John_Fowles_the_Collector

John Robert Fowles ( 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist, much influenced by both Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. Fowles was named by the Times newspaper as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. In 1939, Fowles won a position at Bedford School, a two-hour train journey north of his home. His time at Bedford coincided with the Second World War. Fowles was a student at Bedford until 1944. He became Head Boy and was also an athletic standout: a member of the rugby-football third team After leaving Bedford School in 1944, Fowles enrolled in a Naval Short Course at Edinburgh University and was prepared to receive a commission in theRoyal Marines/ /It was also at Oxford that Fowles first considered life as a writer, particularly after reading existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Though Fowles did not identify as an existentialist, their writing, like Fowles's, was motivated from a feeling that the world was absurd The Magus was the first novel John Fowles wrote but his third to be published after The Collector (1963) and The Aristos (1964). He started writing it in the 1950s, under the original title of The Godgame. He based it partly on his experiences on the Greek island of Spetses, where he taught English for two years at the Anargyrios School.[3][4] He wrote and rewrote it for twelve years before its publication in 1966, and despite critical and commercial success, continued to rework it until publishing a final revision in 1977. Key ideas about the characters and their relationship ...and how Part One of the novel works to reveal them. From the successful capture of Miranda the story begins to reveal some very significant ideas about the characters and their relationship. In particular, pages 30-35 provide our first ever insight into both of the characters and how they interact with each other. The said pages occur immediately after Clegg kidnaps Miranda, and begins with Clegg lying in bed reminiscing over what had just happened and his feelings regarding it. “Eventually I went up and went to bed. She was my guest at last and that was all I cared about” (p. 30). Immediately Clegg begins to reveal his indifference to Miranda’s feelings; while he thinks of his success he fails to recognize the cost at which she remains his captive (eg. her life, freedom etc.). Also his use of the word “guest” reveals to us his inability to realise the severity of the situation; he cannot recognize the human rights he has violated or how morally wrong the whole ordeal really was. After this, he thinks about his plan and how it turned out, “I felt a bit unsure the van would be traced…and the only people I really worried about were those two woman who passed” (p. 30). As you can see, he continues to ignore the feelings of the distraught woman he kidnapped and attempts to make sure he has covered his own back. Before he falls asleep, he finally thinks about Miranda; not the state she must be in, but the feelings that would occur within him, and what he would do with her, if he was to go down and see her, “I lay there thinking of her below…I had dreams where I went down and comforted her; I was excited, perhaps I went a bit far in what I gave myself to dream…” (p. 30). This gives us an insight into the state of Clegg’s mentality. He consistently comes up with mere pretexts; wishful thinking that leads him to deceive himself regarding what he as a person can do. In this case, he says he wants to go down and comfort Miranda, however as we discover further in the novel he can’t even bring himself to touch Miranda affectionately, making this act almost impossible for him to do. The next morning Clegg goes down to the cell, opens the door and his first words to Miranda were “I hope you slept well.” (p. 31). Again, Clegg’s indifference to Miranda’s feelings are revealed here and also his inability to recognize the severity of the situation, evident from this quite cheerful remark. “Where is this, who are you, why have you brought me here' She said it very coldly, not at all violent”. As you can see, it would appear that Miranda handles herself extremely well in this situation; however this only introduces the idea of her hiding her true feelings and putting on a strong front, which is revealed in her diary entries in Chapter 2. After this, Miranda demands to leave and actually attempts to before being stopped by Clegg, “I thought for a minute she was going to attack me, but she must have seen it was silly. I was determined, she couldn’t have won…She gave me a fierce cold look, then she turned away” (p. 32). I believe this is where Clegg begins to realise his power in the situation, and he appears to like it (evident from the cockiness, “she must have seen it was silly…she couldn’t have won”). It is from this point a battle of questions ensues; with Miranda attempting to uncover the identity of Clegg and Clegg failing miserably to hide it effectively. However, it is only when the idea of Clegg’s power is challenged by Miranda that it begins to get interesting, “Suddenly she said, ‘Have you got a cigarette'’ I was all awkward, I got a packet out of my pocket and my lighter and went and passed them to her. I don’t know if I ought to light her cigarette, but it seemed silly” (p. 33). As you can see, it is now that the idea that Clegg isn’t the only one who holds power within the relationship surfaces; Miranda’s quick remark has lead her to realise that Clegg will do anything for her, as long as it doesn’t openly lead to her release. By introducing this idea so early in the story, the author has allowed the idea to develop in a way that Miranda can use it to her advantage later on (which of course she does in a number of escape attempts). The scene continues with more questions by Miranda and short, simplistic answers by Clegg which make it undoubtedly clear that he is lying. Soon enough, this surge of questions ceases and the scene ends with what I believe is a huge mistake on Clegg’s behalf, “Just before I shut the door she said, ‘You’ve forgotten your lighter.’” (p. 35). Such a small mistake could have had enormous consequences in such a situation, and the fact that Clegg let it happen produces the idea that he really isn’t the typical kidnapper, that he really can’t account for small mishaps and the fact that he has to socialise with another human being. It is also here that we could propose the idea that already he has become somewhat dependant on Miranda, or he has at least opened up such a possibility for this dependence to occur.  ------------------------------------------------- Fowles' own explanation of the purpose behind The Collector[edit] Fowles explained in his follow-up book The Aristos, that the main point behind the novel was to show what he felt to be the danger of class and intellectual divisions in a society where prosperity for the majority was becoming more widespread, particularly power (whether by wealth or position) getting into the hands of those intellectually unsuited to handle it. In The Aristos Fowles talks about how he got the idea for The Collector from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who saw mankind as divided into two groups. The first was a moral and intellectual elite known as the aristoi, or "the good", (not necessarily meaning those of noble birth) and the second was the hoi polloi, or "the many", who were viewed as an unthinking, conforming mass. Fowles was inspired by Heraclitus' ideas and, in The Aristos, he makes a point that the reader should try to understand that "the dividing line should run through each individual, not between individuals."[1] He also explicitly states "I tried to establish the virtual innocence of the many. Miranda, the girl he imprisoned, had very little more control than Clegg over what she was: she had well-to-do parents, a good educational opportunity, inherited aptitude and intelligence. That does not mean that she was perfect. Far from it – she was arrogant in her ideas, a prig, a liberal-humanist slob, like so many university students. Yet if she had not died she might have become something better, the kind of being humanity so desperately need."[1] Fowles goes on to explain that the purpose of the novel was not to say that a precious elite was threatened by the barbarian hordes. Rather, that people had to face up to an unnecessary brutal conflict based on envy and contempt, and accept that we will never be born equal until The Many can be educated out of a false sense of inferiority and The Few can understand that biological superiority is not a state of existence but rather a state of responsibility. He strongly opposes the view that the idea behind The Collector is a fascist one.[1] The stated purpose of The Economist newspaper is "to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress". I agree with that motto in principle; except I think it misguided to define victory in terms of "pressing forward" and "progress". But the fundamental opposition between intelligence and ignorance is clearly real. A similar theme is found in John Fowles' first novel, "The Collector". It is a painful book to read; not because it is bad, but because its subject matter is so raw and the delivery and message are so powerful. It is essentially the same struggle - ignorance against intelligence, with intelligence remaining undefeated in spirit, but crushed in reality by the relentless onslaught of ignorance. The character impersonating intelligence is a young woman; and it is through her that half of the book is told. She is innocent, idealistic; and yet that is no excuse to dismiss her opinions as some hippy fringe nonsense out of which one has to grow. She is the voice of the author (although that is of course a big oversimplification) and the voice of intelligence. She just happens to be a young female; but in fact she starts thinking what she is thinking because of her exposure to the ideas of an older artist, who is a male, with whom she has exchanges like this one:  He let me go up and made me sit on the divan and he put on some music and turned out the lights and the moon came through the window. It fell on my legs and lap through the skylight, a lovely slow silver moon. Sailing. And he sat down in the armchair on the other side of the room, in the shadows. It was the music. The Goldberg Variations. There was one towards the very end that was very slow, very simple, very sad, but so beautiful beyond words or drawing or anything but music, beautiful there in the moonlight. Moon-music, so silvery, so far, so noble. The two of us in that room. No past, no future. All intense deep that-time-only. A feeling that everything must end, the music, ourselves, the moon, everything. That if you can get to the heart of things you find sadness for ever and ever, everywhere, but a beautiful silver sadness, like a Christ face. Accepting the sadness. Knowing that to pretend that it was all gay was treachery. Treachery to everyone sad at that moment, everyone ever sad, treachery to such music, such truth.  When she is faced with ignorance - impersonated by a gray young male who is suddenly rich because he won a lottery - she realizes how incomprehensible the ignorant (the Calibans) are to the intelligent, and vice versa:  If he does think about the pictures, he accepts everything I say. If I said Michelangelo's David was a frying-pan he'd say - "I see." Such people. I must have stood next to them in the Tube, passed them in the street, of course I've overheard them and I know they existed. But never really believed they existed. So totally blind. It never seemed possible.   Why should we tolerate their beastly Calibanity' Why should every vital and creative and good person be martyred by the great universal stooge around' In this situation I'm a representative. A martyr. Imprisoned, unable to grow. At the mercy of this resentment, this hateful millstone envy of the Calibans of this world. Because they all hate us, they hate us for being different, for not being them, for their own not being like us. They persecute us, they crowd us out, they send us to Coventry, they sneer at us, they yawn at us, they blindfold themselves and stuff up their ears. They do anything to avoid having to take notice of us and respect us. They go crawling after the great ones among us when they're dead. They pay thousands and thousands for the Van Goghs and Modiglianis they'd have spat on at the time they were painted. Guffawed at. Made coarse jokes about. I hate them. I hate the uneducated and the ignorant. I hate the pompous and the phoney. I hate the jealous and the resentful. I hate the crabbed and the mean and the petty. I hate all ordinary dull people who aren't ashamed of being dull and little. I hate what G.P. calls the New People, the new class people with their cars and their money and their tellies and their stupid vulgarities and their stupid crawling imitations of the bourgeoisie. I love honesty and freedom and giving. I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying the dead at heart.  The most blood curdling part of The Collector is not the crushing of intelligence by ignorance. It is the thought that as much as we would like to see ourselves on the side of intelligence, there is a lot recognizable on the side of ignorance too. Worse than ignorance is only ignorance convinced of its intelligence and righteousness, a Caliban convinced he is a martyr. One must listen continuously to oneself to detect the double-dealings in our souls.  I listened for traffic, but there was none. I heard an owl. And an aeroplane. If only people knew what they flew over. We're all in aeroplanes.