How does John Fowles use particular landscapes and places to enhance and identify each character in
John Fowles introduces the novel by giving an detailed description of the ‘Cobb’ in Lyme Regis. ... In this setting, we begin to form our own opinion of her character; solitary by choice and independent yet melancholy at the same time. We begin to associate Sarah with places of the outdoors, for instance, on ‘Ware Common’ which becomes a regular meeting place for Charles and herself, and of course, as I have mentioned, on the ‘Cobb’, on which she waits for her lover, ‘The French Lieutenant’ to return. We instantly associate these ‘wild’ places with her character, the darkness on the ‘Cobb’ somehow, in my opinion, reflects the darkness in her soul, and the erratic behaviour of the sea and the biting wind signifying the sharpness and dominance in her personality. ... John Fowles tells us that the hotel was not cheap, and her ‘room’ was in fact two rooms, therefore we can be certain that Sarah is relatively comfortable, in fact, she is on a sort of holiday, the first in her lifetime. ... The Toby jug stands for her sense of humour and beauty, John Fowles says that she ‘fell for the smile’. Her nightgown seems to me a practical purpose, as Fowles does not spend any time on this purchase, but simply moves onto the dark – green shawl. ... Charles we also associate with many of the places we associate with Sarah, but for some different reasons. ... He does this, in partly, to escape the boredom of aristocratic life, but also, like Sarah, to be alone, away from having to socialise with Ernestina, and her ‘set’. ... Similarly, ‘Ware Commons’ is associated (by the occupants of Lyme) with the more undesirable members of the community, and for ‘immoral’ happenings, and I think this reminds us that when Charles and Sarah meet there, it is complete defiance of their world of which they live, and the respectability of Charles’s supposed character does not make a difference to his actions. ... John Fowles shows the city (London) in all its busy selfishness of Victorian property, such as in the way he describes Freeman’s emporium: ‘…the yellow tiered giant…with it’s crowded arrays of cottons, laces…seemed to stain the air around them…so intense…’ (Chapter 38, Page 284) The way he describes Lyme Regis is quite different however. ... Mary, for example, is described by Fowles as being the prettiest of the three main female characters in the book.