The Collector by John Fowles

The Collector

Summary:           This book is about a very horrid man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk and collects butterflies in his spare time.  He becomes obsessed with a university student at the local fine arts school named Miranda Grey. The first part of the novel is told in his perspective, and he tries to justify his stalker actions. He lacks in social skills so he only watches her from afar, which gives the novel a very eerie feeling to it. He is a lonely man who wants to add something to his new “collection”. He kidnaps Miranda by drugging her with chloroform and locks her in the cellar of his own home.  He promises to let her go after a month, because when she wakes up she says she will not fall in love with him. However, he does keep her locked up in his basement. He truly believes what he is doing is fine, and he tries to appear normal to the reader as much as possible.

                The second part of the novel is told by Miranda in diary form. A lot of her diary was addressed to G.P. , whom she seemed to have some sort of love interest, and her sister. She realizes that there are no sexual motives, so she is trying to figure out why exactly he abducted her. She even begins to feel sorry for Frederick. She tries to escape several times, but he becomes more and more angry each time. She tries to kill him, but fails. She becomes extremely depressed, and eventually becomes so seriously ill that she dies.

                Clegg then narrates again at the end of the novel. He wanted to commit suicide but he reads in her diary that she never loved him, so he decides instead to kidnap another woman to make her fall in love with him.

Teachability: I think this novel has a lot of hard topics, because it is pretty graphic. I know I read it is as a sophomore in high school, but I remember the vocabulary being very easy. When I read it again, I still agree that the writing is not very difficult, it just does have some sexuality and it is a bit scary. Therefore, I think eighth graders could handle it, but definitely no younger. I think it has a lot of themes like personality disorder, psychopathy, self -loathing, pity, fear, and a few more that could definitely be looked at in great detail. I think this book keeps kids on their toes, and there is not one dull moment. The fact that it is switching off between a male and female narrator makes it very gender- neutral. If it is too extreme for the classroom, I think it is definitely a book that needs to be an independent read in the classroom.