Arcadia by Tom Stoppard and The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles are complex narratives that explore different techniques of writing and story telling to present the theme of change. Both texts are quite demanding of the reader if they wish to read it and understand the stories and concepts being drawn in both texts, and even more demanding to compare the similarities between the two texts. This article will analyse how each author has illustrated the theme of change in their novels and also add my own thoughts and opinions of both texts, at the end.
The start of Arcadia makes the characters in the 19th century period come off as silly and chaotic while presenting the modern character sets as more serious and mannered. Towards the end of Arcadia, these views are switched, and the modern characters appear more silly and chaotic while the 19th century characters sway towards the more serious side. The best demonstration of this is with the main character if the book’s 19th Century setting, Thomasina Coverly. Thomasina’s first appearance is in the first scene with her tutor Septimius, where the topic of
is brought up. Stoppard uses this opportunity to present Thomasina as a a young, naïve and innocent character. She is later seen working on and hinting at higher-level mathematical and scientific concepts. Most of which were deemed unsolved at the time, such as Fermat’s Last Theorem, or have not been formerly discovered and established yet, such as the basis of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics when she states that
“Newton’s Equations go forwards and backwards, they do not care which way. But the heat equation cares very much, it goes only one way,”
Stoppard himself is quite an intellectual person, and Thomasina can somewhat be seen as a representation of the author himself with both of them sharing their passion for mathematics and science.
Later in the play Thomasina matures as she ages and bonds closer, in a somewhat romantic manner, with Septimius. She remarks that she wants Septimius to
“teach [her] how to waltz now!”
This can be interpreted in as a sexual innuendo for Thomasina’s desire to get intimate with her tutor, Septimius, and strays far from her originally established ‘innocent’ and ‘naïve’ persona. This is an example of how Stoppard shows that character development and change is not linear, but rather quite
I mentioned earlier in this segment that the start of the play presents the 19th Century characters as chaotic. However the end of the play provides the characters with more depth and flavours to them. Their story starts of fun, comedic and light-hearted but ends with a tragedy with the inferred passing of Thomasina Cloverly which adds a more serious and saddened tone to their time period.
John Fowles illustrates the theme of change in The French Lieutenant’s Woman with the use of the story’s setting and characters. The characters that are focused on in The French Lieutenant’s Woman are of the lower economic classes of the time period, and we are made to look down on them as they are viewed as
“wild”
and
“messy”
and
“lost”
The book follows the story of the character Charles Henry Smithson who might be a representative of the lower class, but does have some intellect to back him. He shares his first name with scientist Charles Darwin and rightfully also believes in the Darwinian Theory of Evolution.
Fowles, who also plays the 3rd person omnipresent narrator and story teller, makes Charles run through some heavy character development and progress. Charles’ main initial desire is to fulfil and
“attempt to stabalise and fix his life,”
to escape the connotations and implications of his current socio-economic position. He goes on to have intimate relations with Sarah as a way of finding a new path in his life, trying to branch off from his roots. His character growth shows much more maturity and philosophical viewpoints. Towards the end of his ‘adventures’, Fowles makes Charles come to the conclusion where he makes a realisation that life is just a journey that he has to endure and that gives him a different outlook on his own life, as well as life in general.
Another character in the book that makes a similar realisation is Sam Farrow. Sam also shares the desire of moving up in the hierarchy of life in the working class of England. Sam prioritises himself when making decisions, which can often have negative consequences for those around him, such as Charles. This makes Sam a very self-centered and self-orientated character by putting his own interests and personal gains above others. A key instance is when Sam black mails Charles for money to fund Sam’s business, a prime example of screwing over others for his own gain. However they both come to the same conclusion that the being born into the working middle class in 19th Century England provides no reasonable path of escape out, and that their only option is to endure and survive.
Now I will spill my take on having to do a text response on these 2 books. If the title of this article didn’t convey my opinion already, I firmly believe that Arcadia and The French Lieutenant's Woman fall short of what their authors intended it to be. Starting off with Arcadia, the concept of presenting the story as a play which switches between and overlaps 2 different time periods is quite intriguing and something that I haven’t seen before. However, the plot itself is quite dry, and being such a short play and having to balance 2 different settings/time periods means that neither side has much depth into its characters or story which is a waste of the potential that was held by the concept.
The French Lieutenant's Woman is the complete polar opposite. The paper back copy clocked in at 470 odd pages! While it has the length, the dry and hard to follow plot makes it a struggle to read and comprehend. Although the author tried something new with the implementation of a third person narrator who reminds the audience that he is in power, I found that it personally ruined the immersion into the story.
To conclude, both author’s explored the theme of change by using their characters, such as the development of Thomasina Cloverly in Arcadia, and the effect of the English working middle class which blocked many paths of change for the characters of The French Lieutenant's Woman.
