Talk:The French Lieutenant's Woman

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Good articleThe French Lieutenant's Woman has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
March 3, 2014Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 27, 2013.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that John Fowles' postmodern novel The French Lieutenant's Woman both emulated and parodied popular Victorian novels, like those of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy?

Ourika[edit]

"The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969), by John Fowles, is a period novel inspired by the 1823 novel Ourika, by Claire de Duras . . ."

Why is it not pointed out that the original novel Ourika, is based on a true story of "Ourika" who was an African women from Senegalese nobility, whom a French Lieutenant was in love, but she was rejected by the French nobility because she was African, thus the "tragedy"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.229.102.208 (talk) 18:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A bit late, but I would say because this article is about another book. Details of Ourika are in that book's own article. Britmax (talk) 14:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Metafiction, and pastoral elements[edit]

Can somebody help to flesh this out? I got bogged down in trying to explain the complexity of the plots of both the book and the movie. -- Zoe

What about the sexual encounter between Charles and Sarah, in which he discovers her to be a virgin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.164.39.98 (talk) 23:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to help with this a little later, but i'm just writing a small thesis on the pastoral/post-pastoral elements of it, so i have to complete that first! I think the plot summary is generally very good, although i think the description of the second and third endings need a little clarification. Only because (as i understood it at least!?), these two alternate endings happen after fowles appears in the train carriage, and he tosses a coin to see which comes first. It may also be worth noting that Fowles makes another subtle appearance in between the two endings, that sees him as a gentlemen close to the Rosseti's house, who turns his clock back fifteen minutes (and time in the novel) and then gets into his landau; the one Charles sees trotting away in the distance when he comes out of the house.

I think to flesh it out there could be further discussion of Arnold, Darwin, Hardy and Tennyson, and maybe a section on metafiction, and also pastoral elements too?? I'll start thinking. Turkeyplucker 21:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The link to websites on French Lieutenant's Woman works - but all the links from there are broken

Picture[edit]

This picture really needs to be replaced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.168.19.196 (talk) 10:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

agreed! Mujinga (talk) 00:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gibberish[edit]

The content of this page is filled with meaningless gibberish. It desperately needs to be rewritten in a way that makes sense. 155.135.55.233 (talk) 15:21, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


A few errors[edit]

"Simultaneously, he learns that his prospective inheritance from an elder uncle is in jeopardy; the uncle is engaged to a woman young enough to bear him an heir."

Actually, Charles learned about his inheritance some time before. Several days before, more or less.

"First ending: Charles marries Ernestina, and their marriage is unhappy; Sarah’s fate is unknown."

I believe the marriage, in this version is reasonably happy. Ernestina dies ten years before Charles, and he grieves her for the rest of his life. 69.108.162.74 (talk) 03:31, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Charles, who searches for her for years, before finding her living with several artists (likely the Rossettis), enjoying an artistic, creative life"

It is the Rossettis, the painter and his sister, the poet. The author says so explicitly. 69.108.162.74 (talk) 03:42, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recent expansion and checklist before GA and beyond[edit]

Hey all, as you might have noticed quite a big expansion, I plan on returning to it when I have bit more time for Wikipedia (semester is quite busy). If you want to help, here is what I planned on adding before a GA Review:

  • one or two sources more sources that do each of the following:
    • marxist reading
    • ecocritical reading
    • science/religion readings
  • add at least a couple sources that talk about the composition and genesis of the novel by Fowle's  Done
  • Flesh out the other sections w/ references including:
    • contemporary reception
    • characters
    • style and structure sections

Definitely would appreciate if @Khazar2: or anyone else wants to collaborate (go ahead and add {{done}} to anything you finish, Sadads (talk) 19:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm excited to see this one headed for GA. I won't be able to contribute significantly here, as I'm currently up to my elbows at United Nations, but I'll be glad to serve as GA reviewer when one is needed. In terms of prioritizing the above, the composition/genesis stuff is probably the only part that would be a "main aspect" per the GA criteria. Different theoretical approaches to the novel would be helpful (and probably will be necessary when it reaches FA), but probably not required at GA level. Thanks again for all your work, -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:07, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Khazar2:! I made the recommended improvement, and don't have patience right now to do the necessary additional scholarship for FA. So I will nominate for GA per your recommendation, and will make these improvements as time and focus allow, Sadads (talk) 19:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on The French Lieutenant's Woman. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:29, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:The_French_Lieutenant%27s_Woman&oldid=1203427057"