Table of Contents
Frontpage Page 1
Table of contents Page 2
Date Page 3
Summary Page 4
Characters Page 5
Personal reflection Page 6
Exercises Page 7, 8 and 9


Date
The title of the book is The Collector. The author is John Fowles. The book was published in 1963 in London. The number of pages is 266. This book is a roman.


Summary
The Collector is a story about a man, his name is Ferdinand, and he has an obsession for a girl called Miranda. Ferdinand collects butterflies and the most beautiful butterfly is, in Ferdinand his opinion, the beautiful Miranda.
In the first part we look through the eyes of Ferdinand. Ferdinand does not know his father because his father died when he was only two years old. His mother left and that is why he was raised by his uncle and aunt. He also had a cousin. When he was fifteen years old his uncle died. His uncle was pretty rich because he had won a contest. With this money he sends his family on holiday in Australia.
Ferdinand fantasizes a lot about Miranda because he likes her so much. He is trying to find her. Ferdinand has also much money from the heritage. He bought a very big house far away from people. He comes up with the idea to build a cellar for Miranda to live in. He abducts Miranda and put here in the cellar.
Miranda is trapped in the cellar but Ferdinand has not an evil mind. He is willing to buy everything for Miranda and after a time they became sort of friends. Ferdinand is very shy, but he is not really strange. Miranda is a very intelligent girl and also artistic. Because Ferdinand is so in love with her, she can do a lot of things. She can leave the cellar but when she left, she is fettered. When the first part ends Miranda is very sick, and she is only getting sicker.
In the second part we also read about Miranda her friends. The most important friend is G.P. This is a forty year old man he has too much impact on Miranda her life. Miranda wants to be in the Few. This is a little group people, this people do not want to be the new people. G.P. is also very artistic, but he is also a Communist. He has very strange ideas about the development of the individual man. He thinks people who are not critical and artistic are inferior. Miranda thinks the same of Ferdinand. When the second parts ends it was for me very clear that G.P. and Miranda love each other. Miranda wants to tell it to G.P. immediately when she succeed escaping from the cellar. Miranda is also very sick but she refuses to die.
In the third part we see the world again through the eyes of Ferdinand. Miranda is still very sick and she is begging Ferdinand for a doctor. Ferdinand is scared for the world outside his house and for people walking on the streets. But he went to a doctor and came back with medicine. Miranda is in very bad condition and do not recognize Ferdinand and she died. In the end of part three Ferdinand is trying to find a way to get the body away and he is thinking of commit suicide.
In the fourth part Ferdinand wants to by some flowers to put them beside the body of Miranda. When he is back he finds the diary of Miranda. He starts to read in the diary and in the diary he read about the way Miranda looked to Ferdinand. He wound here in some screens in a coffin and buried here with her diary. Ferdinand was very disappointed about her dead. But when he was buying flowers he saw another beautiful girl. Her name was Marian. Her name also starts with an M.
He is thinking about locking here also in his cellar. Marian would fit in the clothes of Miranda so that is not a problem. But this is only an idea.


Characters
Frederick Clegg is 22 years old and he collects butterflies. He lost his parents at an early age. His dad died and his mother left him. His had been living by his uncle and aunt for a long time. He has trouble to communicate with people, I think that is one of the reasons why he is feeling lonely. He really loves Miranda. He is a person with the heart on the right place.
Miranda Grey is an art student, she is 20 years old. According to Frederick she I very beautiful. She is also a smart girl. She is very popular and has lots of friends. She loves to draw and create something on paper. She is also a bit arrogant.
Annie is Frederick his Aunt. She is not a very important character but sometimes Frederick is thinking of her, but he doesn’t like her at all.
Dick is Frederick his uncle. He was the only one who ‘worshipped’ his hobby.
Mabel is his cousin
G.P. is forty years old, he is an artist and Miranda sometimes is thinking of her.



Personal Reflection
The First part of the book was for me not really hard to read. I could understand the most difficult words in the book. And when I did not no a word I used the internet to search the word. But when we read the story from the eyes of Miranda it was for me more difficult. Maybe because she is smarter than Frederick. There are lots of details in the book that made it also easier to read. I would recommend the book to someone who loves to read about these stories. It was nice to read but I am not going to read it again, I think.


