The Historical Development of an Existential Character in The French Lieutenant\u27s Woman and A Maggot

In so much else we have developed immeasurable from the eighteenth century; with their central plain question--what morality justifies the flagrant injustice and inequality of human society?--we have not progressed on inch. --John Fowles It takes John Fowles five novels, one book of philosophical essays, one book of poetry, many articles, twenty-two years, and all but two paragraphs of his most recent novel to reach such a succinctly decisive philosophical statement. Fowles\u27s view of human nature provides a unifying theme through all of his books, including his historical novels, A Maggot and The French Lieutenant\u27s Woman. Setting the novels in an historical context, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries respectively, allows Fowles to explore the way his philosophies relate to, and develop within, different historical settings from his own, each possessing unique social structures, for example their religious beliefs, social conventions, and scientific models. In his historical novels, Fowles shows how existential characters relate to the social structures created by the novel\u27s chronological placement