If you choose to submit a reading response for John Fowles's
The Collector, please do so in the comments section of this post. Remember: your response should be thoughtful, it should evidence a careful consideration of the text, and it should include at least one question for your instructor/your classmates about the text. Your response should be no less than 200 words and no more than 500 words, and at least relatively well-written (you will not be graded on grammar, but please remember that poor grammar/syntax reflects poorly on you/your ideas). If other students have posted before you, your response can be, in part, a response to their posts--feel free to take up other students questions or concerns and use this space as a forum for intelligent discussion. You may also post more than once, particularly if your initial post is short or ambiguous. Your grade for the reading response will be based on your collective input in the comments sections of this post.
I have finished reading the first section of The Collector and it is very interesting. As we had mentioned in class, the narrative in the first section is in first person, told from the perspective of Fred. In the very first paragraph we can see that mentally he is not quite all there and therefore his account of the situation may not in fact be that accurate. In class we began discussing narrative truth. Following the guidance of the big questions, I do not think that it is really possible to know what really happened between Miranda and Fred. The problem with narrative truths lies in the fact that there are things to be assumed, omitted, and even forgotten which can affect telling what really occurred. I have also begun reading the second section of The Collector, and it is written from Miranda's point of view in the context similar to that of a diary. This section is much more difficult to read because it is very sporadic and random. We are not Miranda so it is more difficult to understand what she was thinking when she wrote it and to comprehend her point of view. I think the story is written in this way so that we can draw our own conclusions about what actually occurred. As far as this novel is concerned, what makes a work be considered a "psychological thriller"?
ReplyDelete-Stacee Roberts
Ferdinand and Miranda are both very different characters. When I first read the first section the word “nonconformity” seemed to stand out. John Fowles describes and uniquely characterizes Ferdinand. Ferdinand grew up making his own decisions and created his own standard of correct behavior which didn’t mimic those in society. For example, his aunt didn’t force him to behave in a certain way and conform to society. “She [Aunt Annie] never forced me to go to chapel or such like….Aunt Annie let me smoke cigarettes after a lot of rows when I came out of the army, but she never liked it.” Also, Ferdinand seems to live in a fantasy. “I used to have daydreams about her [Miranda], I used to think of stories where I met her, did things she admired, married her and all that.” Ferdinand goes as far as trying to make his dreams become reality. “That was the first day I first gave myself the dream that came true. It began where she [Miranda] was being attacked by a man and I ran up and rescued her. Then somehow I was the ban that attacked her, only I didn’t hurt her.” Why couldn’t he have approached and introduced himself to Miranda which may have resulted in a true relationship that was based on reality and not fantasy?
ReplyDeleteHow does Miranda react to Ferdinand’s actions and nonconformity? She thinks he’s insane and is puzzled by his actions. She asks him, “Do you think you’ll make me love you by keeping me prisoner?” Miranda had conformed to society and had begun her own life. She was a student, lived in London, had her own home, and insists that she could never fall in love someone in his house. In addition, she is disgusted with his sense of style in his own house and describes his decorations and furniture as “muck.” She continually tries to convince him to let her go so they could get to know each other and begin a relationship in the most responsible, reputable way. I believe he did not want to agree and honor her request because he was insistent on controlling Miranda’s life, creating her own desires, and forcing his fantasies to become reality.
Taci Hodgins
Although there were many differences between the first and second sections, the one that seemed to stand out the most to me was the levels of sincerity. In both sections, I found the narrators to seem incredibly candid in their description of their thoughts and feelings. At the same time, there were parts that made them both seem incredibly insincere.
ReplyDeleteIn the first section, Ferdinand seems very honest in the way that he feels about Miranda. He also seems to be very truthful when he explains why he kidnapped her. I got the impression that he truly believed that she would love him if she would only get to know him. However, towards the end of his section and at the beginning of the third section, he was much less honest. He seemed to be trying so hard to defend his actions and Miranda's death but nothing he says seems at all sincere. He tries as hard as he can to appear as though he did nothing wrong.
In Miranda's section, I found that her overall personality seemed very fake. I felt like she was so entranced by G.P. that she was desperate to be as unique as he was. She came across as a very fake and uninteresting person. There were moments in her section that did seem very honest. When she wasn't making fun of Ferdinand but simply talking about him she seemed very truthful in her thoughts. These differences in the sections help to prove the point that narrators are often unreliable.
-Kelsey Stone
After reading the first section of the book, I became increasingly awestruck. I had hints that the main character was pretty disturbed, but not as bizzare, precise, and intracate as in fact.
ReplyDeleteEvery thought that Fred describes seems to be as common as one from a man with complete sanity. He had very specific ways he would complete tasks, and he completed these tasks with a calm, cool composure. For example, the way he describes the way he laces his pocket with a bag to contain the chlorophorm. I felt hurried with the way he describes his purchases for Miranda, slowly buying clothes and food as calmly as as a normal person would. That being said, it is not surprising to think that these thoughts are probably ones from a deranged person.
After Fred abducts her, he feels a sincere feeling with what the future will bring them. He is never unsure that she will not fall in love with him until she brings it up. When she brings up leaving early, or his incarceration, he ignores it within his thoughts. Again, this denial of reality reveals his insanity.
-Because of these detailed descriptions (from both parties) I began to put together (after a long session in a carrel at the library) a pretty good picture of the whole situation. Pretty intense thus far.
--Chris Lendrim
I enjoyed the in class discussion of subjectivity and objectivity as it pertains to The Collector. It’s interesting to see how Fred tries to be objective but ends up being subjective. This book seems a perfect example of how life is almost solely subjective. Fred attempts to make himself sound objective but he often comes across as deranged and less than reliable. In a real world context, I have often wondered about how reliable history books are. Call me crazy but one of the spoils of war is being able to write the history books. We often portray Nazi’s as villains, not that they don’t deserve it, but if we had lost World War II we would be portrayed as evil in history books.
ReplyDeleteMiranda’s entries into her journal were quite confusing sometimes. She would go from talking to Caliban to daydreaming and back to talking to Caliban all in a few paragraphs. I also didn’t like how some sections she wouldn’t even talk about her time in captivity but instead only focus on her relationship with GP. I can understand this a little because if I were in captivity I would think about the happy things not focus on being stuck inside. Overall though, I did not like the style of her section very much. I also don’t understand why this is called a psychological thriller. Any help?
-William Osborne
For my response to The Collector, I would like to focus on one idea that occurs in the first passage. It is something that I found interesting when I read through it the first time, but forgot to go back and analyze it later.