Exercise 1
Welke thema’s bevat het werk en op welke manier worden ze uitgewerkt.
This book has a lot of topics. I will explain a couple. The topics are freedom, captivity, the kidnapping, his communication, trying to escape and his hobby collecting.
The First topic is the kidnapping. This was, I think, for Miranda very though. I think it is really strange, first you are free to go, and suddenly you do no have that freedom anymore. When she is in the cellar she begged Fredrick a lot to get some freedom. She gets some freedom, but for me personally this is not freedom because she was fettered. She could not scream because she had a muzzle in her mouth. Frederick planned everything very good. Later in the story she gets more freedom because she can go in bath. I think the captivity was very difficult for Miranda because she is missing her friends in when she is in the cellar. And she is also missing G.P. It would be hard for everybody if you can go where you want to go and can talk against anyone.
Frederick is collecting some nice and beautiful butterflies. But the nicest ‘butterfly’ he has is Miranda. He made a lot of pictures of her, and he is collecting the pictures. I do not understand what you like in collecting butterflies but that is not a problem. He also made some pornographic pictures of Miranda, these were the last he made. Frederick is also a very shy boy; he can not communicate very well. That is why he is living apart from people. His head was sometimes blooming, for me this is a sign he is very shy.
Seven times Miranda tried to escape from the cellar, it did not succeed. The last one was a very special one because she tried to seduce him.


Exercise 2
Analyseer het verhaal in drie (of, als dat niet kan, in maximaal vijf) fasen, die de belangrijk-ste stappen in de opbouw weergeven. Verklaar waarom je deze keuzes hebt gemaakt.
In this book there are many important moments. The first important moment was the kidnap of Miranda. Of course this is the most important one, because the story is about the impact of a kidnapping. This is why I chose this moment as the first one. The second important moment has also much impact. This is when she tried to escape for the first time. For her this was a very important change and after this attempt to try to escape Frederick will be more alert I think, so it is more difficult to escape after this first attempt.
After this she tried to escape after she was in the bath, this is not a very important moment. The third very important moment is when she is faking appendicitis. This is also an attempt to escape, but this also failed. I think Frederick does not trust her after this. He gets a doctor for where but she does not need the doctor.
Also a very important moment is when Miranda tried to kill Frederick. This is for Frederick very difficult because he loves her so much. That is for everybody very difficult that a person who you love wants to kill you.
The last important moment is the moment Frederick see Miranda is dead. After he sees this he wants to commit suicide, he thinks this will be the solution for everything. These are the most important phases. These are some of the ‘milestones’ in the book in my opinion. After these moments the story changes a little bit. And that is why I chose these milestones for this exercise.


Exercise 3
Beschrijf de ontwikkeling (van het karakter) van de hoofdpersoon in het verhaal. Vergelijk het begin met het eind. Geef de ontwikkeling aan. Is de hoofdpersoon in de loop van het verhaal veranderd; is hij/zij gelukkiger geworden of juist niet.
I do not know exactly who the main character is because the story is about Frederick and Miranda. I will tell something about Miranda and her character. We get to know Miranda very well in the book. In the beginning Fredrick tells us a long story about his obsession. This is Miranda. On page 9 we can read her hair was very pale. And Miranda is so beautiful and she looks like a mermaid. But Miranda does not think about herself in that way. And in the second chapter we read the story through the eyes of Miranda. We read about here fear, her hate against Frederick and also she told us about her feelings and also that she feels helpless.
Miranda is realizing that this kidnap will be crucial for her life if she escape. In her diary she tells us that she is not happy that this happened but she would not want this not to have happened. Because is she escapes from the cellar she will be a completely other person, and she thinks she will also be a better person then before. And if this kidnapping did not happened she was not that good person that she wants to be. Maybe this is why she wants to escape, because she knows she is a good person when she is outside the cellar.
Miranda her mood also changed a lot of times. Sometimes she really hates Frederick because he kept her in the cellar but on the other day she wants to help him and communicate with him. She also does not understand Frederick why he kept her in the cellar like a butterfly, because a butterfly supposed to be free to go. And Miranda wants to be free.