Existentialism in “The Collector”

Eliot Stier

Writing About Literature

Professor Read-Davidson

6 December 2010

A Critical Interpretation of Existentialism in “The Collector” by John Fowles

Contemporary social and moral problems that plague us are the source of misunderstanding and miscommunication in The Collector. The novel is existential literature that hypothesizes the connection of humanity in spite of the wildly different variations in perception. Fowles attempts to illuminate these social and moral problems for his readers so that they may gain broader perspectives and eliminate behaviors that result in these problems from their lives. The Collector has a unique style that incorporates a dual-narrative from different perspectives and defies a consecutive time structure. Initially, we assume one voice is right and one voice is wrong, one good and one bad, one true and one fake. We don’t allow ourselves to trust the voice of Clegg because we assume his psychological disorder, while we accept Miranda’s voice as the truth because she is the apparently sane victim of his cruelty.

“Since the story is told in Clegg’s own words, it places us inside a repulsively alien mind, a claustrophobic prison like the one Clegg himself puts Miranda in; but Clegg is so thoroughly repulsive that any sane reader must remain separate from his perceptions of reality and thus experience the prison without feeling imprisoned by it.” (Nodelman 333)

When we experience Clegg’s perspective, we sympathize more with Miranda, and when we experience Miranda’s perspective we sympathize more with Clegg. Fowles manipulates the narrative voice in the story to prescribe us those feelings which is the invert of normal perspective voice which would ideally make us sympathize with the narrator. What this does is provide us with a unique perspective that encompasses both of theirs while supplying us with the disposition that they are both equally wrong. The importance of the differing narrative voices is the obliviousness of both characters to the other’s subjectivity. Clegg, with the mind-frame of a collector, takes things of beauty and possesses them – controls them. To him, her desperate longing for freedom comes across as hateful disdain for him because his mentality won’t allow him to acknowledge the possibility of another human desiring anything other than what he desires. “He won’t, refuses, to see her as a conscious subject who is constituted as a subject of her world; instead she is, for him, only an object in his.” (Campbell 45-53)

Fowles dispels these veils of illusion which prevent the desired empathetic understanding of mankind from entering our minds by alternating the narrative voice. It isn’t until we’ve reached the second part that we can even begin to comprehend the thematics that are being presented to us. The idea is that whatever another person thinks or feels is not necessarily identical to our own thoughts and feelings – despite the comfort we would receive from such a reality – and they don’t have to be, just to achieve an empathetic understanding. What elevates this book’s significance beyond the thrill of cheap horror-fiction is its illustration of two characters completely withdrawn into their own fantasies, which creates a fishbowl around their minds through which they cannot see or experience another person’s reality or even consider it exists.

“It is the revelation that we must take Miranda seriously that makes the beginning of part two such a shock – a shock that Fowles clearly intended, for once there is a real person inside the role, we must feel compassion for her, no matter what character Miranda reveals, as soon as she reveals any character at all she becomes human, and the book moves beyond the fake horror of the thriller.” (Nodelman 334)

What we can assume from these observations, and his prominence in existential literature, is that Fowles is attempting to address the issue of subjectivity in humanity and how it affects our reasoning and behavior, and prevents us from fully objectifying situations without excluding factors that could otherwise influence us. “The main effect of that separation is to force readers to concentrate on the claustrophobia of Miranda’s character – her involvement in herself – just as we had previously focused on Clegg’s claustrophobia – his involvement with himself.” (Nodelman 335) He wrote without the intention to confuse us with dense ideas or tricky metaphors or predict our doom or convince us of the hopelessness of it all; but rather to spoon-feed us a new formula for thought, which is that the world exists beyond our perception of it and we would be wise to attempt to understand it.“The prophetic mode is entirely avoided. This book is not essentially symbolic; it uses symbols only of the most predictable kind: dead butterflies, paintings, photographs, sunlight, a cellar, and the old historical house in which most of the action takes place.” (Bagchee 221)

An almost feminine theme with which we are presented is the juxtaposition of Miranda’s minor growth with Clegg’s absolutely static perception. It’s doubtful that Fowles was attempting a political advocacy of feminism, but rather as a depiction of the circumstances under which we are allowed to develop. To put it simply: comfort and satisfaction never instigated personal growth. They are instead illusions of completion we feel after fulfilling false desires to which we surrender our hunger for truth and knowledge. Miranda is under extreme duress, which is not surprising in her situation, and it provokes her small mind to attempt an understanding of Clegg’s small mind which, ironically, is exactly what Fowles is trying to do and get us to do as well. He is arguing that it doesn’t have to be this way; that with an interest in humanity’s welfare also comes the desire for compassion and understanding without which it is unachievable.