ReplyDeleteOn page 83, Ferdinand sees a ring that he likes and decides to buy it in order to propose to Miranda later in the story. He says that, “While I was buying the necklace I saw some rings and that gave me the plan I could ask her to marry me and if she said no then it would mean I had to keep her. It would be a way out. I knew she wouldn’t say yes.” Having to keep her refers to the idea that he wouldn’t have to let her go after 30 days according to their deal. What I would like to consider is how the story may have changed if Miranda had just said yes, when he “popped the question.”
Ferdi says that he would have a way out if she says no, but what if she says yes? How would he have reacted? Would he have believed it? Would he have slowly trusted her more to the point where she would be allowed in the house? Who would have married them? How many different ways could she have escaped once she reached this point?
I thought, throughout the story, that Miranda was quite a cunning and intelligent girl. However, I do not think that she was thinking fast enough on her feet when he asked the question, because she could have changed her fate if she had said yes, I believe. Had she said yes, and continued to act as though she was becoming more attracted to him, he would have developed more of a comfort zone with her and eventually left the door open for her to escape. Miranda decides, though, that the idea of marrying him is something so serious that she cannot lie about it. Yet later, she offers him her virginity in an attempt to serve basically the same purpose.
I think that she could have even said that, “Now is not the time, but ask me in a week.” This would lengthen her time there, but would have provided an extra week to be nice to Caliban and make him think that she truly had changed her feelings towards him.
Someone would have obviously had to come in to marry them, and she could escape. He would have let her live in the house, and she could escape. He would have relaxed all rules if he truly trusted her (and he truly thinks what he’s doing is ok so why wouldn’t he believe something as crazy as her loving him), and she could have escaped.
While this is such a small section of the text, I found it very interesting how she chose morals over cunning deception, and yet, later decides that morals can be thrown out the window in order to escape.
Do you think if she had said yes that things would have been different? Would she have been able to escape? Could she have changed her fate and lived by uttering one word?
For my response on The Collector I would like to address William and Stacee's question as to why this book may be considered a psychological thriller. Firstly, I want to provide some insight that I had during our class discussion when we were talking about our perception of Ferdinand and how it changed after we hear Miranda's section. Personally, I think the beauty of this novel, is that upon hearing Ferdinand's first section we have no perception of Miranda's character. Our natural being is try as hard we can to perceive Ferdinand as a "reliable" character. We want to believe his thoughts and take him and his desire for Miranda serious considering we have nothing else to base any kind of opinions on. Unfortunately, we don't understand the entirety of the situation until we do hear Miranda's journal entries.
ReplyDeleteIn my personal opinion, after hearing Miranda's entries, I didn't think she was all that reliable. Which left their whole relationship still lingering in my mind. There was at one point right after Miranda's journal and before we continued to read the rest of the story that I though Ferdinand was the sane one, and Miranda was insincere especially with her talk about GP.
I believe that the term psychological thriller refers to the uncertainty that we as a reader have before we have read the whole story or "both sides of the story" so to speak. I wasn't really sure what to think about their personalities because I felt I couldn't trust either character. And even after the story, I wondered that maybe if Miranda's entries had come prior to Ferdinand's section, maybe we would have thought different about both characters from the beginning.
I found it very interesting while looking through my notes that on the first day of our discussion we focussed on Miranda being a less reliable narrator than Ferdinand and how much she insults him while all he shows in his passage is a love and desire to have her. Our class discussion moved from this to solely talking about Ferdinand's insanity and how he kidnapped her. I noticed a drastic change in our opinions of these characters and interpretation of the whole story. This may be the explanation as to why reading the last portion of the novel was "psychologically thrilling" and leaving us in shock; the fact that we didn't expect to hear such things from Ferdinand and see how nuts he really was.
--Zach Greenberger
While reading the Collector, I found myself feeling sorry for Ferdinand. The way he explained his love for Miranda was more than just a stalker. He was obsessed with her in a way that made it seem that what he was doing was okay. He never wanted anything sexual from her, he just wanted to watch her like he does with his butterflies. Because Ferdinand was mentally deranged, I found myself thinking that it was not his fault for being the way he was. In a way I found myself thinking of him as being a innocent child. Children get attached to things very easily and when they do, it is hard for them to give these things up. For example, a blanket. A child is given a blanket at a young age and when it is time for them to give it up, they feel as if they have lost a part of them. This is how I felt Ferdinand was with Miranda, once he got her, he could not physically let her go, because he was then letting a part of himself go. . I also found myself hoping that Miranda would eventually help him and allow him to realize that what he was doing was wrong. I thought that Miranda would eventually convince Ferdinand to release he, but still keep a form of contact between each other. However, this was not true.
ReplyDeleteA second thing a felt while reading The Collector was that I became very annoyed with Mirada's obsession with GP. It seemed as if Miranda had just as much of an obsession with GP as Ferdinand had with Miranda. Miranda would always show up at GP's house whenever she wanted to see him. She would obsess about the way GP acted, talked, and the things he did. The only thing she would not do with GP was have sex with him. This was the same with Ferdinand. He would obsess with everything that Miranda did, but never crossed the line by trying to take advantage of her sexually.
My question being: Does anyone find Miranda's obsession with GP just as crazy/creepy as Ferdinand's obsession with Miranda?
The component of The Collector that I found the most interesting was the difference in how Miranda and Ferdinand saw the world. Even though we see Miranda’s point of view from her written diary and Ferdinand’s view from what he tells the reader, the difference in striking.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading the novel, I felt that Ferdinand saw the world at a sort of surface level. He sees things at either their use value or at what other people would consider beautiful. We see this in his love for Miranda as he loves her before he even knows her and basically just loves her because she is beautiful. I also noticed this surface level view in his description of the door. While he builds the door he tells the audience more about how it will keep the sound from coming through and his “clever” way of making it look like a bookshelf. Even his butterflies he only loves on the surface. He keeps them hidden away from everyone else and the only reason he loves them is because he himself owns them. As Miranda points out, his favorite and most prized ones are the ones with “aberrations.” Thus, he only loves the ones that are particularly unique and he is the one who owns them. Miranda further proves that Ferdinand only thinks on the surface level and is no deeper than that. She says he always “says exactly what he thinks” (151).
From Miranda’s point of view, I felt that I seeing the world as a work of art. In contrast to Ferdinand’s description of the door, Miranda calls it “the great blank door” (125). To her this door symbolizes her colorless and bleak life that she is living down in the basement as Ferdinand’s prisoner. Another example out of many where Miranda uses art to describe life is when she is describing Ferdinand. She is comparing herself to him and says he is “so slow, so unimaginative, so lifeless. Like zinc white” (134). As an art student, Miranda has learned how to see the world as if it is a canvas on which you paint your experiences. As Miranda is kept a prisoner, she is unable to color her life and is stuck with the dull Ferdinand.
I feel that John Fowles was trying to draw an even deeper theme from his use of art in this story. Does anyone else think so? And what do you think he was trying to say?
