The Collector
The Collector is a 1963 thriller novel by English author John Fowles, in his literary debut. Its plot follows a lonely, psychotic young man who kidnaps a female art student in London and holds her captive in the cellar of his rural farmhouse. Divided in two sections, the novel contains both the perspective of the captor, Frederick, as well as that of Miranda, the captive. The portion of the novel told from Miranda's perspective is presented in epistolary form.
Fowles wrote the novel between November 1960 and March 1962. It was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated feature film of the same name in 1965 starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar.
Plot
The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall and collects butterflies in his spare time. The first part of the novel tells the story from his point of view.Clegg is obsessed with Miranda Grey, a middle-class art student at the Slade School of Fine Art. He admires her from a distance but is unable to make any contact with her because he is socially underdeveloped. One day, he wins a large prize in the football pools. He quits his job and buys an isolated house in the countryside. He feels lonely, however, and wants to be with Miranda. Unable to make any normal contact, Clegg decides to add her to his "collection" of pretty, preserved objects, in the hope that if he keeps her captive long enough, she will grow to love him.
After careful preparations, he kidnaps Miranda by drugging her with chloroform and locks her up in the cellar of his house. He is convinced that Miranda will start to love him after some time. However, when she wakes up, she confronts him with his actions. Clegg is embarrassed and promises to let her go after a month. He promises to show her "every respect", pledging not to sexually molest her and to shower her with gifts and the comforts of home, on one condition: she can't leave the cellar.
The second part of the novel is narrated by Miranda in the form of fragments from a diary that she keeps during her captivity. Miranda reminisces over her previous life throughout this section of the novel; and many of her diary entries are written either to her sister or to a man named G.P., whom she respected and admired as an artist. Miranda reveals that G.P. ultimately fell in love with her and consequently severed all contact with her.
At first, Miranda thinks that Clegg has sexual motives for abducting her; but, as his true character begins to be revealed, she realises that this is not true. She begins to pity her captor, comparing him to Caliban in Shakespeare's play The Tempest because of his hopeless obsession with her. Clegg tells Miranda that his first name is Ferdinand.
Miranda tries to escape several times, but Clegg stops her. She also tries to seduce him to convince him to let her go. The only result is that he becomes confused and angry. As Clegg repeatedly refuses to release her, she begins to fantasize about killing him. After a failed attempt to do so, Miranda enters a period of self-loathing. She decides that to kill Clegg would lower her to his level. She refrains from any further attempts to do so. Before she can try to escape again, she becomes seriously ill and dies.
The third part of the novel is narrated by Clegg. At first, he wants to commit suicide after he finds Miranda dead; but, after he reads in her diary that she never loved him, he decides that he is not responsible for what happened to her and is better off without her. He buries her corpse in the garden. The book ends with his announcement that he plans to kidnap another girl.
Analysis and themes
Social class
Literary scholars have noted the theme of class in the British caste system as a prominent point of interest in the novel. Critic Hayden Carruth noted that Fowles is preoccupied with "reshuffling classes under British socialism", evoked in the differences in social background between the characters of the working-class Frederick, and Miranda, a member of the bourgeoisie.Some scholars have compared the power struggle between Frederick and Miranda as exemplifying the Hegelian "master–slave dialectic", and that both exert power over one another—both physically and psychologically—despite their differences in social background. Pamela Cooper writes in her book The Fictions of John Fowles: Power, Creativity, Femininity, that The Collector "dramatizes the clash between a socially entrenched, wealthy middle class and an underprivileged but upwardly mobile working or lower middle class." Additionally, Cooper views the novel as a Gothic-inspired work presenting this class struggle "with an insistence on the tedium of Miranda's ordeal."
Absurdism and irony
In the Journal of Modern Literature, scholar Syhamal Bagchee attests that the novel possesses an "ironic-absurdist view" and contains a significant number of events which are hinged purely on chance. He compares the world of the novel to the "tragically absurd worlds" of Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett's novels. "The world of The Collector, especially towards the end, is not our world; however, it is similar to the view of the world we have in our darkest hours."Bagchee notes the novel's greatest irony being that Miranda seals her own fate by continually being herself, and that through "each successive escape attempt she alienates and embitters Clegg the more." Despite this, Bagchee views The Collector as a "horrifying" and "ironic" love story:
Furthermore, Bagchee notes Miranda's evolution as a character only while in captivity as another paradox in the novel: "Her growing up is finally futile; she learns the true meaning of existentialist choice when, in fact, she has very limited actual choice. And she learns to understand herself and her life when, in effect, that life has come to a standstill." Cooper, who interprets the novel as a critique of "masculine sexual idealization", notes another paradox in the way the novel connects both photography and collecting as "twin obscenities in order to show the erotic worshipper, with his puritanical hatred of "the crude animal thing" and his belief in his "own higher aspirations", is himself prey to the desires he tries to reject."
Narrative technique
Bagchee notes that the divided narrative structure of the novel—which first presents the perspective of Frederick, followed by that of Miranda —has the characters mirroring each other in a manner that is "richly ironic and reveals of a sombre and frightening view of life's hazards." Bagchee notes that "the two narrations frequently agree not only about physical descriptions of incidents that take place, but often also in the way two very different characters react similarly to given situations or display similar attitudes."Scholar Katarina Držajić considers The Collector "one of the most prominent novels of the 20th century, may be
viewed from many interesting perspectives – as a psychological thriller, a Jungian
study, a modern or postmodern piece of literature. John Fowles is well established as a master of language, using a variety of tools to convey different
meanings and bring his characters closer to his reader."
Reception
of The New York Times wrote of the novel: "John Fowles is a very brave man. He has written a novel which depends for its effect on total acceptance by the reader. There is no room in it for the least hesitation, the smallest false note, for not only is it written in the first person singular, but its protagonist is a very special case indeed. Mr. Fowles's main skill is in his use of language. There is not a false note in his delineation of Fred." Hayden Carruth of the Press & Sun-Bulletin praised the novel as "brisk" and "professional," adding that Fowles "knows how to evoke the oblique horror of innocence as well as the direct horror of knowledge."Mary Andrews of The Guardian wrote that "Fowles invites us to defy his main character's excuses and read between the lines, and the facts paint a more chilling picture. Fred doesn't accidentally abduct Miranda, there's a sense that he's been leading up to this event his whole life," and deemed Frederick Clegg "one of literature's most evil characters."
Adaptations
The Collector has been adapted as a film and a dramatic play. The Collector also is referred to in various songs, television episodes, and books.The novel was adapted as a feature film by the same name in 1965. The screenplay was by Stanley Mann and John Kohn, and it was directed by William Wyler, who turned down The Sound of Music to direct it. It starred Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. The 1980 Tamil language film Moodu Pani, according to its director Balu Mahendra, is partly based on The Collector. The novel was also loosely adapted into a Filipino film as a Bilanggo sa Dilim in 1986.
David Parker's adaptation of the novel was performed at the St Martin's Theatre in London, with Marianne Faithfull starring as Miranda. It was poorly received by the critics. The novel was adapted, again with permission from Fowles Estate, by Tim Dalgleish and Caz Tricks for Bare Bones Theatre Company, Wolverton, Milton Keynes, in 1999.
Another adaption was written by Mark Healy and first performed at Derby Playhouse in October 1998. This adaption was performed at Gothenburg English Studio Theatre in Sweden in April 2007.