John Fowles’ extraordinarily well-written novel, “The Collector”, is an unusual story that deals with the relationship between a captor and literally, his prey. The fact that it is his first novel is beyond anyone’s comprehension.

1. First off, Frederick really is a collector, he collects butterflies, which is what we’re told if we read the summary of the book. So in a sense, the book’s title is appropriate as it is, without going into further analysis. But that’s probably not what the author had in mind. As they say, appearances are deceptive, and when you finish the book, that’s when you know what the title really means. He “collects” women too. It becomes clearer by every page, especially during the diary part.
ööö“I am one in row of specimens. It’s when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. öööI’m meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part öööof my beauty is being alive, but it’s the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-ööödead.”(p. 203).
Once I read that, I understood that it wasn’t about Frederick’s lack of empathy. He pretty much lacked every social skill there is. For some strange reason, he didn’t see Miranda as a woman. Well he did, he knew it was a woman, in sense, but it wasn’t a woman to him. He only gave her food, and all those other things that she wanted because she was human, which he knew, but at the same time he kept her there for himself, to look at, like a butterfly.
Like the quote says, she was meant to be pinned, always the same and always beautiful. That is exactly how he treats his butterflies, and you can see that he wants her to be one, as in, quiet, still and just beautiful because he becomes angry when she’s too loud, sad, noisy and such.
He would probably kill her right on the street where he kidnapped her if he knew he wasn’t just in love with or obsessed by her, but he thought he loved her like any normal man loves a woman and that’s why he kidnapped her.

When you reach the end of the book and read about the second woman that he notices (Marian), you will know why the book is called The Collector. In short: just as a collector uses a net to catch butterflies, Frederick uses chloroform to “catch” women: obviously, he thinks it is the same, in terms of “brutality”. Then he keeps Miranda as a very rare butterfly. She is just like the butterflies, pinned down in Frederick’s basement, thus insects and humans are, to him, fellow victims. When she portrays a butterfly in charades, Frederick is unable to guess what she means (p. 83) which shows his lack of imagination and his incapability to distinguish between women and butterflies.

2. It all depends on how you decide to look at it. He is cruel, that’s a fact. Does he know he is cruel? I think not. Well, actually, I think he knows, but the thing is, he sees Miranda as a butterfly, and I don’t think he cared about what the butterflies felt when he killed them, and I don’t even think that he consider butterflies to have feelings in the first place. So that’s one “excuse” for his behavior.





So in butterfly-sense, he is not cruel. In the human sense though, he is most cruel, which he doesn’t know. You could compare it with a wild animal carrying a dangerous disease - it would be killed as soon as it was found, but if it was a human, of course no one would kill him or her. Frederick on the other hand would, because he doesn’t “realize” that they’re humans. Also, he has never thought about doing anything sexual to Miranda, like rape for instance. He explains this by saying "It''''s some crude animal thing I was born without. (And I''''m glad I was, if more people were like me, in my opinion, the world would be better)” (p. 13). So, not only is he implying sex is an “animal thing”, he also states that the world would be better without it.
When the assignment paper said “Frederick’s cruelty” I immediately thought of the actual captivity of Miranda and not the act of captivating, which is cruel too of course. After kidnapping Miranda, Frederick says:
ööö"I can only say that evening I was very happy ... and it was more like I had done ööösomething very daring, like climbing Everest or doing something in enemy territory. öööMy feelings were very happy because my intentions were of the best. It was what she ööönever understood." (p. 31).
This is a very bizarre statement: Frederick has committed a crime, and instead of feeling guilt or in any way admitting his crime, he is very happy, thinking of himself as a hero. He seems to congratulate himself on his bravery. This testifies to his “bigotry”, and possibly even to blindness toward his own self. He also says (on the same page) “To sum up, that night was the best thing I ever did in my life…”. Clegg seems to have no moral conscience, no moral awareness. He repeatedly emphasizes his good intentions, which can be seen from the recurring statement that “Miranda is only his guest”, “’Why am I here?’ ‘I want you to be my guest.’ ‘Your guest!’” (p. 36) when in fact, he has no concept of the word “guest”.
Frederick also keeps claiming that he is in fact not mad, something very untrue of course, which can be seen on many pages, for example “Of course I am not mad…” (p. 10) or “You think I’m mad because of what I’ve done. I’m not mad.” (p. 52). He does however, in the end of the book, admit to his insanity;
ööö“… I was mad, everyone else could see it, only I couldn’t.” (p. 275).

3. Fowles alludes to a Shakespeare play called “The Tempest”.



The biggest “similarity” is that in both the book and the play, the woman is called Miranda. And while Frederick calls himself Ferdinand, Miranda refers to him as Caliban in her diary. Also, in The Tempest, Miranda does not choose her own husband, which is quite like in The Collector, where Miranda is kidnapped by “Ferdinand/Caliban” (and obviously, this is not a choice of hers). Caliban tries to rape Miranda, while Ferdinand is her future husband. Like the Study Guide says,
ööö“Both Caliban and Ferdinand profess an interest in untying Miranda’s “virgin knot.” öööFerdinand plans to marry her, while Caliban has attempted to rape her. The glorified, öööromantic, almost ethereal love of Ferdinand for Miranda starkly contrasts with öööCaliban’s desire to impregnate Miranda and people the island with Calibans.” ööö(http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/tempest/canalysis.html).
This explains why Frederick refers to himself as Ferdinand, his love for Miranda is something very “grand”, ethereal, while to Miranda, Frederick is a disgusting monster who doesn’t like anyone (except her) - he is a Caliban.
The last part of the quote which says “…and people the island with Calibans” could be what Fowles refers to when Frederick says “…if more people were like me, in my opinion, the world would be better.” In addition, The Collector is not about sex and impregnation, but the core “conflict” (of The Tempest) is still there.