--Kelcey Flegel
I agree with William Osborne’s post that Fred tries to make himself sound objective but it really comes across as him being super crazy. When reading the first section of the book we see everything through Fred’s eyes. His story is the only thing that we have to go on, so in my opinion I felt at this point he was reliable. When I got to the second section and saw that we would now get to see things from Miranda’s point of you things changed. After reading both versions I felt that neither Fred nor Miranda were very reliable.
ReplyDeleteMiranda even says in her version that she is not always telling the truth but sometimes writing things as she wished they had happened. I think that it is hard to really know exactly what happened. In a way this makes Miranda a little more credible than Fred because she admits that she is not being objective but being subjective. Miranda’s version is hard to consider reliable because she is passionate for her hate for Fred. Fred is similar to Miranda in this aspect because he is so passionate about his love for her. There passion blurs the truth. Miranda is also writing her diary from memory and not in the present so logically her version can be considered inaccurate and unreliable.
As the story goes Miranda figures out what makes Fred ticks and desperately wants to know the point of her kidnapping. She longs to know the reason why he has done this, because he does not want her for sexual reasons and she is confused. She is so confused she goes back and forth between thinking he hates her and he loves her.
I think that the author told the story is this way so the we can see how both characters felt and assessed the situation.
-Megan Switzer
The Collector complicates narrative truth in many ways throughout the text. John Fowles chooses to unreliable narrators in order to complicate narrative truth. The first unreliable narrator is Clegg. I felt he was very unreliable from the start. First of all, he is just plain crazy. Anyone who kidnaps someone has something wrong with them and that fact alone discredits him. I believe someone that crazy cannot possibly tell the truth. Also, Clegg always tries to rationalize things, which makes me believe he is trying to make the situation milder and not telling the full truth. For example, in the dream he has on page 14, he rationalizes that the reason he is kidnapping her is because he wants to protect her from becoming worn. This is not very rational and just crazy, which makes Clegg seem untruthful. On page 35, he even tries to act like he is the one hurt and sad for Miranda being mean, even though he is the one who kidnapped her and is not really in pain. This clearly is him trying to make the situation milder and defend himself, which takes away from his credibility.
ReplyDeleteMiranda however is also not reliable. She tells her story in diary form, which first takes away from her credibility. She can’t possible remember everything that has happened so you never get the full truth. Also, she does not even write about the kidnapping the whole time. She writes about other things so the audience clearly does not know what is actually happening in that point in time because she is writing about something else. There was also an instance in the book on page 158, where she says words are cruel and primitive. She means that she can’t possibly explain her situation in words and that the audience will never know how she truly feels and how the situation really is. At one point she even says she is cheating (141) and that she didn’t say all of the things she wrote down. She was not telling the truth about a situation and that discredits her and makes her an unreliable narrator.
The two unreliable narrators make narrative truth complicated because the audience never truly knows what is going on. However, there are two perspectives so you know the basic situation.
Lucas Garber
John Osinski
ReplyDeleteThe Collector is a book that perfectly ties in our discussions about Narrative Truth because it shows that there can be a number of different ways that an author, such as John Fowles, can create any number of different perceptions on focus of the story and characters that surround it. Specifically his confusion throughout the story with Ferdinand and how the audience perceives him as Fowles’ gives counteracting clues about his character.
There are a number of different occasions in the story where Fowles creates a sense of Sympathy for Ferdinand which allows the audience to believe that Ferdinand is good at heart. I think that this ties in well with other post stating that the book is a psychological thriller. Similar to very famous serial killers, they are able to convince their victims that they can be trusted, but it becomes lethal in that they can fake this honest persona more effectively than when people genuinely are good at heart. This is their ultimate tool in committing their crimes which Fowles also takes part in. They are able to attack and trick the mind in believing them when in reality they have no sense of credibility.
An example of this is shown on page 203 when it explains that he sees Miranda as something to be collected not to be harmed. He is physically attracted to her and therefore convinces himself he loves her even though he has no perception of love. The audience is made to feel bad for him in that he has no connections with his emotions and is separated from feeling almost anything good or bad. Ferdinand is described as being “dead inside” which creates a feeling that the audience is searching for who he really is besides a kidnapper.
When Ferdinand’s true colors are shown when his plans of killing her all along were revealed it shows that the Author is capable of creating any number of different perceptions that stray away from reality or truth.
The Collector complicates our understanding of narrative truth by showing that there are different perspectives and different opinions to every story. John Fowles leaves the reader to distinguish which character's narrative is correct, yet he also leaves the option that both characters perspective's do not tell the truth and it is up to the reader to piece together and find the evidence that is truthful. Both Miranda and Clegg show their own examples of human flaw and they both describe the same events quite differently.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Clegg suggests that Miranda looks down at him because he is of a lower class, he feels that the upper class does not see life as it should be seen. Miranda writes in her diary that Clegg is not an artist so he sees life with a very narrow mind. So Clegg feels that it is their class that separates them where Miranda feels that it is their hobbies that separate the two. Also,Clegg feels that he is expressing his love to her by keeping her with him and providing food and shelter for her. Miranda feels that Clegg is sick an he sees her as another object "to collect". Lastly, Clegg feels that it was not his fault Miranda died despite the fact that Miranda got sick from his cold and he refused to get her a doctor.
It is easy to feel sorry for Clegg throughout the story for he wants the reader to feel that he is just hopelessly in love. Yet at the conclusion when he decides to do this again to a different girl it's easy to take Miranda's side seeing that she is the victim. However, with the way that Miranda writes about Clegg and her obsessive love with the shady character of G.P., it is tough for the reader to decide if any of the characters are actually normal. Which one of these narratives is actually truthful?
Mark Doran
Clegg and Miranda are both unreliable narrators by themselves but together their stories help create some version of the truth that the reader has to discover and sift for themselves. So no one narrator is actually truthful or can be trusted as a truthful person. Much like police detectives who separate their suspects during questioning so should the reader when trying to sift through Clegg and Mirandas version of what happened and why it happened.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Fowles, this book was about 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." Fowles had a very literal reason to write this book and, if he was telling the truth, he did not write this book to explore narrative truth. Yet, we have spent whole class periods discussing and exploring this very topic and it seemed like that was the sole reason Fowles wrote "The Collector." Instead, we find out there was a whole other reason he wrote the book which makes us question the validity of the author. So, do you think Fowles only wrote this book as a social critique or do you think it was for a reason deeper than that?
