The Collector by John Fowles [British Literature]

Triad / Granada 1976

Summary

The Collector tells the sad story of Frederick Clegg and Miranda Grey, whose fates are intertwined and bound by ill luck. Miranda was the object of Frederick’s mad obsession: he wanted to possess her, yet once she was in his grasp he failed to make her his own and he had no control over her. The disgust the girl felt for him kept the gap between them wide open. Miranda’s unfortunate life ended in Frederick’s house as his prisoner for life. He never fully comprehended that love is something that needs to nourished and nurtured in order for it to grow. In the three months he held the girl captive he ruined two lives: Miranda’s and his own. Miranda lost her senses for being his prisoner and Frederick’s madness was amplified by his failure to gain control over the girl. He never really understood why the girl’s desires clashed with his egocentric and narrow-minded wishes. Frederick, a collector of butterflies by hobby, never considered Miranda more than an object of collection, to be at his disposal whenever he liked and to be treated in whichever way he deemed necessary.

Miranda, before her sanity left her for good, saw through Frederick and denounced him. She depicted him as a mean-spirited idiot, a Caliban, who had to prove himself, despite the apparent awareness that he did not possess a single inch of compassion. This harsh condemnation shows how lowly Miranda though of Frederick.

Miranda’s tragic death in captivity and Frederick’s rekindled interest in another object of collection shows that his madness has full control over him and it will probably take several other living creatures to satisfy his lust for collecting.

Explanation of the title

The title refers to Frederick Clegg, a 25-year-old civil servant who likes to collect butterflies. When fate throws him a boon worth over ₤70,000, he materializes an obsession to have and to hold a living object of collection.

Characterization

Frederick (Ferdinand) Clegg is an eccentric young man, who, from his early youth, had lived with his Aunt Annie and her disabled daughter Mabel. Drilled into submission by his aunt, Frederick never learnt to be himself, fend for himself, always living in someone else’s shadow. When he wins a vast sum in the lottery, he may have found a way to escape his aunt’s bossy nature. She leaves for Australia at his expense, but then he is left to himself, a situation he has yet to conquer. He kidnaps the girl of his obsession, but does not exactly know what to do with her. His attempts to try to show her who is boss eventually cost the girl her life. Frederick is flat.

Miranda Grey, is a 20-year-old, beautiful, yet confused blond girl, studying at the Slade School of Art in London. She has not decided yet if she would like an affair with the 40-year-old George Paston, a fellow painter, whom she met through her frivolous aunt Caroline. Yet she is quite infatuated with the notion of a possible union. When Frederick kidnaps her, he ends her dreams and the loneliness he condemns her to causes her to lose all sense of reality. Her diary, kept until she became ill, is her only way to air her grief and other feelings and her link to reality. But soon her writings become incoherent, like the ramblings of a mad person, which she in fact had become.

Frederick goes through several stages with Miranda; from obsessive love, to mockery, to tyranny, trying to subdue her and teach her who was really boss. His final attitude towards her proves fatal as the girl cannot convince him enough that she is terribly ill. Frederick refused to believe her, thinking she was scheming for the umpteenth time, since she had tried that trick a number of time on her captor. Miranda is flat.

Themes

Confusion, Obsession and Hatred.

Miranda is in a constant state of confusion. She does not know what way to go with her life. She is young, yet undecided whether to give her love to her peer or to the 20-years older G.P. She is madly jealous of GP’s promiscuity, but she never really made her own intentions clear. Eventually, GP ends the half-hearted relationship.

Miranda’s confusion is also noticeable in her behavior towards Frederick. Although she hates him, a mood that grows stronger as her captivity is prolonged, she is confused about her own reaction towards him. A pacifist at heart, she despises violence, yet in order to escape it is the only means available to her to try to overpower Frederick. He tries to confuse her even more by pointing out that her pacifism and portrayed violence are way too contradictory.

Frederick was at first quite obsessed with Miranda. He wanted to have her first, just like he owned many dead species of butterflies. Miranda sees through his incapacity to harm her and she bosses him around to her advantage. She crosses the line of his tolerance when she offers to have sex with him, a suggestion that shames Frederick to the bone. From that day on he hates Miranda and mocks every attempt of hers to be nice. His harsh stance blinds him to the fact that she is not faking her illness near the end of her life. The consequences of the final battle, however fatal, only soften Frederick for a short time. When he reads her diary he is convinced that his next victim does not deserve the nice treatment Miranda had received.

Setting

The story is set mostly in Lewes, a town in England in the 1960s.