The French Lieutenant's Woman

The couple on the Cobb is Charles Smithson and Ernestina Freeman. Though Charles suggests that they leave, Ernestina wishes that he would hold her arm now that they are alone. She encourages Charles to continue walking to the end of the Cobb. She mentions a letter, received from her mother, which refers to a meeting between Charles and her father. Charles admits to speaking to her father about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. They disagreed on the veracity of the theory, leading to Mr. Freeman announcing that he did not want his daughter to marry someone who believed that he was descended from apes. Ernestina has always been anxious about their different family histories. Charles is from an aristocratic family and his grandfather was a baronet. In contrast, her grandfather was a middle-class draper. Charles dismisses her father’s quarrel about evolution. Ernestina points out the fossils, which are formed into the quay. As Charles examines them, Ernestina points to a part of the quay which is mentioned in Persuasion by Jane Austen. In Austen’s day, she says, gentlemen were romantic.

Charles notices the figure in black at the end of the Cobb. He discerns that the figure is a woman and Ernestina mentions that the locals call her “Tragedy” (9). The woman in black is the French Lieutenant’s Woman, according to the fishermen. Ernestina has heard rumors that the woman in black is not mentally stable, so she wishes to leave, but Charles is fascinated. Hesitantly, Ernestina explains that the woman once loved a French lieutenant who abandoned her; she waits for him to return by standing on the quay. At other times, she works for the repugnant Mrs. Poulteney. Charles wants to approach the woman. She is dressed in a black riding coat which is meant for a man. In her hands, she grips her bonnet. Charles speaks loudly as he approaches but the woman says nothing. The wind blows strongly around them. When she finally turns toward Charles, he is struck by the feeling that he is intruding. She is not beautiful or deranged; he senses the air of authentic tragedy around her. Her surroundings, Charles feels, are not sympathetic enough to her suffering. The woman turns away, releasing Charles from her gaze. As Ernestina leads him away, Charles complains that she has told him the “sordid facts” (11) about this mysterious woman.

In his rented room in the local pub, Charles looks into the mirror and reflects on his regrettable lunchtime conversation with Ernestina’s Aunt Tranter. He is no longer confident that he should pursue a career as a paleontologist, and he is not certain that Ernestina will ever understand him. Otherwise, he blames his emotional state on the rain outside. Charles does not feel at home in the rushed, time-conscious 20th century. For the rich men of the Victorian era, boredom is a constant. The numerous revolutions of 1848 did not alter this but, with Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, on the verge of publication, the understanding of the capitalist system may be about to change. Charles knows nothing about Marx, however, and would never believe that such a man could alter the state of the world.

Charles’s baronet grandfather hunted foxes and amassed vast collections of ancient relics to fill his time. Charles’s father was the baronet’s second son; his first son failed to marry and inherited little. Charles’s mother died while giving birth to Charles’s sibling when Charles was just one year old. When his father died, Charles became heir to the family fortune. Unlike Sir Robert (Charles’s uncle), Charles does not like the typical aristocratic pastimes. He still remembers accidently shooting a prized Great Bustard while visiting his uncle. Whenever his uncle feels “inclined to disinherit” (15) Charles, he glances at this taxidermized bird and feels better inclined toward his nephew once again. Charles attended Cambridge University but was distracted by sex and other vices. After a brief sexual affair with a London girl, he announced that he wanted to be a priest. His father sent him to Paris, France, where Charles continued his sexual activities and decided he no longer wanted to be a priest. After studying religion on his return to England, he lost his faith in religion. After his father’s death, he lived in Kensington in a small house with several servants. He travelled and wrote about his experiences but never found a vocation. Eventually, he turned to his grandfather’s fascination with archeology. He pursued an interest in paleontology, much to Sir Robert’s disapproval: Sir Robert wanted Charles to become a politician. Charles disagreed with his uncle’s politics but never admitted to his progressive tendencies in front of his family. Charles is a fundamentally lazy man who has a critical view of England as a country, which desires to be seen as respectable, rather than actually do what is right. His lack of a vocation stems from his fear of being unable to make a name for himself in any field. By setting his ambitions so high, he justifies his lack of action. Despite his odd reputation, many women want to marry Charles. Sir Robert criticizes Charles for indulging women’s interest but never actually marrying, though Charles reminds Sir Robert that he is also a bachelor. Sir Robert might have liked a family though not necessarily a wife. Charles insists that he simply has not met “the right girl” (18).