The Collector was probably one of the most twisted books that I have read. It is not that I didn’t enjoy it, but I felt myself feeling very angry towards Ferdinand. I somewhat agree with what Jen Scott said previously; I almost felt sorry for him at first. His mind did not work the same as a normal person, and I found myself justifying his actions saying “Oh he isn’t mentally aware of what he is doing…” However, as the book went on and he started to become angry and frustrated with her actions, claiming that she was just the “same as all other girls”, I found myself questioning his true intentions. [At this point I was wishing he would let her go if she wasn’t exactly what he wanted]. By his habitual actions and comments, it became evident that he wasn’t in love with her, but he was in love with the “idea” of her; being able to look at her and have her at his disposal any time he wanted. An issue that came up in class that I would like to comment on is the questioning of Miranda’s truth to her narrative. After reading the entire novel I found myself caring less about how truthful her narrative was, and caring more about the fact that he took her life with no remorse. Who cares if her narrative is all the way true? This man took her captive in vain, and she ended up paying with her life. This brings me to my last question: Was he ever capable of love if he could so easily let Miranda die, which he claimed so passionately to love? Then move on to another girl that “looked like her”, just for that girl (more than likely) to succumb to the same fate? I did enjoy reading the novel, however it was a little too “psychologically thrilling” for me!
ReplyDeleteIn the Collector, I thought that the comparison to him collecting Butterflies was a perfect way to show what he was doing was absolutely insane. I think that when Clegg is showing Miranda his collection of butterflies and she says that she thinks it is very cruel that he killed the butterflies and kept them as a thing to look at. When first reading this it does not mean much, but after reading the rest of the book it is sort a foreshadowing of sorts. At first Clegg just wanted to capture Miranda and have her appreciate his love for her, but as the story went on and she wouldn't it became more of an obsession for him. He started to become more sick and twisted, just as you could imagine a butterfly collector tormenting the butterfly in the their hands before they take the steps to preserve them. In the end he ultimately ended up killing something he never intended to, and he truly became a collector as the book ends and he is talking about a another girl.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that one could not help notice is the complete conflict of truth through out the story. At different points in the story you trust both of them, and at others the lost complete credibility. Halfway through the book, when the story changes perspectives it makes the book much more interesting but both of their stories become non credible because of the other's story. First, Clegg tells his version and at the beginning it honestly seems like he is genuinely in love with Miranda. Then he becomes crazier and starts to toy with the idea of kidnapping her, and right there is where a lot of his credibility went out the window because anyone that is that mentally unstable can not be trusted. Although through out both of the versions there are points where we start to feel bad for Ferdinand, in the end he kidnapped a girl and then kept her in a dungeon for his personal interest.
Next came Miranda's version, and after hearing Clegg's you would automatically assume that hers would be the complete truth. However, during her story there are points where she seems mentally unstable and his obviously falling under Ferdinand's control even though she claims that she is controlling him. Also the parts where she is talking about the love of her life, GP, she seems to sound a little bit stalker like also. Even though she never talked about kidnapping or hurting him, it became very obvious that she was obsessed with him. The fact that he was so much older made me lose some credibility for her because not only was GP a very radical man, but he would sleep with women openly and discuss them with Miranda and she would still love him.
I was left wondering after the book was over who's story was ultimately the true one, but I also got the feeling that there would never be a complete true account of this story. I think that John Fowles did an unbelievable job of complicating the reader's understanding of truth.
I don't believe I would consider this a psychological thriller but more of kidnapping 101. The author gives you the inside look of what is going on in the minds of both the kidnapper and the victim. The two stories differ throughout which make you wonder who is telling the truth. There is potentially no truth in what the individual is saying. The reader may need to look at the two individual stories and combine them to get the truth.
ReplyDeleteWho is more believable as a narrator? I'm not sure one is more believale over the other. A psychotic man who reasons why he kidnaps Miranda or a girl who is obssessed with GP and will never get out of Ferdinand's control and will write bad things about him because of her being kidnapped. So the one things this novel does is make you wonder who to trust. I conclude that you can't trust anyone in the novel.
Weird texts, the essence of the idea, complete tragedy, eternal hope. . . . . . A good novel is really up to such a rich, complex and wise connotation; classic novels, of course, is fictional, but incredible to feel the true and sufficient to trigger recognition of people's endless, reflection, thought. . . . . .
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt that the book's two protagonists: Ferdinand and Miranda are extreme and the typical. The love-hate mediocrity and elegant encounters are so unforgettable, but the end result mercilessly reveals cold intolerance and fragile beauty. Not only time and circumstances that can cause such a startling eye-catching, shocking tragedy, but also a person’s background and growth environment can cause such a tragedy. A person lost the feelings, thoughts and how will the terrible thing ah, but I do not believe that a person, no matter what kind of person, regardless of whether exposure to What kind of situation will lose ability to perceive the possibility of life: Is it to deny that Ferdinand did not have his own view that the possible good feeling? I think Ferdinand really love Miranda, for sure. However, his way is totally wrong or we can say it is abnormal.
Ferdinand looks like totally insane, and I feel sorry for him. This book is a good one to show narrative truth, different people have different views about the narrative truth. However, at least we know that Ferdinand has an abnormal mental, but we are lucky. We have a healthy and normal body and mind, how blessed ah, you can enjoy views to appreciate and enjoy the best gift of nature. Do you think Fowles is also telling readers that we should appreciate the God for giving us normal body and mind? I want to think so.
Yinyin Shi
I want to say something for Ferdinand. I don’t totally agree with McClintock’s opinion about Ferdinand. McClintock said that “Was he ever capable of love if he could so easily let Miranda die, which he claimed so passionately to love?” Let’s see Ferdinand’s past. His father and mother did not get along with each other. His father got drunk and died in a car accident; his mother dropped him and left with a foreigner. Ferdinand grew up with the uncle; he had a good time with his uncle. His uncle’s understanding and support make him feel warm. Unfortunately, his uncle died when he was 15. Left him with his aunt who is whining, never seen the world and lame cousin. He doesn’t have any emotion with his aunt and sister. Even for his own mother, he said, "If she is still alive, I do not want to see her." How can you imagine that he knows how to love a girl? Living in the family which lacks of warmth and understanding, Ferdinand treats almost all the relations and the family indifferently. Not had a loved one, often does not know how to love other people, which the relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda are a vivid manifestation of it. We should not think Ferdinand like we think other normal people. He is very different, and we all know that. Clegg treats Miranda cruelly, which normally means anger or hatred. However, we should not just understand Clegg only by his wrong actions.
ReplyDeleteI personally want to understand Ferdinand and trust that Ferdinand really loves Miranda. Is here anybody has the same opinion as me? Do you think that is Ferdinand’s growth environment causes his wrong expression of love??