Ferdinand is Frederick’s view on his actions and his thoughts, and Caliban, is Miranda’s point of view. What I’m trying to say is; Frederick thinks he is as loving and kind as Ferdinand and Miranda thinks he is a cruel, unpleasant monster, like Caliban. Essentially, Frederick is Caliban, but he fails to realize it. There are many similarities between Frederick and Caliban. They are both quite ugly, referred to as “not human” by the two Mirandas, and Miranda (in The Collector) often criticises his way of speech and his expressions, which is quite similar to what happens in The Tempest where Miranda taught Caliban to speak better and Prospero taught him how to “care” (which seemingly never happens in The Collector).
Frederick’s relationship with Miranda could be described as a “master-servant” or “powerful oppressor-weak rebellion” type relationship. The book is all about this one relationship. The Tempest is full of these kinds of relationships and they’re quite similar to the book. Almost every scene in the play portrays a relationship between someone that possesses power and someone else that is subject to that power, and explores cases where the master starts to oppress the “servant” or when the servant decides to rebel against its master. The Collector portrays both of these cases, all the time. In The Collector, Miranda is captured and brought to a house in the middle of nowhere, or rather, it feels like it, but it is just a few miles from London. After being in that basement for so long, she starts to forget how people really are as the only person she regularly sees is Frederick (“The only real person in my world is Caliban” (p. 140)). She only has memories of her family (and George Paston) left. In The Tempest, Miranda lives on an island, isolated from the world, but the island is still just outside the Italian coast. She has never seen any men except her father and Caliban, and her only memories are those of female servants taking care of her as a baby. Her perceptions of people other than her father and Caliban are somewhat “dimmed”. On page 245 there is a huge reference to The Tempest; Miranda is actually reading it, comparing her Caliban to that of the play. The Tempest and The Collector are only similar through certain characters, bits and pieces, because if you would try to compare their respective plots as a whole, you wouldn’t find many similarities.

4. What Frederick is referring to are the times (which were quite many I suppose) when Miranda didn’t obey him. He thinks that she has been too noisy and not “static” enough, as I cited above;
ööö “It’s when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me.



I’m meant to be dead, pinned, öööalways the same, always beautiful” (p. 203).
Frederick says that he made a mistake in choosing Miranda and that he shouldn’t aim as high in the future, so that he can “teach” his victims (not to speak and “flutter out of line”, I assume). Basically, Miranda and Frederick belong to different social classes, which makes it harder for her to like him, and vice versa. Maybe he believes that his new fixation (Marian, the shop assistant) would be able to sympathize more with him, since she is obviously of a much lower class than Miranda.
I wonder, though, what Frederick sees in Marian, he says Miranda is prettier (“She isn’t as pretty as Miranda, of course…” (p. 282)), so I assumed he only liked “pretty butterflies” but his statement shows that he’ll settle for almost any girl (?).

What Frederick means by “la-di-da ideas” is probably Miranda’s needs – all the books, artwork etc. that she wants him to buy. The “clever tricks” are presumably her numerous tries to escape, and her constant criticism of Frederick, his persona, and the house interior. I think that Frederick assumes that Marian has much lower standards and less education (“…she’s only an ordinary common shop-girl…” (p. 282)), so that she won’t need things that Frederick doesn’t “understand” like art, books and pretty furniture. And of course, less education means she isn’t as intelligent as Miranda and thus has a smaller chance of escaping and such.
Maybe he thinks that they’ll even get along or that Marian will develop a touch of Stockholm syndrome?

His hypothesis that Miranda is the cause of this disaster (Miranda’s death and her inability to sympathize with him etc.) is an unacceptable one. He attempts to justify himself, to belittle his crime, something most futile, maybe not to himself, but any other sane person would not forgive him.

5. While part one is Frederick''''s somewhat neutral description of the events, the second part is written from Miranda’s point of view which gives The Collector a double perspective.
The thing that is so special about double perspectives is that it gives the reader an opportunity to sympathize with a certain character and to choose what side in the “conflict” to take. Readers will see how perspectives influence narration since those Frederick and Miranda have are completely unlike. Their conflicting viewpoints are products of their different characteristics; Frederick is a psychopath, whereas Miranda has many things that Frederick is lacking: she’s talented, sensitive and intelligent. Thus the two have different values, norms and principles.
One week after being kidnapped, Miranda starts writing a diary. This sudden change of narrator and writing style is quite sudden for a reader, and it changes the frame of reference completely; now, it’s Miranda who’s speaking. This change of perspective is much more emotional, more focused on the surroundings and current situation, and less monotonous than what the first part is. The first part, where Frederick is the narrator, is somewhat “stiff”.
He is, most of the time, “analyzing” the current situation in a rather indifferent way.
Miranda is mostly telling us how she feels and what Frederick does to her, not to forget all the memories that she writes about.
While reading the first part, you don’t truly get to know all the feelings of Miranda, but when you read the second part, her feelings might come as a shock, as she writes about her depression, solitude, fear, hatred of God etc. Also Miranda’s account is a more reliable one, because naturally, you don’t really trust a psychopathic kidnapper.
I prefer the latter part, mainly because it is more familiar to me (the writing style and also the content is a bit more “humane”, normal, like a regular book), and it feels like it takes less time to read (not because I dislike reading, but I didn’t like this book, and so I wanted it to end as quickly as possible), probably because you already know what’s going to happen. Frederick’s narration felt too stiff, too boring, too monotonous and frankly, a bit too “strange”. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate strange, but this was a sick kind of strange.

6. For starters, when Miranda caught pneumonia, Frederick could’ve taken he....

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