The Collector

The connection between the novel and Shakespeare’s The Tempest becomes even stronger in this section, as Fowles’s protagonists develop a strange intimacy, as if they are the only two people left on earth. Miranda suddenly has “the most peculiar closeness to him—not love or attraction or sympathy in any way. But linked destiny. Like being shipwrecked on an island—a raft—together. In every way not wanting to be together. But together” (196). Her analogy is another reference to The Tempest, in which Ferdinand shipwrecks on Miranda’s island, where she has been trapped most of her life. Isolated as the only young humans on that unpopulated island, Ferdinand and Miranda become a sort of Adam and Eve—lovers alone in the world; for Miranda, this is quite literal, as Ferdinand is the first young human male she has ever seen. The Collector subverts this romance of isolation, depicting Miranda instead as Shakespeare’s pre-Ferdinand Miranda, stranded on an island with a monstrous would-be lover (Caliban) who inflicts his obsession and tries to convince her that he is worthy.

Despite her best efforts, Miranda pities Frederick, sometimes even empathizing with him. This is a crucial, paradoxical element of the Lord–Bondsman Dialectic: the inferior recognizes the humanity of the superior. Miranda sees Frederick as a tragic figure fated for a hollow existence:

I feel the sadness of his life, too, terribly. And of those of his miserable aunt and his cousin and their relatives in Australia. The great dull hopeless weight of it. […] People who would never see, feel, dance, draw, cry at music, feel the world, the west wind. Never be in any real sense. (196)

To Miranda, the lower classes—especially the upwardly mobile New People (the petite bourgeoisie)—are pitiable because they can’t appreciate nature and the arts. These pursuits give life vitality only afforded to the bourgeoisie. Miranda and Frederick share this condescending attitude about the masses; the difference is that Frederick is told he’s inferior while secretly believing that he’s superior in his rare morality and integrity, while Miranda is both told and believes that she’s superior. Miranda has a superiority complex, believing she’s precocious, while fearing she’s mediocre. Frederick has an inferiority complex: He overemphasizes his weakness, pretending to be content by subjugating himself to Miranda, while secretly wanting to dominate her.

The language Miranda uses to describe Frederick reveals that she thinks he’s subhuman. Calling him Caliban implies that, like Shakespeare’s character, Frederick is a primeval enslaved monster. Miranda’s other terms for Frederick add to this characterization. She calls Frederick a “cunning brute” (196) for diffusing her anger by buying her things she likes and describes him as a facsimile of a person at best: “He’s not human; he’s an empty space disguised as a human” (192). This description has two related meanings, both of which play into the novel’s theme of Bad Faith and Becoming Authentic. First, as a New Person, Frederick wears a bourgeois disguise. Second, as someone who also doesn’t perfectly fit the stereotype of the violent criminal, Frederick keeps his motives and desires opaque from Miranda. His true character is an empty space disguised by his manners, which he wears as a costume.

Miranda’s frequent literary references mark the class difference between her and Frederick—such references are the purview of the educated bourgeoisie. Her offhand pity for Frederick’s childhood doesn’t land, because Frederick is unfamiliar with Dickens’s Great Expectations, and so doesn’t know what to make of Miranda’s calling him “Pip,” Dickens’s rags-to-riches protagonist. Later, Miranda insults Frederick by calling him the Old Man of the Sea, referring to the figure in Greek myth who slowly kills travelers by clinging to their backs. This insult implies that Frederick is deceitful and suffocating, like the demigod. Their argument over The Catcher in the Rye reveals Miranda’s snobbery and pretension. After she criticized Frederick for liking pulp fiction, Frederick internalizes her words and reads Salinger’s novel. However, when he forms his own opinion of that book, Miranda does not engage with his thoughts, and instead parrots critical consensus as her opinion: “You realize this is one of the most brilliant studies of adolescence ever written?” (186). Just as she did with George’s taste for art, Miranda simply adopts the ideas of those her education has told her to value.