Yinyin Shi
The Collector was a really creepy book. It was interesting having it told in the perspectives of Clegg and Miranda. I thought that Clegg was really sickening and that, although often villains are shown to have some goodness in them, that Clegg had none. Just the idea he “collects” butterflies meant to me that he needs to own beautiful things in order to feel less ugly himself. The fact that he thinks he should “own” Miranda is just disgusting. I think that, although he does not molest Miranda, he is still twisted because he does not do it so that he won’t devalue any of his possessions. He is materialistic in an odd way. Once he becomes rich and is able to “own” more things, he feels like he is above common people. I think that Fowles was trying to show with Fred’s “collecting” that people often believe they are better than others when they own more things, and that we think we are as good as the things we own. I thought that at the end when he sees another young girl that he could capture that he really proved that he never thought of Miranda as a person.
ReplyDeleteI thought the part told by Miranda was pretty repetitive but candid and realistic at the same time. She often fantasizes about G.P, which is somewhat aggravating to keep reading, is still believable. I also think that she was a symbol for what a caged butterfly would feel like, being given just enough food and water and being too helpless to escape but not having the capturer care if she was happy or not. I was really hoping that someone would have found her and Clegg would have been punished severely.
I think that this book was pretty interesting but what do you think was the message that Fowles was actually trying to get across to the reader?
Martha Gillespie
John Fowles the Collector is starts off like it belongs in “Kidnapping for Dummies”, dummy books franchise. Clegg’s story line makes it difficult for the reader as he is the foundation of truth for the novel. It becomes even more difficult as you begin to pity Clegg for his obvious infatuation he has with Miranda and begin to wonder is the “kidnapping” situation as bad as it is. The title of the book is kind of a creepy perfect title for Fowles work. ‘A’ Collector has some form of minor obsession with an object. They horde said object, and go through great measures to keep said object. Due to the nature of ‘collecting’ which requires preserving, most collectors’ collections are inanimate objects. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would capture ants, grasshoppers, and any other insect in a glass Mason jar. And no matter what I did to keep these insects alive, the nature of holding them in captivity away from their environment, could only lead to death. Clegg’s collection of Miranda, could only lead to death. Despite his futile attempts to provide the most comfort and medical attention. Reading about this extreme version of collecting, gives me pause and makes me wonder if the act of collecting is a trait to kidnappers.
ReplyDeleteI was extremely intrigued when I first begin reading this book. The title of “The Collector” made me assume that the main character collected butterflies, and was a little weird. I had no clue the intensity soon to begin. When Fred actually goes through with the abduction, I knew that this book was going to get pretty freaky.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I did enjoy the majority of the book, the detailed descriptions of the scenes were a bit much. Some parts of the book seem to drag out for far too long, especially in Miranda’s section. I realize that the long descriptions were part of the theme of Fred’s attention to detail, but it made concentrating a tad difficult. Fred’s way of narrating was extremely convincing, and during Miranda’s section I became extremely frustrated at myself for believing such a mad man. This was my favorite part of the book, as I began to laugh at how I believed a narrator that had just kidnapped someone. Although Fred was very convincing at first, his insanity began to show in the end of his section. When I learned that this was only one of Fred’s many victims I was awestruck. What was even more perplexing, was what kind of person is the author of the book? I’m sure he either has a magnificent imagination, or he too is extremely crazy.
Although this was not my favorite book in the course, I really enjoyed the theme of it. I have never read a book with a disturbing theme such as this. This book was a very good fit for the “narrative truth” unit and it made understanding what exactly “narrative truth” is.
-Chris Lendrim
I could tell through class discussions the Collector was either liked or disliked. I had kind of a mixture because I thoroughly enjoyed reading the half that Clegg wrote. The half that Miranda wrote seemed a bit vague to me and not as interesting. Clegg’s half left me always on my toes especially when he was doing work to the house I was always thinking he was just fixing it up, not setting up a dungeon. It also surprised me when he decided to capture her. I knew he was obsessed with Miranda but it seemed kind of like one day he was like this is it, this is my chance for her. I never knew he was going to do that in such a public place after she left the theater.
ReplyDeleteIn Jen’s post she talks about how the thing that annoyed her was that Miranda kept referring to GP so much. I agree with you that she does over use the reference to him, but if you think about captivity and trying to think of things to keep you on the positive side than her loving GP and thinking about him all the time kind of gave her a positive reinforcement to help her get through her everyday. I kind of feel like the reason you feel that she treated GP the way Ferdinand treated Miranda that maybe after being locked up for so long and being treated a certain way that’s what she got accustomed to. Maybe that is all she knew of how to treat someone she cared for. Not saying that’s right, just always nice to see things from the other side.
My question that I was wondering was that, do you think Clegg really ever did love Miranda, or did he envy her so much and knew since he couldn’t have her, that he wanted to make sure that no one else would? I felt like he seemed to like her too much so soon and just admired her. I mean the man never spoke words to the girl before and always followed her around. He just wanted to make sure no one else could have her.
-David Erbacher
In "The Collector" I found the personalities of "Caliban" and Miranda somewhat entangled. As the story develops we come to find that these individuals truly have much in common, but at the same time, very little.
ReplyDeleteCaliban is consumed by his obsession. In the beginning, we believe his obsession is Miranda, but we see later that his obsession is collecting, particularly women. Caliban finds himself forced into a situation where his obsession is manifested in Miranda. Although, I can understand how it is difficult to see that he was forced to kidnap her, I believe that in his mind, he had no other choice when presented with the opportunity.
Similarly, Miranda is obsessed. For her, the obsession lies in feeling a part of the outside world and clinging to anything that might help her do so. For her, this obsession is manifested in G. P. In the same way Caliban is forced into kidnapping Miranda, Miranda is forced into idolizing G. P. After all, he is the only man that she has admired to this point. She is a young girl, and her mind wanders to what she knew outside of her relationship with Caliban. For her, what she knew was her admiration for G. P.
While the two characters are obviously different in the veracity and sanity of their situations, it is easy to draw similarities between the two. Both end up focusing their efforts on one person of the opposite sex. Likewise, both are doing so for the benefit of themselves. For Caliban, it is a sexual, psychological benefit. For Miranda, the benefit comes in her self-preservation and psychological well-being.
In these very different narratives, we are allowed to see how two characters with many important similarities can be so strikingly different. The truth in this fictional novel could only be accomplished through two different narratives as seen through the eyes of the character. It puts a shining light on narrative truths.
I’m not really a huge fan of this novel, but it does serve to complicate our understanding of narrative truth. It shows this by reinforcing the problem of authority with the different points of view presented in the story. It shows how two people who interact with each other can experience those interactions in completely different ways which makes the truth hard to obtain.
