"For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil .
This particular epigraph instigates the subsequent chapter thirteen and is highly relative to its contents. The nexus between the epigraph and the chapter is the postmodern paradigm, particularly the tendency divergent from omniscience. The chapter continues to be read as a meta-fiction, whereby Fowles acknowledges his authorship of the book, but also denies composing the characters" personality traits.
The epigraph quoted from Tennyson connotes that what God intends is unknown. Fowles appropriates this quote and manipulates it to express that "The Author is Dead" and that his characters have absolute free will.
Chapter 13 commences "I do not know," and the narrator proceeds to discuss the difficulty of writing a story in which the characters behave independently and disobey his intentions. This game-playing that Fowles insinuates relates directly to the preceding epigraph, claiming that the God-like being (Fowles) does not know the actions of his characters, and neither does the responder. Charles, Fowles complains, did not return to Lyme as the narrator had intended but wilfully travelled to the Dairy to ask about Sarah. The narrator concedes that times have changed, and the traditional novel is no longer pertinent. He claims that novels seem more real if the characters do not behave like marionettes and narrators do not behave like God. The narrator therefore, promises to grant his characters the free will that they desire. Likewise, the narrator candidly admits to the artifice of the narration, and acknowledges his responders as intelligent and independent beings, deserving more than the manipulative illusions of reality evident in a traditional conservative novel. This alludes to the epigraph, both claiming that the intentions of the composer are unknown due to his fallibility in controlling his characters.
Within chapter 13, Fowles describes the mysterious Sarah as his protagonist, yet he refuses to, or claims that he cannot, explore her thoughts and motivations.
