Chapter One Passive Ethical Choices under the Victorian Ethics
1.1 The Victorian Man’s Passive Ethical Choices
Owing to the economic booms and the democratic reforms in political field, people’s ideology was original and innovative in the Victorian age. Nevertheless, benefited from the commercial interests, people still held the stereotype Victorian ethics because the public consciousness were ossified by the fixed pattern of economic development. People from different classes, especially the new money class submitted themselves to the authority principle and abandoned their own thoughts to acquire abundant wealth through the national policies.
The Utilitarianism ethics and social Darwinism deeply influenced on the new money class and the social elites’ ethics. In the novel, Mr.Freeman and Dr. Gorgan were the representatives of the two groups. Believed in the social authority ethics, both of them made their passive ethical choices.
1.1.1. Mr. Freeman’s Passive Ethical Choices
Mr. Freeman belonged to the new money class so that his ethics indisputably followed the Victorian Ethics. The words he convinced Charles to inherit his career showed that he was deeply influenced by the Utilitarianism concept. Here is a definition about the new money class
“Profit and Earnestness (in that order) might have been his motto. He had thrived on the great social-economic change that took place between 1850 and 1870--the shift of accent from manufactory to shop, from producer to customer” (Fowles 479).
In reality, the new money class identified themselves as the model of Utilitarianism. In the beginning of the novel, Mr.Freeman held the approving attitude towards the relationship between Ernestina and Charles, which depended on Charles’ social identity. As we can see in the novel
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1.2 The Victorian Woman’s Passive Ethical Choices
Different from the Victorian man, woman’s life in the Victorian age seemed to be tougher. Suppressed by the patriarchal system, their ethical choices were banal. Besides, the Victorian ethics also impeded the development of their ethics cognition. Therefore, the Victorian woman’s ethical choices were passive because the Victorian ethics inhibited their instinct and forced them to make monotonous ethical choices in daily life.
Compared to the Victorian man’s ethical choices in the last part, the features of the Victorian woman’s ethical choices are also worth making an analysis. In the story, Mrs. Poulteney and Ernestina separately represented the noble class and the new money class. In terms of their different social identities, their ethical principles had slight difference. From the novel’s descriptions, Mr. Poultneney’s passive ethics was innate which was decided by the consensus in her living environment, whereas Ernestina’s ethics was not same as Mrs.Poulteney due to they grew up in different periods in Victorian era as well as their different classes. However, even though there was an embryotic appearance of ethics in Ernestina mind. The omnipresent Victorian ethics nipped it in the bud. Both Mrs. Poulteney and Ernestina’s were restricted to make ethical choices in the Victorian.
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Chapter Two Active Ethical Choices against the Victorian Ethics
2.1 The French Lieutenant Woman’s Active Ethical Choices
In this text, the ethical choices of the French lieutenant’s woman “Sarah” is the main point. As the ethical knot, her intruding changed a series of people’s ethical choices. In order to objectively understand “Sarah’s” freedom, the thesis firstly explores the reasons of her ethical choices from the historical perspective. Supporting by the historical factors of the novel’s creating background, her postmodern characteristic made her subversion against the Victorian ethics more plausible.
2.1.1 The Reasons of the French Lieutenant Woman’s Active Ethical Choices
Undeniable, Sarah had freedom in the novel that nobody could curb her ethical choices in the Lyme town. Her ethical choices like “quarreling with Mrs. Poulteney” , “roving alone to seduce Charles” and “sacrificing virgin identity for love but leaving” subverted the authority Ethics in the Victorian age. It seems all of these behaviors were forbidden to a woman in that period and Sarah should not appear in this small town. Nevertheless, without any punishment, the author enable her to make every freely ethical choice in the strictly hierarchical Victorian world. Her freedom, according to the words once mentioned by Fowles that he was “trying to show an existentialist awareness before it was chronologically possible” (17). Thus, Sarah in the novel, as an existentialist, her ethical choices contains profoundly historical elements. It is not hard to figure out the reasons of the subverted ethical choices from her identity and social position.
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2.1.2 The French Lieutenant’s Woman’s Subversion against the Victorian Ethics
It is the truth that Sarah was not belonging to the Victorian age so that there was no need to require her ethical choices to abide by the Victorian ethics. However, in this novel, Sarah lived in the Victorian society while her strikingly ethical choices subverted the Victorian Ethics. The transformation of characters’ ethical identities was caused by her intruding. From the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism, the literature work describes the process of character’s ethical choices and the solutions of their ethical identities (Nie 263), which implies every character’s ethical choices represent their ethics. Connecting with this novel, influenced by Sarah’s ethical choices, the characters from different classes made some ethical choices which were beyond their ethical identities. In that sense, Sarah’s subversion against the Victorian age was embodied in the changing of characters’ ethical identities which lead to the consequence of Victorian Ethics broken.
In order to study on Sarah’s subversion, the thesis firstly had a brief review about the Victorian Ethics. There were many famous ethicists supporting and developing the ethics concept of Utilitarianism in 18th century Britain. The most representative one is Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). His significant work is Introduction to the Principle of Morals and Legislation, 1789 which presented the original idea on the relationship between ethics and social organization. Bentham is the forerunner of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism ethics made deeply influence on his period while comments on his idea on ethics were different. John Stuart Mill once praised him as the “greatest subverter” (Mary 81). In his work Introduction to the Principle of Morals and Legislation (1789), he strongly supported the idea about “the greatest happiness principle”. From Bentham’s thought, his ideology of the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong. Furthermore, the term “motivation” in his theory was defined as the immanent reason. The “motivation” inspired some of Bentham’s followers to analyze from different perspectives. Hence, one of the representative Bentham’s followers James Mill (1773-1836) declared the results that individual’s happiness and pain were the core reason for people’s ethical behaviors. It indicated that education was the main method to learn the Utilitarianism principle (Huang 233). Moreover, many other ethics such as Willian Godwin (1756-1836), John Austin (1790-1859) and John Henry Newman (1801-1890) were affected by Bentham’s theory.
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Chapter Three John Fowles’ Reflection on Ethical Dilemma and His Artistic Practice in Ethical Choice .........................................33
3.1 The Characters’ Illusion of Freedom on Ethical Choices ..................................... 33
3.2 John Fowles’ Reflection on Ethical Dilemma in Reality ..................................... 35
3.3 John Fowles’ Artistic Practice of his Self-finding Trail ....................................... 33
Chapter Three John Fowles’ Reflection on Ethical Dilemma and His Artistic Practice in Ethical Choice
3.1 The Characters’ Illusion of Freedom on Ethical Choices
As we all know, the French Lieutenant’s Woman is a metafiction. Metafiction is one of the postmodern writing forms, which goal is to “tear up the novel’s fictionality to readers” (Wang 142).
After the analysis of different characters’ ethical choices in the last two chapters, one question might be asked is whether Sarah really existed in the Victorian age. However, in the story, Sarah’s intruding and her subversion transformed the Victorian people’s traditional lifestyle. Her self-independent personality and behaviors shocked surrounding people’s traditional ethics. The bankruptcy of old ethics let the Lyme town’s people involved in ethical dilemma. After Sarah’s subversion, the proposes of having more ethical choices emerged in the Victorian people’s mind. Awaken by Sarah’s selection on freedom, some of the Victorian characters made their actively ethical choices.Besides, from the author’s announcement in the novel’s chapter 13
“The novelist is still a god, since he creates (and not even the most aleatory avant-gardemodern novel has managed to extirpate its author completely); what has changed is that we are no longer the gods of the Victorian image, omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image, with freedom our first principle, not authority” (Fowles 164).
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Conclusion
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