Sarah Woodruff lives in the town of Lyme Regis as a disgraced woman, supposedly ill-used by a French sailor who returned to France and married another woman. Throughout the story Sarah is portrayed with ambiguity: is she a genuine ill-used woman, the product of the French Lieutenant's lust? Is she a sly, manipulative character who tries to get Charles to succumb to her, using her own self pity? Is she merely a victim to the notions of gender in upper middle class Victorian society?