Miranda Grey and Frederick Clegg from The Collector by John Fowles
Miranda Grey and Frederick Clegg are the main characters that are
interpreted in the text The Collector, by John Fowles. Both characters
correspond to different classes in society. John Fowles uses the
concept of the implied reader, in which he 'speaks to' a specific
reader in mind in an attempt to have the story interpreted in a
particular way. Fowles expects us to read Miranda as an intelligent,
mentally independent being part of the upper class, but at the same
time, an arrogant "liberal humanist snob" (Radhakrishna Rao,
www.freshlimesoda.com/reviews/thecollector.html). The use and lack of
several literary techniques, point of view, allusion, and Heraclitian
philosophies encourages this intended response I hold towards Miranda.
Fowles' various writing techniques promoted the interpretation that
Clegg is part of the lower class and as a result is a victim of the
mind, unable to expand his thoughts or feelings. It is because of this
that he finds it hard to see between what is morally correct, and what
is not accepted. I found it difficult to respond to his character due
to the fact that the protagonist in most novels is one easy to
identify with, unlike the motives of Frederick Clegg.
Fowles' uses several literary techniques to enhance the proposed
analysis of Clegg. The first insights to Clegg's mental restrictions
are revealed as early as the first page. However, "Instead of
accepting everything that Clegg says at face value we must question
it" (The Collector: Wizard Study Notes pg. 11), and that is exactly
how Fowles intends it. Clegg portrays his information as an informal
account of events, perhaps similar to a description of hi...
... middle of paper ...
...n emotionally, which
encouraged part of my response to be out of compassion. Fowles intends
for us to question both characters and has succeeded in doing so.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
============
Class handouts, The Collector: Wizard Study Notes, 1992, Wizard Book,
Victoria.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Moon, Brian. 1992, Literary Terms: A Practical Glossary 2nd Edition,
Chalkface Press, Perth.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"John Fowles': The Collector" 1999, Pegasos, [online] Available:
www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jfowles.html
"The Collector", Fresh Lime Soda Books [online]. Available:
www.freshlimesoda.com/reviews/thecollector.html
Radhakrishna Rao
"The Collector by John Fowles", 2003, Green Man Review, [online]
Available: www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_fowles_collector.html
I read a book about the Boston Massacre the was originally named the bloody massacre. The amount of killed persons is generally accepted to be 5 people. The Fifth of March is a 1993 novel about the Boston Massacre (of March 5, 1770) by historian and author Ann Rinaldi, who was also the author of many other historical fiction novels such as Girl in Blue and A Break with Charity. This book is about a young indentured servant girl named Rachel Marsh who finds herself changing as she meets many people, including young Matthew Kilroy, a British private in the 29th regiment.
The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson is a book that depicts two different people, that mainly focuses on jealousy, rivalry and the power of obsession over half a century. There are many characters in the novel and they build relationships with one another that eventually become intertwined. The relationships that are built end up having an effect on the character, and contributes something different to his understanding of himself and the decisions he makes. Ian in the novel is an example of that, where the relationships he builds with the others, helps him find who he is as a person and affects the decisions he makes. Specifically through the relationships with Pete, his father, and Jake, he gains something different from each character which proves to be vital to who he is. Without these characters, Ian would be very different, as each character contributed something to Ian’s ultimate understanding of himself.
Have you ever had something of great value be taken from you and then feeling emotionally empty? In Celia Garth, Gwen Bristow desires to share the important message of Celia Garth’s past to the characters and readers. Memories prove that Celia got through the war and the bells provided a stress free period. Her memories were resembled through the bells of St.Michaels Church. The past demonstrated in Celia’s eyes about the war and what the bells reminded her of.
In The Cog by Charles E. Fritch, The main character and narrator James Maxwell discusses that everybody has a role to play whether they like it or not. This theme can be extracted because James Maxwell talks about how everybody is cog in the machine that is society and that he is both pleased and dissatisfied with his role. However, some could argue that a certain person or group of people could be exempt from this rule. In reality, everybody is a part of something greater even though some role can be greater.
Perhaps no other event in modern history has left us so perplexed and dumbfounded than the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, an entire population was simply robbed of their existence. In “Our Secret,” Susan Griffin tries to explain what could possibly lead an individual to execute such inhumane acts to a large group of people. She delves into Heinrich Himmler’s life and investigates all the events leading up to him joining the Nazi party. In“Panopticism,” Michel Foucault argues that modern society has been shaped by disciplinary mechanisms deriving from the plague as well as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a structure with a tower in the middle meant for surveillance. Susan Griffin tries to explain what happened in Germany through Himmler’s childhood while Foucault better explains these events by describing how society as a whole operates.
In "Our Secret" by Susan Griffin, the essay uses fragments throughout the essay to symbolize all the topics and people that are involved. The fragments in the essay tie together insides and outsides, human nature, everything affected by past, secrets, cause and effect, and development with the content. These subjects and the fragments are also similar with her life stories and her interviewees that all go together. The author also uses her own memories mixed in with what she heard from the interviewees. Her recollection of her memory is not fully told, but with missing parts and added feelings. Her interviewee's words are told to her and brought to the paper with added information. She tells throughout the book about these recollections.