ReplyDeleteIn the first and third sections of the novel, “Caliban” has all the story telling authority. He views Miranda as something he wants to own, much like one of his butterflies in his collection. He believes the feelings he has for Miranda come from love, but in actuality he just loves the idea of loving her. Caliban is in a position of power and can basically dictate to Miranda what goes on. She doesn’t have much input in her life, but Caliban does want to keep her happy. Caliban wants Miranda to be happy for his own sake because he does not like the idea of her being upset. He isn’t actually being nice like he thinks he is, it is simply all about him.
The second section of the novel gives Miranda the authority of telling the story, but not any real power in terms of her imprisonment. She sometimes falls into the monotony of her life and grows accustomed to Caliban, but always has to check herself and remember that he is crazy and she is a prisoner. At times she also hates Caliban and is disgusted with him but she is a victim of her circumstances and these feelings always linger away. The only real power for Miranda is in the memories she has of G.P and she comes to the realization that she would like to have a future with him.
There are also small shifts in power a few times in the story when Miranda tries to escape. The biggest example is when she gets her hands on the small axe and has the chance to hit Caliban with it. She only hits him with the blunt side, though, because she can’t bring herself to kill him. This is an effect from all of the time she had spent under his control. While she hated Caliban in so many ways, she also felt a degree of pity for him.
When we discussed what John Fowles’s purpose was for The Collector, while it is vastly different from what we talked about for this novel, I think it makes a lot of sense. His purpose for writing the novel was to show that, with prosperity spreading, wealth and power could make their way into the hands of people intellectually unsuited to handle it. This is exemplified several times during the novel when Caliban remarks that he didn’t think what he was doing was weird. He just thought that if more people had the money and time then it would be almost commonplace. Caliban was obviously not suited to handle his newfound wealth.
-Sean Graham
Clegg's very fist sentence of the novel is about his obsession for Miranda. This immediately made me realize how badly he wanted to be with her. In agreement to what several people had posted earlier, I felt that his whole plan of kidnapping her was justifiable. During the plotting of it, ther was no part of me that thought he was an evil or cruel person. He worked as a clerk in a city hall and was a loner without social skills. But other than that, I saw no flaws in him. I also thought that there are a lot of people out there that are just like him, and convinced myself that he is more normal than strange. My whole perception changed when the narration changed to Miranda. Suddenly the way she expressed how she could not stand the room she was staying in, and how she felt extreme loathing towards him made me start thinking he is a disgusting creep. None of the facts of the story had changed then, yet my perspective was suddenly shifted by the change. Would you agree that Mirana and Clegg are opposites in their personality? To me it seems so, because Clegg is concerned with the technicality of situations such as “I want to know that I could have had a woman”, while Miranda is much more creative and reflective of a person by the way she wrote in her diary. Although they are very opposite in the way they think, they both seem to share the fantasy about love and see it as an end goal in mind.
ReplyDeleteMark Menezes
The collector was an interesting story about a weird guy who obviously fell in love with a woman’s appearance. I really liked this book; but I also thought it was really strange. I agree with Mark in that, the way he was perceived in the beginning of the story was that he was a regular old guy. However, as the story goes on, we see that his obsession with Miranda grows into an extremely unhealthy act of stalking. Once he actually kidnaps Miranda, the story takes a weird twist. Typically when someone kidnaps a person, they are trying to gain something from this person; for example, a wife, sex, money, etc. The weird part about this tale is that he did it because he was supposedly in love with her. He did not want her in a romantic way, he just wanted her in a way to study, similar to the butterflies he collected. I believe that he thought he was in love with her more than he really was; this is because he didn’t want to truly make her happy, and also didn’t love her when her looks began to fade off. After she was in the dungeon for so long, she was extremely pail and close to death. When she began developing zits around her mouth, he really began to see that she was unattractive. When you truly love someone, you think they are beautiful through the good and the ugly.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I don’t quite think their personalities are opposite. I think they both have extreme passions and truly love what they want to go after. For Miranda it was G.P. because she really loved him and wanted to be with him. For Caliban it was that he was so unhealthily head over heels for this woman who was basically forbidden. They both also aren’t able to let their loves go. Miranda always thinks about G.P. and how much she misses him; she never gives up hope that she won’t see him again. Caliban won’t take Miranda to get medical help even though he knows she will die without it. He wants to hold onto her as long as he can and then deal with the body later. Asking a doctor in is definitely against the protocol because he would be revealed. Its funny that he thinks her dying is better than him being found out. When she dies, he loses her forever; if he is in prison, there is still a chance for her to come visit him.
-Allie Nicosia
I was reluctant to post about this book because I felt like I read through it too quickly to keep pace with the class and must have missed something. The notion that this book was some sort of thriller (psychological or otherwise) was lost on me. I got the complexity and intricacies of looking into the mind of what appears to be a delusion kidnapper, then his incredibly stressed, emotionally deprived victim. But I missed the thrill somehow, particularly when the girl dies of illness as opposed to some climactic event.
ReplyDeleteThe story did, however, raise an interesting question to me: is a person who attempts, though feebly, to tell the truth in his account more believable than a person who admits that they have no such intent or constraint? The answer could go either way and really be a matter of degrees and self awareness. If I’m a sane citizen of the real world and attempt to recount an event accurately, you are more likely to get the truth from me than a deluded individual. Such an individual could prove hard to trust as narrator of any event, not in that they would lie. After all, everyone lies. The problem would be in their inability to know the lie from the truth.
Once this line has been crossed, even the contextualization that might normally help you to piece together the truth from their account of the events in seemingly lost. They lie and think they’re telling the truth and maybe even vice versa. In such a case no baseline can be established and the illusion of truth to which we so longingly cling disappears completely.
Donte Lazarus
I was reluctant to post about this book because I felt like I read through it too quickly to keep pace with the class and must have missed something. The notion that this book was some sort of thriller (psychological or otherwise) was lost on me. I got the complexity and intricacies of looking into the mind of what appears to be a delusion kidnapper, then his incredibly stressed, emotionally deprived victim. But I missed the thrill somehow, particularly when the girl dies of illness as opposed to some climactic event.
ReplyDeleteThe story did, however, raise an interesting question to me: is a person who attempts, though feebly, to tell the truth in his account more believable than a person who admits that they have no such intent or constraint? The answer could go either way and really be a matter of degrees and self awareness. If I’m a sane citizen of the real world and attempt to recount an event accurately, you are more likely to get the truth from me than a deluded individual. Such an individual could prove hard to trust as narrator of any event, not in that they would lie. After all, everyone lies. The problem would be in their inability to know the lie from the truth.
Once this line has been crossed, even the contextualization that might normally help you to piece together the truth from their account of the events in seemingly lost. They lie and think they’re telling the truth and maybe even vice versa. In such a case no baseline can be established and the illusion of truth to which we so longingly cling disappears completely.
