Discuss the differences and similarities in the ...



Discuss the similarities in the presentation of the main characters in Arcadia by Tom Stoppard and the French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles. What do these characters represent thematically in each text?

Arcadia is an ideological play by Tom Stoppard and the themes are introduced through the dialogues between the main characters. In particular, Thomasina, a child prodigy, and Septimus, her tutor, and also through parallels between characters in the past and present. The postmodern technique of parallel timelines is also evident throughout Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Though not overtly illustrating the analogous time periods as Stoppard does, Fowles uses Sarah Woodruff to emphasize the corresponding characteristics of the past and future. Both literary works deal with thematic issues of individual identity and the effects of contrasting forces such as Rationalism and Romanticism through the oppositional characters involved. In Arcadia, both Thomasina and Septimus represent the Enlightenment figures, and it is mainly through their dialogue that the ideologies about time and knowledge are introduced. In The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Charles and Sarah represent a conflict between both duty and the struggle for identity and reason versus emotion.

Thomasina Coverly, the female protagonist of Arcadia is fairly similar to the central character of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Sarah Woodruff. Both are intuitively intellectual; Thomasina is an inquisitive pursuer of knowledge, mainly scientific knowledge, and Sarah has the ability of intuitive judgement expressed through emotion. It is their knowledge and understanding that makes them free-willed and vital characters. As critics have suggested, both stand outside their society as they often seem wise beyond their time so there is sometimes a lack of understanding of Sarah and Thomasina by the readers and the other characters alike: Sarah being too enigmatic and a Thomasina too clever. Richard Brustein has said that Thomasina is a ‘precocious brat’ but I have more sympathy for her.

Thomasina’s initial intellectual astuteness and scorn for passionate relationships casts her as a rational personage. This is perfectly illustrated by her judgement on Cleopatra that “everything is turned to love with her… I never knew a heroine that makes such noodles of our sex.” She criticizes Cleopatra for being ruled by her sentiments, and in the process ridiculing the sex she represented when she “made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria… Aristotle’s own library brought to Egypt by the noodle’s ancestors? How can we sleep for grief?” Thomasina’s lament for the careless loss of knowledge as a result of reckless individual passion is forcefully expressed here and we see something of Stoppard’s concern regarding the dangers of the impulsive romantic mind and its effects on the rational collection of knowledge. However, Thomasina betrays her rationalist position when she displays great curiosity in the subject of human relationships with her questions about the meaning of “carnal embrace”. Also, when she asks about Mrs. Chater’s actions, “Does carnal embrace addle the brain?” she reveals a fear that her gradually awakening sexuality will be detrimental to her intellectual development. Maybe she is ‘precocious’ but very intriguing with it.

Septimus’ answer: “invariably” is ironic and humorous because despite his judicious evaluation on human relationship, particularly “carnal embrace”, even as a scientist, Septimus still chooses to participate in impulsive sexual relations with Mrs. Chater. Thematically, Stoppard appears to suggest that even the most rational pursuers of knowledge are subject to sexual curiosity and attraction. We are all subject to our most basic impulses and reason has little influence when it comes to sexual attraction.

This conflict between the Enlightenment’s rational behaviour and Romanticism’s celebration of impulse can be represented by the Sidley Park garden as it undergoes a transformation: from the “familiar pastoral refinement of an Englishman’s garden” of the Arcadian landscape to “an eruption of gloomy forest and towering crag, of ruins where there was never a house, of water dashing against rocks where there was neither spring nor a stone.” The garden becomes the central point of conflict for a number of characters in the play as it shows their feelings about it and thus, their ideological positions to the audience.

It is also the site of a historical dig by Hannah Jarvis in the present day scenes in the play. Hannah Jarvis is another rational character, arguably even more so than Thomasina as she rejects human contact; “I don’t like sentimentality” and “Chaps wanted to marry me, and I don’t know what’s a worse bargain. Available sex against not being allowed to fart in bed.” Here, the audience enjoys Stoppard’s witty brand of humour but there is more behind this than ‘an attempt to write a literary wit comedy’ (Brustein), behind many of his gags we also grasp his main thematic concerns that some of us are much less inclined towards sexual intercourse than we are towards the rational pursuit of knowledge.

The garden and the actions of the characters in the past and present link through parallel timelines, bringing in themes concerning the continuous cycle of time and the subsequent accumulation and loss of knowledge. Thomasina’s tutor, Septimus introduces these ideas during his conversations with Thomasina: “We shed as we pick up… what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.” Septimus metaphorically alludes to the concern raised by Thomasina about the loss of knowledge and he philosophically tries to reassure his tutee that knowledge will always emerge in a variety of ways and in a number of different historical periods. This idea is reinforced by Thomasina’s discovery of itineration in her attempt to discover a formula for nature which is lost during her death. Though Septimus introduced the theory showing the impossibility of gathering up all knowledge, he still spends the remainder of his life trying to recover and develop Thomasina’s formula. This knowledge is recovered in the future but not by Septimus but by his modern counterpart, Valentine. Once again Stoppard uses his characters to express key ideas about knowledge and its loss and reemergence across the centuries.

As stated before, The French Lieutenant’s Woman also draws parallels between the past and the present by placing Sarah, a very modern woman, in the Victorian age. Compared to the women of her time she is found to be unacceptable by the community of Lyme. Both Thomasina and Sarah, in their own ways, look forward to the future for answers; Thomasina pre-empts the Chaos Theory when trying to find a formula to predict the future, Sarah always gazing, either into the horizon for answers or by staring intently at the sea. Indeed, ‘Sarah embodies the qualities that Victorian society tended to repress –passion and imagination (Time Magazine 1969).However, neither Arcadia nor The French Lieutenant’s Woman finds the characters at the end with any definite answers. Septimus dies frustrated as an intellectual hermit and Charles Smithson - the main character in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, who fancies himself as a scientist, finishes his story on “The river of life, of mysterious laws and mysterious choice”; he never understands Sarah, even in the novel’s alternative ending, just as Septimus never comprehends Thomasina’s work. The quest for the understanding of self leads to Septimus turning away from society, as did Charles in his journey across America where he also came away with no absolute truth.

Septimus and Charles are both intellectuals within their time, both products of an inquiring age. Charles is shaped by the change brought on by scientific discoveries, in particular Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, and Septimus as an Enlightenment figure of the Classical period. They see the end of their eras; Septimus witnessing the beginning of mechanization and also the transition of the Classical into Romantic period as represented by the Sidley House Garden. Whilst Charles observes the dissolution of the hierarchal structure of his society: the bourgeoisie pushing up into the upper class and the progress of technology and trade that was to make many of the aristocracy redundant. It is Charles’ understanding of science that allows him to view himself as weak in the survival of his species and through Sarah he sees the truth about his identity.

Both Thomasina and Sarah affect and confound their counterparts; Septimus and Charles and it is through their relationships and dialogue that the major themes of each text are introduced and developed. These rational figures strive for knowledge and self-understanding, but the involvement of emotions complicates the matter, so absolute truths are impossible because human interactions are an essential part of human beings.

Bibliography

How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World – Francis Wheen

“The past will have its time again”: History in Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia and Arcadia – by Carmen Lara Rallo

Modern Theatre Guides: Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia – John Fleming

Arcadia – analysis in New Republic by Richard Brustein

Imminent Victorians – Time Magazine (1969)

darma/arcadia - Sparknotes, Arcadia.

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