This essay is first and foremost an exploration of the melodramatic themes in John Fowles The French Lieutenant’s woman. By defining melodramatic plot events and analyzing the novels postmodern narrative as a melodramatic element in its own right, this study’s purpose is to explain what makes the reader react in a specific way – Or more specifically: feel alienated by the books narrator.

Throughout the study, I’ve analyzed specific melodramatic examples in The French Lieutenant’s Woman; Its multiple endings, the meta-fictional narrator and its characters and connected them to the melodramatic genre and sensibility in an attempt to define the reader’s emotions towards a seemingly unconventional narrative.