Metafictional means literally, fiction about fiction. To a certain extent the term overlaps with metanarrative, because any work of fiction which contains a meatnarrative, will contain a metafictional element. It is generally used to indicate fiction which includes any self referential element. Even thematic patterning can also contribute to the formation of metaficaionl effect in any work. The term can well be compared with metalanguage; a language used to describe another language. If we applied the above mentioned definition of metafiction in John Fowel's The French Lieutenant Woman, the novel can be well compared with the qualities of metafiction. The novel highly includes the qualities of metafiction. It on the one hand talks about the functionality of fiction and on the other hand talks about the structuralism of its narrative structure with the same token. There are a lot of metafictional qualities in the novel from beginning to the end of its formulation. Sometimes the narrator says about what his postion in particuar situation and what actually he is going to do. The narrator himself is one of the fictional characters and he himself gives the information about the fictional quality to the reader which is one of the most important metafictionl qualities in the novel. The narrator no longer is narrator in some of the parts of the novel. The narrator himself says that he is narrator; he himself is author in the fiction. His technique of giving his own identity being inside the whole fiction is one of the most important aspects of the quality of metafiction. He also says that he is free to take his character wherever he goes and lies. The speaker says that he is the creator of his own character and he can control his character according to his own interest. It is also another metaficional quality of the novel.Not only there are so many metaficional qualities in the novel. As a writer John Fowels says that he has to stop his hero from moving closer to Sarah emotionally. It is an example of writer's commentation about his own novel. This sort of commentation by the writer about his own fiction being inside the fictional world is another srtiking elements discussed in this novel as metaficationl level. Another metafictional element is that John Fowel's hero Charles sometimes goes beyond the control of author. As the situation demands he moves on so author sometimes looses his control over his own hero. This sort of information has also been given by the author being inside the fictional world.One of the most striking techniques used in the novel is omniscience narrative in which the main narrator knows the detail about the position and situations of his/ her characters. This technique has highly served the aspects of metafictional quality in the novel.

    His use of perspective of literary omniscience becomes evident when he says in chapter 13. I am free to let my characters do whatever they like to do.I am free to let them go whatever they like to go. This statement of Fowles in chapter 13 shows that John Fowles is making caution use of literary omniscience unlike his contemporaries. Like his contemporaries Fowles makes an experimental use of more of impersonal narration. But he says no novelists, however experimental in his writing continues to stand in the perspective of an authorial detachment delimits the narrative vigour of the novelist. Hence the perspective of authorial detachment should be avoided for the time being because no novelist can make its use continuously. Having avoided the limitations of the modernist mode of impersonal narration, the novelist has to intrude into the narrative structure. Thus according to Fowles a novelist has to make a simultaneous use of an intrusive authorship and the literary omniscience. Since The French Lieutenant's Woman's is centered primarily round this major debate in the chapter 13, it is a brilliant example of a successful metafiction. He interrupts in to the narratives progression. He says that narrative progression can end in the line of happy ending to cater to the taste of Victorian readers if Charles Smithson marries Ernestine. But later on he rejects this line of narrative progression thinking it as a too naive ending. Then he makes Charles break his engagement with Ernestine. Having broken his engagement with Ernestine he moves towards Sarah. At this moment on the path of narrative progression Fowels intrudes in to the narrative structure and offers a set of endings. He proudly says his novel has two endings. One ending satisfies the longing of the Victorian readers. In this ending Sarhah accepts Charles as her husband. There is another ending, which is shocking to Victorian readers, but pleasing to postmodern readers. In the second ending Sarah does not accept him and leaves him in the world of eternal loveliness so that he could evolve and asserts his existential self more vigorously. The novel The French Lieutenant's Woman is framed with an open and because Fowles is tentatively indecisive in giving final conclusive ending.

    Influenced by this age and radical thoughts in circulation, John Fowles admitted finally that it is risky and ridiculous for a writer to live in the throne of omniscience. The concept regarding the death of author has become so relevant and practical that authorship has to reject the objective, omniscient point of view. Foucauldian and Barthian concept has enable to claim for further position. That is why John Fowles has provided multiple endings. He abstained from imposing a monolithic and single ending. By providing more than a single ending John Fowels has experimented with nature of ending. He wrote The French Lieutenant's Woman to discuss the traditional nature of ending in fiction. Therefore The French Lieutenant's Woman is a brilliant piece of metafiction. John Fowles sets The French Lieutenant Woman in Victorian time. He, surprisingly enough, employees a heroine Sarah Woodruff, who has a typical postmodern cast of mind. By employing a postmodern heroine Sarah in a novel set in Victorian time, John Fowles is actually producing a postmodern version of a Victorian novel. To produce an experimental version of a traditional novel is analogous to writing a metafiction. So The French Lieutenant's Woman is metafiction.So there are different elements of metafiction throughout the novel. The different narratives mode of fiction has presented the novel in the context of 20 th century mode of narration. The used technique of narration has kept the novel in the position of a brilliant example of metafiction. Fowel's mode of narration has presented the novel as the metafiction by interring the writer in to the world of fiction. After all Fowel's novel The French Lieutenant Woman is fiction about fiction, metafiction.