Mrs. Poulteney lives on the hill that overlooks Lyme Regis. In her basement, three old-fashioned fires burn constantly to heat her kitchen range. The walls are green, and no one knows that the paint contains arsenic. In the kitchen, the head cook, Mrs. Fairley, dresses in black and casts a foul mood over the other staff. Famously, Mrs. Poulteney demands very high standards and treats her servants badly. Consequently, she has a high turnover rate for staff. Mrs. Fairley has only lasted so long because both she and her employer have similarly sadistic tendencies. Mrs. Poulteney studies everything for dirt, dust, and immorality. She criticizes people for any reason, like not attending church. Her harsh tactics and hypocritical standards are just like those of the British Empire. However, she is praised by her peers for taking in the French Lieutenant’s Woman a year before.

Mrs. Poulteney fears that she may be sent to hell. The local Protestant vicar notes her large donations to the church, so he never questions her intense fear of hell. During a bout of sickness, worried about the state of her soul, Mrs. Poulteney decided to perform a good deed. Her associate Lady Cotton has opened a home for “fallen women” (24), so she decides to help someone who is struggling. Asking the vicar to find her such a person, she insists that this potential victim must be a good Christian. The vicar suggests—with a hint of malice in his suggestion—hat Mrs. Poulteney should help the French Lieutenant’s Woman, otherwise known as Sarah Woodruff.

Ernestina’s “delicate” (26) features adhere to Victorian beauty standards, but she has a slight air of defiance that intrigues Charles. After Charles leaves Aunt Tranter’s home, Ernestina retreats to her room. She watches Charles walk away, noticing that he raises his hat to an attractive servant. Ernestina has decorated her room in a modern French fashion, very different to the traditional décor of the rest of the home. Aunt Tranter is relentlessly optimistic. Ernestina tries to summon up some anger toward her aunt, either due to the décor, her questions about her niece’s reputation, or Ernestina’s presence in Lyme Regis. Ernestina’s parents have always fretted about their only child. After convincing themselves that she suffers from consumption (though no doctor can find anything wrong), they spoiled her. They cannot know that she will live for many years to come.

Ernestina is sent to Lyme Regis when she needs to recover from the London social season. She dislikes the unfashionable town, which makes her resent her aunt. This time, however, Charles has agreed to travel with her. She appreciates the “sense of self-irony” (29) that she shares with Charles. Undressing herself, letting her hair fall down, Ernestina feels devilish. She takes her dressing gown and reflects on the tension between her sexual desire and her lack of sexual experience. She has seen animals mate, and sex, to her, seems inherently brutal. This brutality dissuades her from the idea of sex, though she would like a husband and a family one day. This conception of suffering as a form of duty is inherent to the Victorian way of thinking. Ernestina opens her diary, which contains a run-down of the days until her marriage. Now, there are 90 days until she is set to marry Charles. Smelling the pressed jasmine placed between the pages, she remembers the happiest day of her life. When she hears her aunt’s footsteps approach, she hides the diary.

When the vicar talked to Mrs. Poulteney about Sarah Woodruff, he explained that she was a former governess in desperate need of help. Sarah was the daughter of a farmer. She was well-educated and took a job as a governess in the Talbot house. One day, three men were saved from a wrecked French ship. Captain Talbot helped the men, and Sarah used her French to translate for him. She fell in love with one of the sailors, though the vicar insists that nothing improper transpired. The French Lieutenant recovered and returned to France. Sarah left her job and tried to follow the Lieutenant, thinking that he would marry her. The Lieutenant never returned, and Sarah continues to wait for him. The vicar believes that the Lieutenant abandoned Sarah because she would not have sex with him until marriage. Now, Sarah suffers from “grave attacks of melancholia” (35). She is still waiting for the French Lieutenant, but she is able to work. Helping her would be a good deed to help Mrs. Poulteney get into heaven. After receiving a reference from the Talbots and interviewing Sarah, Mrs. Poulteney agreed to take her in. She appreciated her sadness, which makes her look older than her 25 years. Sarah refused to answer any questions about the French Lieutenant. Mrs. Poulteney does not ask why Sarah agrees to work for her and no one else. The reasons are that Sarah is nearly broke and that Mrs. Poulteney’s house looks out across the sea.