“Furthermore, the growth that commentators perceive in Miranda would have been counterpointed by the absolute stasis of Clegg – his inability to respond to new ideas – so that the novel would have clearly made the distinction between the male as “stasis, or conservatism” and the female as “kinesis, or progress” that Fowles posits in The Aristos (165-166).” (Nodelman 335)

The derivation of Clegg’s name is significant of his role in this concept. He is the “key” to a more perfect world, and understanding the reasons behind his actions is the first step to achieving this goal. Once we establish a basis for understanding evil – that it’s just caused by variations in perception, and an unwillingness to accept others’ existences – we can eliminate it from ourselves and consequentially from society. “The literary and linguistic allusions and hints are no less obvious: the references to Miranda, Caliban, and Ferdinand – ironical in the last case – and the derivation of Clegg’s name from clef, a key.” (Bagchee 221)

Humanity is the same, for the most part, and the only variables that determine our actions are changes in circumstance. All too much are transgressions attributed to faulty characters instead of met with an assumption that you may act in a similar way under the circumstances they face in their lives. We must distance ourselves from the “right and wrong” dichotomy which does nothing but perpetuate conflict in society, and instead understand the world from Clegg’s perspective which is reality to him, and therefore every bit as relevant as our own. “A novel is seldom merely the embodiment of social and moral philosophy; above everything else is a story, a particular story, with its own peculiar drama, its distinctive tensions, and its unique “reality”.” (Bagchee 222)

A single narrative from Clegg would be considered a psychological case study, but when Miranda begins narrating, it provides us with context and a new perspective. We are “[presented with] a complex drama of conflict, tension, clash of personalities, as well as intimate insights, and unexpected emotional reactions.” (Bagchee 222) This leaves us wondering whether either or both of the stories can actually be true, and whether one can be more valid than the other. Take the idea of G.P. for instance: he is the focus of her fantasy when she writes in her diary, and therefore a completely different story from the one we just read. She discusses G.P. more often than Clegg, despite the fact that Clegg is the only person with whom she is allowed contact. G.P. is her animus – and yet even through no contact with him in the novel are we to assume that he is what she portrays him as? We have already discovered Miranda is not as Clegg imagined her; the only thing he was actually obsessed with was his anima – not her as a human being, but her as the object of his desire: the idea of her. “They are not mere allegorical representations of life and death, or any other antithetical set of terms.” (Bagchee 222)

Miranda can appear to be the more reasonable of the two, but only because her analytical reasoning is more identical to that which occurs in our own homogenous society, where any difference is met with fear and loathing. Therefore we accept what she says, and because we accept it we don’t go beyond that and attempt to understand her psychological profile in the context of his. What sets her apart from Clegg is that she has the ability to explain her thought processes in greater detail, and to guide us to her conclusions more effectively; a result, I assume, of her education. Certain things she says are revealing of her own fantasy like “I love life so passionately, I never knew how much I wanted to live before.” (Fowles 127). She is trying to provoke our sympathy by flaunting herself as the victim. She imagines herself to have an extraordinary passion for life while she expects the rest of humanity to be indifferent? What gives her this greater understanding that leaves the rest of us indifferent about living? She is miserably human. She defines her surroundings in the context of her own lifestyle by displaying a loathing and contempt for man’s primitive roots in nature and calling it a “hateful primitive washstand and place” (Fowles 128). She has an obsession with hygiene, and is reserved about discussing the natural functions of the healthy human body. She also “prays to a God she’s not sure she believes in” (Fowles 129), which is about as human as it gets, if not less so because she can’t even find convictions within herself in the darkest times of her life.

