The Collector (novel)

I said, if you asked me to stop collecting butterflies, I'd do it. I'd do anything you asked me. 'Except let me fly away. '

The first novel of John Fowles (who was later to write The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Magus). Published in 1963, it tells a story of Frederick Clegg, a butterfly-collecting maniac who won 73,091 pounds and bought a house in the wilderness only to kidnap Miranda Grey. Miranda being the girl whom he had stalked for a long time.

He imprisons her in a luxuriously furnished cellar. The story, shaped very much like a thriller, is told both from the viewpoint of the kidnapper and of his victim. It consists mainly of dialogues between the two, in which Frederick tries to talk Miranda to marrying him and she attempts to persuade him to let her out. The plot is simple, but contrasting personalities of frighteningly quiet, barbaric Frederick and impatient Miranda, who is a student of art and a novice painter, produce a lot of tension.

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Provides examples of:

• Anti-Hero: Frederick.
• Bound and Gagged: Miranda.
• The Collector: a Trope Namer.
• Downer Ending.
• Karma Houdini: Frederick. At the end of the book, he even says as much. That he hasn't learned a single thing and he starts on another girl.
• Kavorka Man: G.P.
• The Kindnapper: Frederick.
• Lima Syndrome: Frederick literally adores his captive.
• Meaningful Name: 'Miranda' means in Latin 'the one who is to be admired'.
• Mentor Ship: between Miranda and her art teacher, G.P.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Frederick.
• Rule of Symbolism - Frederick's only hobby is collecting butterflies. He catches them by himself. He likes to look at them, because they are beautiful. And he makes them harm.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: Miranda has the name of the beautiful daughter of Prospero from The Tempest by Shakespeare. She also nicknames her kidnapper 'Caliban', though he tells her that his name is Ferdinand (he just happens to like this name).
• Stalker with a Crush: Frederick.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: between Miranda and Frederick, but also Miranda and G.P.