Sam Farrow, Charles’s manservant of four years, wakes Charles by opening the curtains. He prepares to shave Charles, complaining about the behavior of Mrs. Tranter’s servant girl. Charles teases Sam that he is attracted to the girl. Feeling humiliated, Sam goes to fetch Charles’s breakfast. Charles studies himself in the mirror, adjusts his dark moustache, then shaves himself. Sam lacks the focus to be a truly excellent manservant. His name and his cockney heritage mean that Sam Weller from Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers is an obvious comparison for him. However, Sam believes that his generation has much better prospects than the character in the novel, and many men of his social class have begun to mimic their wealthier counterparts. Sam is one of these “snobs” (43), spending his wages on the latest fashionable clothing. He has also tried to shed his cockney accent. Though Charles mocks Sam, the two men are friends. He appreciates Sam as a companion as much as a servant, which many of the nouveau riche cannot comprehend. Sam, unlike his Dickensian counterpart, endures his job more than he likes it.

Across town, Ernestina wakes up in a bad mood. When Charles calls for her, he is told that she is not well. Charles plans to spend his newly free day searching for fossils, so he tells Sam to bring flowers for Ernestina and then take the day off. Charles is interested in fossils of sea urchins, also known as tests or sand dollars. Not only are they rare and beautiful, but their existence is proof of the theory of evolution. Charles goes to the Cobb, where people are walking along the seafront. Not seeing the French Lieutenant’s Woman, Charles walks along the beach in his boots, gaiters, and hat. He carries a rucksack with his fossil-hunting gear. He is overprepared, as is typical of the Victorian mindset. This Victorian overpreparedness is the foundation of modern science, especially compared to the 20th century, a time in people think there is “nothing to discover” (49). Charles has an uneasy footing on the rocks, and the pools of water make him wonder about marine biology. Removing his footwear, he catches a little crab and indulges in a moment of sentimentality. Charles is a fan of Charles Darwin, even if he does not fully understand all of Darwin’s ideas. He thinks about Carl Linnaeus, the naturalist who sought to classify every species and was driven insane by the constantly changing world. Though he rejects Linnaeus’s theories, Charles appreciates the comforting idea of the world having a natural order. Charles believes himself to be one of the fittest in a Darwinian sense though he struggles to fathom the nature of extinction and evolutionary replacement. He finds a fossil in a rock and plans to gift it to Ernestina. When he thinks about heading back, he realizes that the tide has come in. He chides himself and walks quickly up the cliff path.

Sarah reflects on how she came to work for Mrs. Poulteney. She was offered her old role in the Talbot house but took advice from Mrs. Talbot, whom she considers a fool, to work somewhere else. Sarah is an intelligent woman with gift for understanding people. Her intelligence has been a burden in her life. When she studied at a seminary in Exeter, she was mistreated by her fellow students and spent most of her time reading. Now, she views everyone as though they are characters in novels. She believes that she is overeducated for her social class, caught in the space between working- and middle-class life. As such, she has struggled to find love. Sarah’s family is connected to Sir Francis Drake, and her father experienced a mental breakdown from striving to live the lifestyle of the aristocracy. When he was sent to the “asylum,” Sarah took the job with the Talbots. Sarah is a calming presence among the other servants and has a talent for ameliorating her employer. For the first time, Mrs. Poulteney has sought someone else’s advice on how to treat her servants. Mrs. Poulteney typically demands that her staff frequently attend church, where she delivers her own sermons and watches their meek reactions. When Sarah delivers such sermons, the staff seems genuinely invested. Mrs. Poulteney recognizes Sarah as a sincerely religious woman and has been moved to tears when Sarah reads the Bible to her. On Mrs. Poulteney’s birthday, Sarah impressed Mrs. Poulteney by embroidering a chair covering for her employer. Mrs. Poulteney also asks Sarah to hand out religious pamphlets to poor people. Sarah hates this part of her job, but her sincerity helps the leaflets’ recipients more than the leaflets’ contents. Mrs. Poulteney does not appreciate Sarah’s tendency to leave the house alone during Mrs. Poulteney’s daily naps. When Sarah is absent, Mrs. Poulteney is annoyed that any guests to her house cannot bear witness to her charitable employment. When Sarah is present, her melancholia can make guests feel sad. Most importantly, Mrs. Poulteney is irritated by Sarah’s longing for the French Lieutenant. Mrs. Poulteney relies on her bitter old housekeeper, Mrs. Fairley, to provide her reports of Sarah standing on the quay. Though Mrs. Fairley pretends to pity Sarah, she resents the young woman who has taken her place in the house and left her with “a little less influence” (62) in the house. When Mrs. Poulteney suggested that Sarah’s habit of standing on the quay meant that she was not repentant, Sarah offered to quit. They come to an arrangement where Sarah only walks along the seafront occasionally. In recent days, however, Mrs. Fairley has reported that Sarah has been frequently spotted on Ware Commons. This shocks Mrs. Poulteney.