Donte Lazarus
The collector is a narrative that has two main characters: Fred Clegg and Miranda Grey. So the plot has a double perspective seen from each character’s point of view and the story centers on the relationship between them. Actually instead of a kidnap case, it looks more like the narrative between and mere host and his guest. From a reader’s point of view, Fred is an unreliable narrator makes us read “between the lines.”As it was said in class, Fred who is not credible at all, and tries to be objective in his thoughts/actions while Miranda is supposedly someone credible attempting to be subjective; for me, credibility is the issue that stands out the most from the story. Neither Fred nor Miranda are credible narrators. The first perspective (Clegg’s) shows that Fred is a very enigmatic character. When he describes Miranda’s abduction saying "I can only say that evening I was very happy ... and it was more like I had done something very daring, like climbing Everest or doing something in enemy territory. My feelings were very happy because my intentions were of the best. It was what she [Miranda] never understood" he actually shows that he feels no guilt at all despite his crime. Actually he seems to portray himself as being an “hero” when he states “my intentions are the best.”. Further more when he buys her a Mozart record and thinks “"She liked it and so me for buying it” he shows that he sees relationship in terms of things and that as he much as he loves his butterflies, Miranda was “something” that we wanted to ‘collect’ to exert some sort of control. Miranda’s perspective is just a repetition of the events seen from her point of view. Actually as readers we somehow felt “compelled” to choose which narrator to believe because they have completely different point of views and even though Fred seems to be a psychopath and Miranda is a talented, young, art student woman. It seems logical to believe in Miranda’s narrative, but like Fred, she also has a crazy passion for G.P, her mentor. For her both Clegg and her aunt “lack creativity and authenticity” unlike G.P. In addition, as time passes, her captivity period makes her more philosophical and as a reader you might wonder whether or not she still credible as a narrator.
ReplyDeleteRossana “Xana” Guerreiro
In John Fowels’ Everything is Illuminated, Fowels is showing the danger that class and intellectual separation can have on society. With today’s culture, everyone wants to get make as much money as possible. This leads to classes in society getting spread apart. The majority of people fall into the upper middle and upper classes and the low income classes. With the wealth so spread out, this leads to many problems in today’s society. Education has always been for the more fortunate. Even though our government has implemented programs to help low income families with education, it has done little to actually help. Because low income families are not receiving the same education has the upper classes, this creates an intellectual difference in the classes for the most part. Do not get me wrong, there are plenty of people in lower income that are very smart and can succeed, but there are many that have not been taught the necessary things to become successful. Unfortunately, we see this in high profile athletes. Professional athletes make a tremendous amount of money very quickly and they do not know what to do with it. Many athletes have been given everything to them. Grades have been changed just so they can play. Once they make it to the professional setting, they are not intellectually ready to handle their new found power. For many athletes when they retire, they have blown all of their money. They are not ready for the responsibility it takes to have so much money so quick. In Everything is Illuminated the same thing happens to Clegg when he wins a substantial amount of money in a football pool. He was already lacking intellectually and was not capable of living with the amount of money he won. Clegg obsession with Miranda did not change after he won the money, but actually got worse. He felt he could have her with since he had money, but was unable to form a normal relationship with her. Clegg ends up kidnapping her. This situation is similar to the one now the Ben Roethlisberger. He is accused of sexually assaulting a young female. We do not know if this happened for fact or why it might have happened, but it can be assumed that he felt he could get away with anything because of who he was.
ReplyDeleteRyan Stonaker
I am going to say that I went into this book with a negative attitude because the genre of psychological thriller is my least favorite. I utterly despise reading books like this. However, because I read it in a class where we critically analyzed the meaning of the novel, I found some appreciation for it. In theory, maybe that is why they put certain books on school reading lists? Anyways, I found this book to be a shocking, disturbing taste of reality. We all know there are creeps in the world who find comfort behind lunacy. However, I am not sure that it was quite as thrilling as the title claims.
ReplyDeleteI think that we also have a real problem with narrative truth in this book. How can we find truth behind what this madman Ferdinand has to say? He was raised without being taught the basic morals of life. He lived a life of non-conformity and was led astray, leaving him to acquire this obsession for Miranda. The narrative truth sometimes contains problems of authority. This book seems to have a case of it. I think that since Miranda and Ferdinand each narrate sections of the book, it is fair to assume that they would tell the story to their own liking. For example, Fred expresses the belief that he is doing nothing wrong, but he actually is disobeying any sense of moral standard maintained by society through means of kidnapping. Fred also expresses moments of denial, reinforcing the claim that he is mad and most importantly, unreliable as a narrator. Another example of this problem emerges in the quote "I couldn't say what I felt, I just had to leave her; she was really hurting me." (page 35) This is a great example because it shows just how skewed Fred's morals are. We know by now that he was raised different than most, and even though he kidnapped Miranda, he creates a distorted relationship with her that is oddly sincere, in contrast to Miranda's.
Miranda's section of the book really did not interest me at all. By that point I had read so much into Fred and came to understand his feelings and started sympathizing with him. The fact that I did not care as much to hear her account is a distortion that narrative truth created in me and thus detracted value from her story. Basically, I found that Fred seemed quite sincere about her, but when I read her section, she seemed insincere and uninteresting. One theory I have to explain why I found her boring is that human beings have an urge to understand the abnormal. I was drawn to Fred's story because he is three standard deviations away from the norm. (Pardon my statistics language for those who dislike the subject) My point is that I find entertainment in what I do not normally deal with, as I am sure most rational humans do.
So if we pretend to be therapists or psychiatrists, would we understand a man such as Fred by rationalizing and accepting his lack of mental growth as a human and forgive him or help him? Or would we condemn him and his opinions because he was too sheltered and hidden from reality?
The book “The Collector” is a great example of plural narrative. If you see only one section of story, then you must think it is true story. For example, if a husband assaults his wife, then what would you think? The husband is such a horrible person. However, his wife had a liver disease and had a transplant operation from her husband due to alcoholic. After the operation, she has kept drinking alcohol and she has never felt guilty or sorry about what she is doing. Now, the assault by the husband sounds reasonable. Like this, in this novel, the author tries to plead with both Clegg and Grey to provide both of Clegg and Grey motive to behave. However, although the author was trying to provide reasons for characters, two different narratives could not be understandable in same time. I think, at this time, finding truth is very difficult, but we can find the facts like what happened to them. Therefore, we need to think as becoming Clegg or Grey. Would I do same thing if I had such a bad childhood like Clegg? Or Would I behave in same way like Grey did? I think the truth from this novel is how we think of, even though it sounds irresponsible.
ReplyDeletePersonally, after finishing this novel, I didn’t concern about situations the characters got. What I concerned was how the effects occurred by less considering among people in human society. What if one of them tried to understand others feeling? I think if they tried, then Grey would not be dead, even there would be a happy ending in the story.
