treatment, but who decide not to speak out about it. The fact that Sarah has in fact not broken any of the rules of society goes to show how important a person’s social image really was, as she was stigmatised for pure rumour.

But Sarah was free in her new life; with this social disapproval she was able to live as she wished, no longer needing the approval of society in order to decide upon her path. Charles, on the other hand, for much of the novel, does not understand how free Sarah really is. He is attracted to her wildness, and he wishes to marry her, which is going against all that she stands for. However, the reader, like Charles, does not begin to understand Sarah until late in the novel, and it is not until the reader discovers what she has voluntarily sacrificed that we realise how much her freedom means to her.

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Part of the freedom of both Sarah and Sue was the fact that they were taking control of their lives, and were independent in their thinking. With these two, the authors were making reference to a character trait that was appearing in the Victorian novel, that of the ‘New Woman’. Cedric Watts describes the ‘fictional New Woman’ as someone who is:

‘intelligent, lively, articulately forthright, capable of pursuing her own career, sexually daring … and resistant to the conventional claims of marriage’

and so, he has described the characteristics of both Sue and Sarah. Both of ...

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