would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper
The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brien, is an assortment of war stories set before, during, and after the Vietnam War. The stories are not written in chronological order, but rather a scattered remembering of events that occurred during O’Brien’s time during the war. When recalling certain memories, they tend to lead to other memories that develop into a story of their own. O’Brien will describe to the reader a death that occurs in the squadron and later will give more detail about that particular character. Ted Lavender’s character is an example of how O’Brien will tell his story. In the first story, the reader is informed of a death in the patrol, Ted Lavender, and later O’Brien describes him as a laid back person who took tranquilizers
BIOGRAPHY: According to the entry « Eudora Welty » found on Wikipedia, Eudora Alice Welty was an American author and photographer, well-known for working on the South American theme. She began higher education at the University of Wisconsin, then went to New York, where she studied at Columbia University until 1931. Unable to find a job on the East Coast because of unemployment due to the Great Depression, she went back to her her native city Jackson, Mississippi. She started to publish short stories in magazines from 1936 and rapidly acquired notoriety as a short story writer, managing to carefully describe the culture and the racial issues of the South. Each publication of her short stories collections was considered as a literary event. In 1956, her novel The Pounder Heart, adapted by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, achieved great success on Broadway. In 1975, her enchanting novel The Robber Bridegroom became a musical. In 1973, Eudora Welty received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter. Three years earlier, she published a collection of photographs that she had taken herself in the years 1930 and 1940, One Time, one Place: Mississippi in the Depression: a work intending to depict the harsh living conditions in Mississippi during the Great Depression. In 1984, at the request of Harvard University Press, she put on paper a lecture that she gave the year before to the students: the work became a bestseller. She died of pneumonia in 2001.
This book is about a girl name Ellen Foster who is ten years old. Her mother committed suicide by over dosing on her medication. When Ellen tried to go look for help for her mother her father stopped her. He told them that if she looked for helped he would kill them both. After her mother died she was left under her fathers custody. Her father was a drunk. He would physically and mentally abuse her. Ellen was forced to pay bills, go grocery shopping, cook for herself, and do everything else for herself. Ellen couldn't take it any more so she ran away her friends house. Starletta and her parents lived in a small cabin with one small bathroom. One day at school a teacher found a bruise on Ellen's arm. She sends Ellen to live with Julia the school's art teacher. Julia had a husband named Roy. They were both hippies. Julia and Roy cared a lot about Ellen. After Ellen turned 11 years old she was forced to go live with her grandmother. Ellen didn't want to leave Julia and Roy but her grandmother had won custody. Her grandmother was a cruel old lady. Ellen spends the summer with her grandmother. Living with her makes her very unhappy. Since her grandmother owns farmland she forces Ellen to work on the field with her black servants. Ellen meets a black woman named Mavis. Mavis and her become good friends. Mavis would talk about how she knew Ellen's mother and how much Ellen resembled her mother. Her grandmother didn't think the same. She thought that Ellen resembled her father. She also hated that man. Her grandmother would often compare her with her father. Her grandmother would torture her because she wanted revenge from her father. Her grandmother also blames her for the death of her mother. While Ellen was staying with her grandmother her father died. When her father died she didn't feel sad because she had always fantasized about killing her father. Ellen just felt a distant sadness. Ellen cried just a little bit. Her grandmother was furious because Ellen showed some emotions. She told her to never cry again. After that Ellen becomes scarred for a long time. One day her uncle Rudolph bought the flag that had been on Ellen's father's casket. Her grandmother turns him away. Later that day she burned the flag.
The professor, Deborah Brandt, believes that one becomes literate by their surroundings and not by themselves. In the first paragraph it claims that literacy is not simply about reading and writing, but also how you can use all the knowledge you acquired into real life situations such as solving problems. Brandt claims that sponsors do help out individuals, she also thinks that sponsors have their own goals they are striving for. Although, sponsors are supposed to help out individuals it seems like they pretend to be the protagonist, but are hiding their self-interest at the same time. This makes me question if whether or not my English teacher would actually preparing us for our AP exam or just making us write over and over?
PTSD, also known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, can cause change and bring about pain and stress in many different forms to the families of the victims of PTSD. These changes can be immense and sometimes unbearable. PTSD relates to the characters relationship as a whole after Henry returns from the army and it caused Henry and Lyman’s relationship to crumble. The Red Convertible that was bought in the story is a symbol of their brotherhood. The color red has many different meanings within the story that relates to their relationship.
Helena Maria Veramontes writes her short story “The Moths” from the first person point of view, placing her fourteen year old protagonist female character as a guide through the process of spiritual re-birth. The girl begins the story with a description of the debt she owes her Abuelita—the only adult who has treated her with kindness and respect. She describes her Apa (Father) and Ama (Mother), along with two sisters as if they live in the same household, yet are born from two different worlds. Her father is abusive, her mother chooses to stay in the background and her sisters evoke a kind of femininity that she does not possess. The girl is angry at her masculine differences and strikes out at her sisters physically. Apa tries to make his daughter conform to his strict religious beliefs, which she refuses to do and her defiance evokes abuse. The girl’s Abuelita is dying and she immerses herself in caring for her, partly to repay a debt and partly out of the deep love she has for her. As her grandmother lay dying, she begins the process of letting go. The moth helps to portray a sense of spirituality, re-birth and becomes, finally, an incarnation of the grandmother. The theme of the story is spiritual growth is born from human suffering.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in 1890 about her experience in a psychiatric hospital. The doctor she had prescribed her “the rest cure” to get over her condition (Beekman). Gilman included the name of the sanitarium she stayed at in the piece as well which was named after the doctor that “treated” her. The short story was a more exaggerated version of her month long stay at Weir Mitchell and is about a woman whose name is never revealed and she slowly goes insane under the watch of her doctor husband and his sister (The Yellow Wallpaper 745). Many elements of fiction were utilized by Gilman in this piece to emphasize the theme freedom and confinement. Three of the most important elements are symbolism, setting and character.
The Friday Everything Changed” written by Anne Hart describes how a simple question challenges the