The Magus, by John Fowles, can be read as a modern re-telling of the traditional hero quest. The thesis attempts to explore all of the ways the novel compares to hero myths.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Middle East Technical University, 2003. / Keywords: Self-reflexivity, Self-reflection, Mirror, Dreams, Fantasies, Reference and Difference, Self- Other Dichotomy, "I"dentity Crisis, Overt/Covert, Metafiction, Creative Process, Form, Linguistic Medium.

This study of six novels by three post-World War II British novelists deals with the philosophical and pragmatic aspects of intimate relationship. Raymond Williams, in The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence, establishes that novelists were among the first to recognise the destruction of the old community by industrialism. Without an alternate conception of community, industrial capitalism imposes itself directly upon the individual, and thus sets harsh limits upon the relationships he or she can create. One result is the alienation that Karl Marx described as inherent in the marketplaceosociety underpinning Victorian culture; or, in another idiom, the possessive individualism perceived by C.B. MacPherson. The increasing commercialism of society—the propensity, as Adam Smith phrased it, to truck and barter—has encouraged possessiveness, and has debased and alienated the most intimate aspects of human existence, especially sex and love. Sex is a central expression of the essence of life, and hence sexual relationships are adversely affected when they are alienated from love and community. As in the commercial transaction, intimacy in these six novels is vulnerable to the manipulation and the exploitation of one person by another, because there is no willingness to become involved in a reciprocal relationship. This commentary on the novels of John Fowles, Doris Lessing, and David Storey suggests some tentative conclusions about intimacy in the latter part of the 20th century. The working class novels generally emphasise traditional relationships; and tell us that individuals who try to discard them (as with Clegg in The Collector, and Machin in This Sporting Life), will lose £or never win) those whom they love. The emphasis upon money alienates them from their basic community, and destroys their integrity. There is no intimacy divorced from the primary social relationship. Middle class protagonists move away from community as they become dominant in a marketplace society. Their success transforms- them into alienated and possessive individualists; and their belated attempt to restore a sense of intimacy is an effort—perhaps tragic—to become whole in a fragmented world. But the relationships occur in a vacuum. Either they fail, as in The Golden Notebook, or the individuals reject intimacy, and flee forward from community into a super-individualism as with Martha Quest in The Four-Gated City. These novels tell us nothing of a social movement that will give the individual a sense of purpose or meaning: hence the individuals remain isolated, and seem to lose substance. When Leonard Radcliffe, for example (Radcliffe), murders his community out of his need for an absolute, he precipitates his own death. Again, Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff in The French Lieutenant1s Woman lose their vitality and sexual commitment because Sarah is more concerned to preserve her individuality. These examples serve to show that temporary and partial relationships are lethal to the spirit. The loss of intimacy is the result, in the end, of the loss of the moral sense. The displacement of the religious impulse to wholeness (the "disappearance of God") leaves one with the hollow victories of possessive individualism in a fragmented society. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This critical introduction to the works of John Fowles focuses upon his three novels, with secondary attention to his poetry, essays, and The Aristos, his non-fiction book of personal philosophy. Giving some biographical detail, the first chapter treats the influence of other writers upon Fowles's work and discusses his thought--especially as it appears in The Aristos, the poems, and the essays. The second chapter is a study of The Magus, Fowles's first novel, although published second. The Aristos is especially important to an understanding of this consolidation of personal philosophy into a fictional structure; the two key influences upon The Magus are Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes and Jungian psychology. The third chapter deals with The Collector, revealing much of Fowles's feeling about the artist in society and the imbalance of social justice that spawns ignorance and cruelty. The fourth chapter examines his most successful novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman, unusual for its combination of thematic modernity with Victorian narrative style. The final chapter summarizes Fowles's leading place in contemporary fiction three months before publication of The Ebony Tower, his forthcoming collection including four short stories and one novella. Fowles's fiction has established him among the finest of today's artists in British fiction and one of the leading writers in the world. Both critical and general readers have accepted his three novels with enthusiasm, and his distinctive poetry and essays may someday further enhance his reputation.

Thesis (M.A.) -- University of New Brunswick, Dept. of English, 2003. / Typescript. Works cited: Leaves 119-123. Also available online through University of New Brunswick, UNB Electronic Theses & Dissertations.

Proefschrift--Natuurwetenschappen--Universitet Leiden. / Résumé en néerlandais. Notes bibliogr.

Th. Ph. D--English--Uppsala university, 1995.

This study analyzes the development of the major characters in Fowles's novel - Charles, Sarah, and Sam - in terms of the heroic quest motif. Using the basic pattern of the heroic quest, the monomyth, that Joseph Campbell sets forth in his The Hero with a Thousand Faces, I attempt to show that Fowles's novel may best be understood as the story of three separate heroic quests whose paths cross rather than as the story of a single hero or heroine. This reading seems to account best for all elements of the novel and to explain best the final positions of the characters in question as well as providing a rich appreciation of the novel's wealth of imagery.

Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1999. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2823. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as, preliminary leaves [2-3]. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-112).