Outside of Lyme Regis, people can get lost in the cliffs, fields, and forests in a wild, uninhabited area known as the Undercliff. Ware Commons is located to the east of this area and is like “an English Garden of Eden” (67). After leaving the beach, Charles walks across Ware Commons, noting its beauty. He thinks about art’s capacity to capture such beauty and speculates that the Renaissance was an era of artistic ambition that far exceeds his own era. Turning back toward the town, he spots a woman sleeping on a grassy ledge. Charles peers curiously at the woman, who reminds him of a lover from his past. He recognizes the sleeping figure as the French Lieutenant’s Woman. He is struck by her innocence and the serenity on her face. She wakes up and sees Charles trying to hide. As she leaps to her feet, he bows to her. After an awkward silence, Charles fumbles an apology and turns away. He walks along the path, wishing that he had asked for directions. He pauses, but the woman does not appear behind him.

Ernestina reads her diary entry from earlier in the day in which she notes that Charles is better traveled and more experienced than her. She is mainly concerned that he is far more sexually experienced than her and mistakes his calmness for an understanding of love and passion. The flowers he sent do not impress her.

Mary, the Tranters’ servant, flirted with Sam when the flowers were delivered. She is an attractive, lively young woman who was fired from Mrs. Poulteney’s house because she kissed a stable boy. She is happy in her current job. Mary envies Ernestina’s fashionable clothes and her relationship with Charles, considering him “too good for a pallid creature like Ernestina” (76). She takes pleasure in manufacturing interactions with him, especially when she knows Ernestina is watching. After the delivery, Ernestina quizzes Mary about Sam, who bought a small bouquet for Mary while delivering the larger bouquet for Ernestina. Ernestina warns Mary that Sam is a known womanizer. Ernestina is worried that she will need to be in charge of servants in the future. She turns again to her diary. Despite her concerns about her social status, she is from a wealthy family. Charles is not concerned. They met the previous November and discovered they had a similar sense of humor. Ernestina quickly realized that Charles could never love someone who was overtly interested in him and ignored him as a means of flirting. After some months, Charles approached Ernestina’s father to ask permission to marry. His stumbling proposal was accepted and they embraced, though their sexual repression stopped them from kissing until Charles held a spring of jasmine above them as though it were mistletoe. After sharing a “chastely asexual” (83) kiss, they announced the engagement to Ernestina’s family.

Charles walks by a farm and stops to ask for a glass of milk. His mention of Aunt Tranter pleases his host. He pays for the milk and, as he is about to leave, he spots Sarah on the path. Charles asks the farmer about her. The farmer refers to her as “the French Loot’n’nt’s Hoer” (86). Charles does not want to believe that Sarah could be a “whore” (86). He follows Sarah and catches her by surprise, noting the strange sadness in her face. He apologizes, but she insists she wants to walk alone. Before he remembers her history, Charles wonders whether she is meeting a lover in the woods. He returns to town and goes to Aunt Tranter’s house, where he tells Ernestina about his day. However, he leaves out his meeting with Sarah. He gifts Ernestina a bag of fossils and comes close to mentioning Sarah when she jokes about him meeting wood nymphs in the Undercliff. Ware Commons has a reputation as a place where couples go to meet in secret. Mrs. Poulteney is well aware of this reputation, hence her surprise at Mrs. Fairley’s report of seeing Sarah there. In the past, Mrs. Poulteney campaigned for the path to Ware Commons to be closed to the public.

Mrs. Poulteney waits for Sarah to return from Ware Commons. Sarah notices that her employer is angry, but she cannot understand what is so wrong about her going there. Mrs. Poulteney has never actually been to Ware Commons. She has only heard rumors about impropriety. Furthermore, she frequently takes laudanum (opium), like many Victorian middle class women. Laudanum fills her head with vivid dreams, creating a grossly exaggerated idea of Ware Commons in her mind. To smooth over the argument, Sarah agrees not to go to Ware Commons. That night, she stares at the sea and considers ending her life. She silently weeps, not noticing the light in the distance.