Erotic Triangles and Sexual Politics: Feminism in THe French Lieutenant's Woman Revisited

• Main Authors: Chiang, Yung Nan, 蔣勇男
• Other Authors: Chen, Chang Fang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/21586400781993947630

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英國語文學系 === 84 === Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman~U1;'s feminism has been a point of contentions among feminist critics; most feminist critics argue that Fowles is not a feminist but a phallocratic wolf clothed in feminist clothes. This thesis intends to readdress the feminist issues in Fowles's novel by probing onto the multiple layers of triangular relationships and sexual politics among the characters. This thesis consists of four chapters. A theorectical base of this thesis, Chapter one is a discussion on the "the discourse of erotic triangle" posited repectively by Lacan and Levi- Strauss through the idea of incest taboo. Through French feminist Luce Irigaray's critigue and appropriation of Lacan and Levi-Strauss, this chapter lays bare the subordination of women in patriarchal society, psychological or social. Chapter Two is concentrated on what Irigaray calls the foundational structure of patriarchal society--"hom(m)osexual economy". The matrimonial alliance between Ernestina and Charles and the sexual escapade of Charles' gentlemen club are singled out to illustrate how women are exchanged as objects between men. Chapter Three focuses on the sexual politics in Charles' s love triangle with Ernestaina and Sarah. Chapter Four deals with radical feminism and Sarah's lesbianism with Millie and Christina. Irigaray's and Wittig' separatist politics are deployed to show how Sarah transgresses the patriarchally-defined boundary between the sexes, destroys the Victorians' mythologization of women as asexual--yet produtive--Madonna, and then forges an subjectivity independent of the male sex.