Literature Help: The Collector

By Students' Academy

The novel is based on the fundamental theme of the Few and the Many. Greek philosopher Heracleitus had first introduced this theme in Greek literature. Fowles was highly inspired by Heracleitus’s work.

According to the author, the Few include educated, intelligent, and good. On the other hand, the Many include ignorant and impressionable people who are in much larger numbers. The author once mentioned in an interview that he wanted to explore the pity with the Few have for the Many.

Literature Help: The Collector
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Aug 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310301841

Students' Academy

Easy study guides for the students of English literature.

Book preview

Literature Help: The Collector

Students' Academy

Copyright

Literature Help: The Collector

Students' Academy

Copyright@2014 Students' Academy

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved

Chapter One: Introduction

The Collector by John Fowles was first published in the year 1963. It was his debut novel. The book was made into a movie of the same name in the year 1965.

The story is set in the 1950s and 1960s. According to the author, the book basically deals with class in England. It explores several class issues such as prosperity, pretension, and the difference between the working class and the upper class. The illustration of the contemporary society is highly praise-worthy.

The novel is based on the fundamental theme of the Few and the Many. Greek philosopher Heracleitus had first introduced this theme in Greek literature. Fowles was highly inspired by Heracleitus’s work.

According to the author, the Few include educated, intelligent, and good. On the other hand, the Many include ignorant and impressionable people who are in much larger numbers. The author once mentioned in an interview that he wanted to explore the pity with the Few have for the Many.

His flawed, uneducated, or maladjusted hero has also been examined. The author personally thinks that the hero had been misused as a literary motif.

The author admits that he was inspired to write ‘The Collector’ after seeing Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, a very famous opera. In that opera, a man keeps a woman imprisoned underground.

The symbolism used in the opera influenced Fowles and he wanted to invoke it in his novel ‘The Collector.’

In the 1950s, a boy in London had imprisoned a girl in an air-raid shelter. This true story also inspired Fowles to write the present novel.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

The story of the novel revolves around Frederick Clegg, a lonely young man. He happens to be a clerk in a city hall. When he is free, he collects butterflies.

The first part of the novel is presented from Frederick Clegg’s point of view.

Miranda Grey happens to be a middle-class art student at the Slade School of Fine Art. Clegg is obsessed with her. Clegg does not have social skill and as a result he can’t make contact with her, instead he admires her form a distance.

One day, Clegg wins a large amount of money in the foot ball pools. He leaves his job and buys and isolated house in the countryside. In that big house, he feels lonely. He wants to be with Miranda