The Postmodernist Narrative Techniques in John Fowles’s The Collector The English novelist John Fowles (1926-2005) was educated at Oxford and then started teaching English at different universities in the UK and Greece. When his first novel The Collector (1963) was published and became a big success , he left his job and devoted his time to writing. The Collector’s first draft development was influenced by two events. The first one when Fowles attended Béla Bartók’s opera Bluebeard's Castle (1911). Similar to The Collector’s story, the opera talks about women who are imprisoned by a man. Bartók’s opera as Sherrill E. Grace states in his article “Courting Bluebeard with Bartók , Atwood , and Fowles : Modern Treatment of the Bluebeard Theme ,” is “ a modern adaptation of the Bluebeard theme that has frequently appeared in literature and other forms of art since the medieval age,” (Grace 1984 ,247). The Bluebeard theme concerns with the violence of man against women. “I went to see the first performance [in the 1950s] in London of Bartók’s opera , Bluebeard's Castle . It wasn’t a very good performance , but the thing that struck me was the symbolism of the man imprisoning women underground,” ( Vipond , 219) this is what Fowles said in an interview commenting on Bartók’s opera. The second event as Woodcock notes that Fowles read a newspaper report about a young man who kidnapped a girl and imprisoned her for more than three months and Fowles said that “There were many peculiar features about this case that fascinated me,” (Fowles quoted in Woodcock 1984 , 27). The story of The Collector is about the kidnapping of Miranda Grey by Frederic Clegg , the only two main characters in the nove... ... middle of paper ... ... and Power : The Hegelian Themes in John Fowles’s The Collector.” Georgia 2005 : 7. Lytard, Jean Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge . Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989. Maszák, Szegedy. “Non-teleological Narration”. Bertens ,ed, 1997. Mockridge , Rowland . “Smell of Success Makes Him Nervous.” New York World Telegram 19 September 1963 : 21. Nodelman , Perry. “John Fowles’s Variations in The Collector.” Contemporary Literature 28 ,1987 : 332-46. Olshen , Barry N. John Fowles. Modern Literature Monographs. New York : Ungar , 1978 :16. Sultan , Sabbar S. “The Controversy of Sciences : Humanities Revisited.” IJAPS November 2008 : 4. Tarbox ,Katherine . The Art of John Fowles. Athens :University of Georgia Press,1988. Woodcock, Bruce. Male Mythologies: John Fowles and Masculinity. Brighton, Sussex: Harvester, 1984. Print.
Bibliography:.. Works Cited Meyer, M., Ed., (1999). Bedford Introduction to Literature, 5th Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin.
Heberle, Mark. "Contemporary Literary Criticism." O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Vol. 74. New York, 2001. 312.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Anneloes Dusoswa-Hensen. (2011 July). Breaking the Bluebeard-myth: reception and revision of the Bluebeard-tale from ancient to modern times
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1989.
Jokinen, Anniina. "Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature." Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature. N.p., 1996. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. http://www.luminarium.org/
Charters, Ann & Samuel. Literature and its Writers. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 137-147. Print.
Moulton, Charles Wells. Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors through the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: Volume 1. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1966. Print.
" American Literature 58.2 (May 1986): 181-202. Wright, Richard. A.
Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol.
to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Facts
The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Sixth Edition Volume1. Ed. M.H.Abrams. New York: W.W.Norton and Company, Inc., 1993.
Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 8th ed. New York:
113- The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. of the book. Vol.
Abrams, M. H., et al., The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 1986.