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<title> Discussion of a theme in John Fowles' The Collector </title>
The novel The Collector by John Fowles is a story about class and people trying to fit in the divided class society. A story about people trying to be the person they realy want to be, about being someone special. 

"There is something slighthly unbalanced about the whole composition, as if there's a tiny bit missing somewhere. But it lives" (p. 205). The painting of G.P shows how both Fred and Miranda feels. They are alive but there is something missing for them to live out to the fullest. They do not know where they are in life. They do not feel connected to anything.
The one person Frederick felt for while he was younger was Uncle Dick, he was the one he depended on, "Aunt Annie and Mabel used to despise my butterflies when I was a boy, but Uncle Dick would always stick up for me", (p. 11). Miranda wants to be like G.P, "...he says exactly what he thinks, and he always make me think....How many times have I disagreed with him? And then a week later with someone else I find I'm arguing as he would argue. Judging people by his standards" (p. 143).

Frederick and Miranda classifies everything and everybody. Frederick has his collection of butterflies for example, and he talks about the rich and the poor people, "...we went out and had supper at a posh restaurant...everything in the room seemed to look down at us because we weren't brought up their way" (p. 14). Miranda talks about "the silly ones, the snobbish ones, the would-be debutantes and the daddy'd darlings and the horsophiles and the sex-cats" (p. 206). She talks about the New People and the Few people. Everyone is divided into groups, either after how wealthy they are, "...a certain youngman, a loud noisy publicschool type who had a sports car...I'll have it in fivers; the joke being it was only a cheque for ten pounds. They all behave like that", or after their attitude toward life, "...They all hate us, they hate us for being different, for not being them, for their own not being like us" (p.206)

Frederick is not from a wealthy family and sees himself below Miranda and her kind of people, the rich and classy ones. The people who are educated and intelligent, "It sounded like all the rest to me but of course she was musical" (p. 49). He thinks that if you are rich you can live a more comfortably life, "If you ask me, London's all arranged for the people who can act like public schoolboys, and you don't get anywhere if you don't have the manner born and the right la-di-da voice" (p. 14). To get close to Miranda he will have to belong to her world. But it is not Miranda he is actually looking for. I believe he is searching for another M, "I have not made up my mind about Marian (another M!...)" (p. 283), M as in mother. What is missing in Frederick's life is his mother and security. He is desperatly trying to find someone to replace his lost mother, someone to love him and appreciate him, something his mother never did. Someone who can be proud of him. He is like a little boy wanting attention, "Aren't you going to show me my fellow-victims? Of course I wanted nothing better." (p. 54) He shows her his butterfly collection and then says "I do photography too" (p. 55), hoping that she will be impressed by that. He is feeling very lonely and has done so all his life. "...they were always going at me to join in, but I stayed the lone wolf." (p. 12). He is jealous of Miranda who have people that loves her and missing her when she is gone, "I bet a lot of people think about you. Miss you. I might be dead for all anyone I knew ever cared" (p. 252). He wants that too. He wants to be loved. Miranda thinks that he is like Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, "He doesn't fit anywhere and you don't" (p. 205). But Fred's answer: "I don't wonder, the way he goes on. He doesn't try to fit" (p. 205) shows that he is trying to fit in somewhere. He does not want to be Frederick, because that is the person that his mother left. He wants to escape his past by being someone else, "I've always liked Ferdinand,....There's something foreign and distinguished about it" (p. 39). If he would be somebody else, someone classier, then maybe his mother would want him, "My cousin Mabel once told me (when we were kids, in a quarrel) she was a woman of the streets who went off with a foreigner" (p. 11). So he tries to be that person, "...I began to read the classy newspapers, for the same reason I went to the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery" (p.19). 

Miranda has divided people into two major groups. There are the New People and the Few People. She is obsessed with the thought of being special, being one of the Few. She feels that she is not living life to the fullest if she is not one of them "who try not to be lazy, who try to be human and intelligent" (p. 208). She does not want to be one of those people who just lives and lean on other people, like Frederick. She despises him for his lifestyle, and his kind of people, "I know what you are. You're the Old Man of the Sea....You get on the back of everything vital, everything trying to be honest and free, and you bear it down" (p. 208). That is what Frederick does to the butterflies. They are free creatures but he catches them and kill them. And that is what he is doing to her now by holding her imprisoned. He is keeping her from living. She wants to be an unique person but when she is inprisoned she can not be that person, "In this situation I'm a representative.....Imprisoned, unable to grow" (p. 206). 

"And the few have to carry it all. The doctors and the teachers and the artists - not that they haven't their traitors, but what hope there is, is with them - with us. Because I'm one of them. I'm one of them" (p. 206). She knows that she is not really one of them because she refers to them as them, but then she quickly corrects herself by writing "with us", and repeating "I'm one of them". She tries to convince herself that she is. And when she is talking to Fred she acts like she is one of them. "She was always criticizing my way of speaking" (p. 67). When Fred has read the book The Catcher in the Rye, she says "You realize this is one of the most brilliant studies of adolescence ever written?" (p.205), in that situation she feels like one of them. That she is teaching the uneducated and dull people. But there are places in the book where one can see that she is not one of the Few People. "I love honesty and freedom and giving. I love making, I love doing, I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart" (p. 207), she is not living up to her ideals though, "I was copying all the afternoon (Piero)..." (p. 137). And she is only sitting there watching. Now, there is not so much else she can do in her cellar, but that is what she used to do with G.P also, "We talked for hours. He talked and I listened." (p. 160). 

Both Frederick and Miranda are on a search for a better and more satisfying life. They want to be someone else than they actually are. Frederick is trying to fit in the world where hr thinks his mother is. He wants to become a person that his mother would love. Miranda wants to be a unique and important person. She do not want to be one that leans on other people. They both want to be special.
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