Camillas Hemsida

Camilla Svensson
ENA 202

The Collector

Like innumerable many other stories good stands against evil in John Fowles’ novel The Collector, which was written in 1963. However, it is important to realize that the good powers and the evil powers are not impersonated by the main characters themselves, but represented by their actions and their thoughts. This explains why both Miranda’s and Frederic’s actions delineate both of the opposite powers on different occasions. I believe that the purpose of the author was to show that any person could show both good and evil powers under the “right” circumstances, no matter how good or how evil the general impression of that person may be. In The Collector, Miranda stands for the general good impression and Frederic stands for the general evil impression, but, as this essay will show, the reverse pattern also takes place. First I define what are good and evil deeds and then I give an account of some good and some evil acts and thoughts that take place in Fowles’ story.

My opinion is that the good power is shown for instance when you think or say something nice about another person, when you help or want to help someone, when you do something you think someone else will like, or when you do something that makes you feel good but that does not harm anyone else.
The evil power, on the other hand, is shown for instance when you deliberately hurt someone, physically or emotionally, when you do something for your own benefit without considering the consequences of your surroundings or when you simply have evil thoughts about another person. As you can see here, to me the opposite powers can be represented in both actions and intentions or thoughts.

In Fowles’ novel, Miranda’s actions and her thoughts represent the good side on several occasions. Miranda, who is kidnapped by Frederic and kept in a locked cellar, makes an attempt to escape when she finds an axe. She has planned to use the sharp edge, but when the moment of truth finally comes, she can only use the blunt edge. She hits Frederic on the side of his shoulder, and he only gets slightly wounded. He manages to prevent Miranda from using the axe again and from escaping. Miranda has honourable morals. She is a pacifist, and after the axe incident, she writes in her diary: “I am ashamed. I let myself down vilely. (…) Violence and force are wrong. If I use violence I descend to his level. It means that I have no real belief in the power of reason, and sympathy and humanity” (245). “When I’m being beastly to him (…) I begin to hate myself” (246). Miranda also shows good power immediately after this axe incident when she takes care of Frederic’s wound.
Miranda’s honourable dignity again appears when she writes in her diary about her parents who did not support her dreams about becoming an artist. She writes: “I have forgotten them their fighting against my ambition for their ambitions. I won, so I must forgive” (174).
Many people probably think it would be difficult to be nice to someone who has deprived you your freedom, but Miranda makes it clear on some occasions that she actually wants to help Frederic. For example, she writes in her diary that sometimes she feels an irresistible desire to drag things he does not want to talk about out of him. In that way she would help him by listening and letting him release some of his inner suppressed thoughts. She would show that she cared about him. And on another occasion she writes that she wants to teach him how decent human beings live and behave. On page 229 she writes: “I feel a responsibility towards him that I don’t really understand. (…) I think I ought to forever hate him. Yet, I don’t always. My pity wins, and I do want to help him.” Miranda has also shown good actions although she did regret them afterwards. On November 19th she reflects upon the fact that she has been nice to Frederic by, exactly as he wanted, giving him attention.
The final example of the good side of Miranda’s manners is represented by her thoughts about the future: “I would not want this not to have happened. Because if I escape I shall be a completely different and I think better person. Because if I don’t escape, if something dreadful happened, I shall still know that the person I was and would have stayed if this hadn’t happened was not the person I now want to be” (270).

Miranda does however also show some evil tendencies. She says she hates it, but still she deliberately hurts Frederic when she talks down to him. For instance, she criticizes his way of speaking: “You know how rain takes the colour out of everything? That’s what you do to the English language. You blur it every time you open your mouth” (69). She also makes fun of him and she makes personal remarks about how his face has all sorts of ugly habits.
Miranda was even a bit evil before she met Frederic. She admired an older man called G.P. a lot, but when he asked her to marry him, she turned him down and it made her happy to sense a sort of superiority over G.P.’s feelings.

Frederic’s thoughts and actions, on the other hand, show several examples of underlying evil power.
First of all, the entire situation that he puts Miranda in is evil. He abducts her against her will, locks her up in his dark cellar and does not allow her any contact with the world outside. When Miranda gets sick he omits to bring her a doctor, which eventually causes her death. He lies to her about having contacted her parents and about having donated money to a children’s fund, and he lies to her about his impotence in order to receive her pity. He also threatens her by saying: “You forget who’s boss. I could just forget you. Nobody’d know” (116).
Frederic’s underlying purpose of kidnapping Miranda is just to have her next to him so that he can have a friend, enjoy her beauty and feel that he, as a normal person, has a partner. He admires her highly, but he does not respect her individuality. He has this image of what she is like, and nothing she says or does seems to change that image. He is not interested in her personality; he is solely interested in her physical being there.
On one occasion Miranda tries to seduce Frederic as an attempt to escape, but this only makes him loose his respect for her. He says she is no better than a common street-woman, locks her up in the cellar again and pours out the champagne they were about to drink. He says: “I felt happy. I can’t explain. I saw I was weak before, now I was paying her back for all the things she said and thought about me. (…) I went and looked at her room, it made me really laugh to think of her down there, she was the one who was going to stay below in all senses and even if it wasn’t what she deserved in the beginning she had made it so that she did now. I had real reasons to teach her what was what” (114). This incident leads me into an example of his blaming her. At the very end of the story, Frederic reflects upon the imprisonment. He says: “Perhaps it was my fault after all that she did what she did and lost my respect [which in the long run, according to Frederic himself, was the reason for her death], then I thought it was her fault, she asked for everything she got” (297).
As Miranda’s future plans were of good nature, Frederic’s are of evil nature. He spots a girl named Marian whom he is planning to kidnap now that Miranda is gone. He coldly states that he would not do it for love this time, but just for the fun and interest of comparing the two girls’ behaviour.

As written above, Frederic stands for the general evil impression, but he actually does some good deeds as well. The most striking of them all is his good intention. He passionately loves this girl Miranda who he does not really know, but now has imprisoned in his house. Almost throughout the entire story it is obvious that he would do anything for her except release her, he actually thinks he is doing something good and he does not intentionally want to harm her. Anything Miranda asks for, Frederic buys. For every dubious action he takes, he justifies it with his good intentions. In the beginning of the story, for example, Miranda complains about her isolation from the people she loves and the outer world, but Frederic fails to give her newspapers to read. He justifies it by saying: “I didn’t want her to read about all the police were doing, and so on, because it would have only upset her. It was almost a kindness, as you might say” (42).
It is rare, but Frederic actually shows regret, which is a feeling derived from good powers, at the end of the story when he thinks back of what he has done. He says: “I was sorry for her, I was sorry for what I did that other evening, but I wasn’t to know she was really ill” (286).
Even Miranda admits he has more dignity than she has when he only replies I love you after having heard her story about his nasty behaviour.

John Fowles succeeded in showing his readers that any person can exhibit both good and evil powers. Maybe it is not our inner personalities that bring forth these powers, but external circumstances?
 

Camilla Svensson

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