Clegg’s own fantasy is more cut and dry, because of his constant longing to convince us of his position as the victim in all situations. Miranda has an easier job of selling her ideas to us for sympathy because we already understand her to be the victim – and therefore we are pre-disposed to assume her as the victim in all situations – so all she then has to do is express her thoughts and feelings honestly. Clegg has no finesse, or method of persuasion, beyond the blunt and often simplistic way of appealing to our sympathy through his faults and inadequacies. “Shows she never loved me, she only thought of herself and the other man all the time.” (Fowles 286) He is attempting to tap into the human connection by appealing to our common understanding of man as imperfect; he tries to convince us that we are capable of doing the same as him – which we most certainly are – and that he shouldn’t be judged for seizing an opportunity. In fact, he should be praised for accomplishing his goal despite his enormous imperfection.

“The irony of this story can be seen also in the fact that Miranda seals her own fate by being herself. With each successive escape attempt she alienates and embitters Clegg the more. Clegg is not predisposed to hating Miranda. In fact it’s amazing how much trouble from her he is willing to put up with. He is quickly able to get over his annoyance after each escape bid by Miranda.” (Bagchee 225)

Both of them are trapped in their own fantasies to the extent that there can be no other outcome then disaster. The contents of each of their characters won’t allow them to resolve the predicament peacefully.

“Because what it is, it’s luck. It’s like the pools – worse, there aren’t even good teams and bad teams and likely draws. You can’t ever tell how it will turn out. Just A versus B, C versus D, and nobody knows what A and B and C and D are. That’s why I never believed in God. I think we just live a bit and then we die and that’s the lot. There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.” (Fowles 250)

This quote appears to reflect Fowles’s own religious beliefs, as he is also an atheist. It also states the thesis of this paper in simple terms that no philistine should have trouble comprehending – allowing their ability to read – which is just another example of Fowles’s giving us his ideas simply to evoke understanding as widely as possible. We all like to think we matter, and that’s why we randomly assign meaning and value to our lives in a manner that blocks our view of the enormous void that overshadows us. In truth there is no greater plan.

“There’s nothing human like hearing or seeing or pitying about [God]. I mean perhaps God has created the world and the fundamental laws of matter and evolution. But he can’t care about the individuals. He planned it so some individuals are happy, some sad, some lucky, some not. Who is sad, who is not, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. So he doesn’t exist, really.” (Fowles 204)

This is Miranda’s view of religion, that eerily parallels Clegg’s in its nihilistic conclusion. She demonstrates her progressive nature and intellectual superiority in contrast to Clegg’s conservative stasis by mentioning the fundamental laws of matter and evolution. Strategically, she puts evolution under the power of God, which is too often thought illogically to be a theory that disproves his existence, and still reaches the conclusion that he can’t exist; and if he did it wouldn’t matter. “I don’t think I believe in God anymore. . . .What I feel I know now is that God doesn’t intervene. He lets us suffer. If you pray for liberty then you may get relief just because you pray. . . .But God can’t hear.” (Fowles 204)

Ironically, through all the differences between them and their thoughts and perceptions we still put down the book with a greater sense of the connections that tie all the fishbowls of mankind together. “The curious thing about the novel is that in spite of the immeasurable spiritual gulf between Miranda and Clegg their narrations rhetorically illuminate each other.” (Bagchee 222) Really their perceptions are just two sides to the same story; a story that has infinite sides and no ending. What we should do is learn as many of these as possible to achieve the greatest understanding of the world without predispositions through a free exchange of ideas. The differences that define Miranda and Clegg’s spiritual gap are eclipsed by illumination of the similarities of the other’s ideas, which determines their unity as human beings.

Works Cited

Bagchee, Syhamal “The Collector”: The Paradoxical Imagination of John Fowles” Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 8, No. 2, John Fowles Special Number (1980 – 1981), pp. 219-234

Published by: Indiana University Press

Campbell, Robert “Moral Sense and the Collector: The Novels of John Fowles,” Critical Quarterly 25.1 (1983) 45-53

Fowles, John The Collector Published by: Back Bay Books, 1997

Nodelman, Perry “John Fowles’s Variations in “The Collector”” Contemporary Literature Vol. 28, No. 3 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 332-346

Published by: University of Wisconsin Press