Character Sketch

I'm going to write a character sketch of Frederick Clegg, the protagonist of the book.

Frederick is a young lonely man with no social skills who works as a clerk in a city hall. His father died when he was little and his mother ran away, so he ended up living with his aunt. His only hobby is collecting butterflies. He was lucky enough to win a large prize in the football pools, so he decided to quit his job. 

Apart from collecting butterflies Frederick has another interest, it's Miranda Grey, the girl who used to live in his town until she got a scholarship and moved to London. After quitting his job he moved to London too. In London he stalked Miranda and later got this idea of «how to become friends with her". So he bought an isolated house in the countryside and started the preparations. He has no sexual interest in Miranda; in fact, this is the farthest thing on his mind. He thinks that sex is an animalistic things and he’s just not like that. He even says,

“If more people were like me, in my opinion, the world would be better.”

Clegg decides to add her to his "collection" of pretty, petrified objects, in the hope that if he keeps her captive long enough, she will fall in love with him.  The thing is , Frederick only thinks that he loves Miranda, but he is a true collector in his mind, not a man in love. He's just fascinated by this big human butterfly and often forgets that she's a woman. 

For Frederick, butterflies don’t have feelings, they’re just meant to be beautiful and to please him  but Miranda has feelings and he did not see this coming, which shows how he really lacks every social skill there is. He is angry with her when she talks back (usually with sarcasm), but loves to watch her when she’s sleeping and silent.

He is a sympathetic character because he is just so lost and convinced that the only way he can have something in his life is to collect or buy it. He is very silent and brooding, doesn’t say much, but when he does, he keeps you hooked. He doesn’t really distinguish between right and wrong which shows in the fact that he kidnapped a person. After kidnapping he said,

“I can only say that evening I was very happy ... and it was more like I had done something very daring, like climbing Everest or doing something in enemy territory. My feelings were very happy because my intentions were of the best. It was what she never understood.”

Clearly, he doesn’t think he committed a crime. On top of it all, he considers Miranda to be his guest, not his victim.

I must say well done John Fowles. Frederick Clegg is the best written creep in literature.

Information gap...

Well, I've already read about 150 pages and I love it so far. So basically there are only two main characters Frederick Clegg and Miranda Grey. Frederic is in love with Miranda,but he's convinced that she'll never be with him.He thinks that she is way out of her league. And you know what he did?! He kidnapped her,he called it "making her my guest". He got this idea that  it's the only way they would know each other better, then she'd fall in love with him and they would live happily ever after. You know, this is a bad example, this is gonna inspire young men to kidnap girls hoping they'll  fall in love with them. This is wrong and sick. But I love this book. I love the language, there's a lot of philosophy in it and sarcasm. It's really good. And right now I've stopped at a very tricky situation,whether he'll let her go as he promised or..I don't know what's gonna happen,but I don't think he'll harm her. He's not that kind of man. I can't say I fancy him a lot, but I do feel sorry for him just as Miranda does.
I don't think he'll let her leave, she's everything he's got...But we'll see.

About the author...

John Robert Fowles was born March 31, 1926 in Leigh-on-Sea, a small town located about 40 miles from London in the county of Essex, England. He recalls the English suburban culture of the 1930s as oppressively conformist and his family life as intensely conventional. Of his childhood, Fowles says "I have tried to escape ever since."

Fowles attended Bedford School from ages 13 to 18. After briefly attending the University of Edinburgh, Fowles began compulsory military service in 1945 with training at Dartmoor, where he spent the next two years. World War II ended shortly after his training began so Fowles never came near combat, and by1947 he had decided that the military life was not for him.

Fowles then spent four years at Oxford, where he discovered the writings of the French existentialists. In particular he admired Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, whose writings corresponded with his own ideas about conformity and the will of the individual. He received a degree in French in 1950 and began to consider a career as a writer.

Between 1952 and 1960 he wrote several novels but offered none to a publisher, considering them all incomplete in some way and too lengthy.

In late 1960 Fowles completed the first draft of The Collector in just four weeks. He continued to revise it until the summer of 1962, when he submitted it to a publisher; it appeared in the spring of 1963 and was an immediate best-seller. The critical acclaim and commercial success of the book allowed Fowles to devote all of his time to writing.

The Aristos, a collection of philosophical thoughts and musings on art, human nature and other subjects, appeared the following year. Then in 1965, The Magus--drafts of which Fowles had been working on for over a decade-- was published. Among the seven novels that Fowles has written, The Magus has perhaps generated the most enduring interest, becoming something of a cult novel, particularly in the U.S.

The most commercially successful of Fowles' novels, The French Lieutenant's Woman, appeared in 1969.

Winner of several awards and made into a well-received film starring Meryl Streep in the title role, it is the book that today's casual readers seem to most associate with Fowles.

The bestselling author was more celebrated in the United States than in England which may explain why he often described himself as living in exile in his own country.

John Fowles died on November 5, 2005 after a long illness.