作為"歷史編撰元小說"的代表性作品之一,約翰·福爾斯的《法國中尉的女人》一書無疑體現了后現代歷史想象所具有的實驗性與顛覆性等特征,但與此同時,《法國中尉的女人》一書及其歷史觀照又建立在對維多利亞時代風貌逼真而精確的重現之上。本文正是基于這種雙重性基礎之上,聚焦于小說男主人公查爾斯·史密森的自我進化歷程,分析福爾斯如何從當代視角對19世紀的進化主題進行重構,并將其置于存在主義語境中進行觀照,從而揭示福爾斯筆下自由、自我與進化的真諦。

Seen as a typical historiographical metafiction, which blurs the boundary between fiction and history, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, nevertheless, presents the Victorian past with a verisimilitude in details. This paper intends to focus on the self-evolution and spiritual pilgrimage of the protagonist Charles Smithson as a representative of the so-called Victorian gentleman, and explore how the novelist reconstructs the 19th-century evolutionary theme within a postmodern and existential context and reveals the true significance of self, freedom and evolution.