-Ryan Yoon-
After reading The Collector, I must admit, I was not a fan at all. I found the book to be unreliable due to the characters. I feel that Clegg is unreliable because he is mentally unstable by the way of kidnapping Miranda. I feel that Miranda is unreliable because she seems to describe things how she, as an art student, sees them, not how they actually appear.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Lucas about when Clegg is telling his story, he seems to try to make everything simple and rationalize which can be interpreted as not telling the whole truth. Clegg always tries to make excuses for his actions that would make him seem sane, but I feel that all it does is discredit him even more.
Miranda on the other hand tells a different story than Clegg does which helps with making the book unreliable. Miranda describes things in an artistic way, which I feel avoids reality in a way. She also narrates the story as if were a diary, which is a recount of events in the past. This discredits her because there is no way of remembering every single event that occurred.
If the book wasn’t so unreliable, I may have been a fan but until I can believe what is actually happening, I will continue to not like this book.
-Ryan Cormack
I think from the beginning to end of the novel my feelings about Fred have very much shifted. At first you just feel sorry for him as a person, he is all alone except for some wacky family. You just assume he has a crush on Miranda like everyone and his plans of kidnapping just seem like a form of entertainment but I never thought he would actually go through with it. When he did ultimately kidnap Miranda I realized he had serious mental issues but for some reason believed he really would let her go free at some point. When it clicked that Miranda would die from her sickness I thought Fred would feel extreme sadness because he was so in love with her but he actually was not in love with her only the idea of her. He loved young, beautiful women that showed him little time of day. I was shocked when he started speaking of how ugly Miranda looked when she was dying, you honestly just wanted to yell at him and call him insensitive. He trapped and killed her just like he did with his butterflies. There was some foreshadowing for this when Miranda went into his house and he showed her his collections and she had referred to herself as another piece of his collection. He then started planning on kidnapping the next girl, he really is a collector but of poor, innocent young woman. I hated him by the end, at times in the beginning you wanted to connect and understand him because that’s normally how it goes when your reading, you want to connect with the narrator. I continually had to remind myself that this man was not someone you wanted to connect with or understand, he was sick. From Miranda’s perspective it was hard to tell what was truth and what was lies in her journal. I do not blame her for becoming obsessed with the thought of G.P. Anything to take herself out of the horrible situation she was in was better than realizing her fate. Just like in Everything is Illuminated when everyone seems to be lying to everyone just because it is easier and better for the person, Miranda and Fred lie to themselves. Fred believes he is justified in his actions and truly makes himself believe by kidnapping these women they will somehow fall in love with him. Miranda believes she can truly escape from Fred and have a normal life. Both of these beliefs are just lies they tell themselves because it is easier than the truth of reality and it is better for the person.
ReplyDeleteJessica Phillips
As the creepiest book I’ve read so far I can say that The Collector rubbed me the wrong way, and not just because there was a lunatic kidnapper who snatched up an innocent girl. To me, it appeared that Fowles was making an attempt to justify what Clegg was doing. Again this is another reach of mine but that is the vibe I kept picking up that I wish I hadn’t (I may have actually enjoyed this book otherwise). Here you have Clegg, the bug collecting hermit who has just won a lot of money which ends up financing his kidnapping plot of Miranda. Once he has her in his remote home in country he vows to Miranda that he will be a gentleman and give her presents and treat her well with one little catch; she can’t leave her room.
ReplyDeleteNow for whatever reason, I kept relating Clegg and his feelings towards the situation to the author John Fowles. I think it was the way he made Clegg seem harmless and justified in what he was doing, at least in his eyes. From what I have read on the blog some of you said you felt sorry for him, like Miranda even ended up feeling. While it is a sad story, and while I understand some feeling this way, I never once felt sorry for him. So I go back to the extra eerie feeling I got. Fowles describes Clegg as being lonely, depressed, and hopelessly in love with someone who will not love him back. Fowles got some people feeling bad for Clegg which is a hard thing to do given what he has done, and I do not believe a deranged kidnapper deserves such compassion, and Fowles generous description of a mad man just doesn’t sit well with me. I feel a little embarrassed that I felt this way about the book and the author but that’s just my take.
By the way, this was my rant for the book and not my educated evaluation. I just needed to get that out there.
Jeff Kibler
Fred Clegg is clearly an obsessive man and appears to be a few bricks shy of a load. He loves to collect bugs and is infatuated with the unknowing Miranda. After he captures her, we are able to hear both sides of what is happening. Clegg’s version portrays him acting calm and respectable towards her, while Miranda describes him as a scary and disturbed man who no doubt wants to rape her. Two clearly different versions of the same event always raise red flags and that is what happens in this story.
ReplyDeleteOne could make the argument that Clegg’s version has to be a fabrication since he is obviously out of touch with reality. At first I felt this way but when certain parts of Miranda’s version matched with his I felt different. Clegg appears sincere with what he is doing. It is because he sees himself in the right that he would not need to make up anything. He being crazy makes him more credible. He is not delusional with what is actually happening but rather his justification of it. He tells about capturing her and keeping her and he doesn’t think there is anything wrong with that. So why would he need to make up a story about something he believes is okay?
Miranda on the other hand is extremely emotional, and rightfully so, which might make her interpretations a little more extreme. When you consider her changing her own opinion about Clegg midway through the story, it raises questions of her accurately telling the story. Her mind often wanders too. She constantly reminisces of a happier past (which also may or may not be true) and fantasizes about a happier future with a man who, even through Miranda’s eyes, wants nothing to do with her.
Of course there would be no way of knowing which account is true and that’s the main theme of the book. Neither version could have been close to what really happened in that house but the point is we will never know for sure. However, based on what I explained above, I like to think that crazy Fred is being more honest.
Jeff Kibler
When Prof. Camacho told me that this book would be about love, I knew I would love the book. I admire the character of Clegg though most of people in class today thought that he is somewhat evil. Look at the bright side of him, he has a strong desire to get his love. I was thinking that this book would have a sweet ending that the man finally got his girl. From the very beginning, the flow of the story sounds very sweet, that Clegg as Miranda’s secret admirer always watching her from his house and then the author change the flow of the story, turn Gregg as an evil character. If you pay a very close attention, there not so much of Gregg’s action that describe the evil side of her as a kidnapper, Miranda’s voices and action are the ones that gave us illustration of Gregg as a kidnapper. The way the author describe how she screamed and tried to escape from Gregg, gave me as a reader illustration in my mind of what type of person Gregg is. Though I somewhat disappointed with the ending because I was hoping that Gregg would change the way he was to be a better person, but unexpectedly he stay the same. Overall, I like the way Fowles play with the emotion of the reader, because I’m quite sure that it was not only me that was hoping better ending.
ReplyDeletePoppy Aprilia