A Medley of Texts: John Fowles’ A Maggot

Abstract

Abstract: John Fowles has been one of the most eminent representatives of formal experimentation in the contemporary English novel. His novels deal with the core issues of human existence and also provide a critique of the methods of construction of fictional texts. The present paper analyses one of Fowles’ masterpieces A Maggot (1985), an ideological fantasy which marks the journey of five travellers to a remote upland in the northern part of Devon. The journey dates back to 1736 and the travellers are referred by means of epithets at the beginning and their names are revealed as the story proceeds. As the story unfolds, the reader feels entrapped by the text as the facts revealed by the characters are untrue. Their identity, names, mission and relationship to one another, are all shifting masks. The paper draws on the concept of intertextuality to underscore how Fowles weaves his narrative from a plethora of already existing texts thereby questioning the accepted notions of originality, authorship and stable meaning.