For high school educators, moving students beyond the „once upon a time” simplicity of a linear plot and into the complex machinery of narrative voice can feel like an uphill battle. How do we explain that a narrator can be a liar, a ghost, or even the author himself? To solve this pedagogical puzzle, there is perhaps no better candidate than the British postmodernist John Fowles.
Fowles does not merely use narrative voice; he interrogates it, dismantles it, and rebuilds it in front of the reader’s eyes. Using his work in the classroom transforms the study of literature from a passive act of reading a story into an active performance of decoding a trick.
Most students enter high school equating an omniscient narrator with an objective truth-teller—a God-like figure who knows all. Fowles famously shatters this confidence. In The French Lieutenant’s Woman, he adopts the persona of a Victorian narrator only to suddenly stop and admit: “I do not know. This story I am telling is all imagination.”
By introducing students to a narrator who confesses his own ignorance, we teach them critical literacy. They learn that the „voice” of a book is a constructed mask. In the novel, Fowles moves from narratorial omniscience to a shifting viewpoint where the author becomes a highly unreliable person. This forces students to ask the most important question in literary analysis: Why is the narrator telling me this, and can I trust them?
Fowles is a master of broken frames – narrative structures that overlap and contradict one another. A perfect example for the classroom is his novel Daniel Martin. Here, the protagonist oscillates between:
- First-person (“I”): Subjective, interiorized, and limited.
- Third-person (“He”): Objective, exteriorized, and seemingly omniscient.
This mirroring allows students to see the technical difference between experiencing a life and observing one. When Daniel looks into a literal mirror, the narrative shifts to the third person; he sees himself as an „other.” Using this text, teachers can provide a concrete visual for the abstract concept of narrative distance.
In The Magus, Fowles creates a labyrinth where the protagonist, Nicholas, is told stories he cannot believe. Here, the narrative voice functions as a series of Russian dolls – stories within stories. This helps students understand that the narrator is often a character who is just as trapped in the narrative as the reader is.
When Fowles himself enters his own fiction, as he does in The French Lieutenant’s Woman as a „massively bearded” man, he breaks the fourth wall. This provides an „eureka” moment for students, illustrating that the boundary between the author and the narrator is not a wall, but a permeable membrane.
Teaching Fowles allows us to frame the text as a performance given by a postmodern magician. It invites students to look behind the curtain. By analyzing his overlapping discourses, students stop seeing a novel as a static object and start seeing it as a dynamic conversation. Fowles doesn’t just tell a story, he teaches us how stories are told.
Bibliography
• Brînzeu, P. (1996). Corridors of Mirrors. Timișoara: Amarcord. (2nd edition: 2000, University Press of America).
• Foster, Th. C. (1994). Understanding John Fowles. University of South Carolina Press.
• Fowles, John (2002). Colecționarul. Traducere de Livia Szász. Iași: Editura Polirom.
• Fowles, John (2005). Magicianul. Traducere de Livia Szász. Iași: Editura Polirom.
• Fowles, John (2010). Iubita locotenentului francez. Traducere de Mioara Mesibișer. Iași: Editura Polirom.
• Fowles, John (2011). Daniel Martin. Traducere de Cornelia Bucur. Iași: Editura Polirom.