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For Friday: Fowles, The Collector, pp.75-144 (or so)

Munch, Vampire (1895)


REMEMBER: no class on Wednesday! I have to run the English table at Senior Day for High School students, so I can't be at class with you. So take some extra time to read The Collector! 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: When Miranda is passed out after her escape attempt, Frederick takes the opportunity to take her clothes off and take pictures of her, which he says was the "chance I had been waiting for" (91). He calls these photos "not artistic, but interesting." Why doesn't he attempt to rape her at this point? Or is the camera its own kind of rape? Consider, too, that he admits, "I thought I would go down and give her the pad again and take other photos, it was as bad as that" (92).

Q2: After their aborted attempt to have sex, Frederick claims that "All I did later was because of that night" (109). He also claims that "she didn't see how to love me in the right way. There were a lot of ways she could have pleased me" (109). Is he simply lying to himself--or to us--here? Is there anything she could have done to reach him? Or was he inevitably going to be betrayed by a woman once he realized who she 'really' was?

Q3: Throughout Part 2, Miranda tries to educate and humanize Frederick by seeing him as Caliban, and her, Miranda (allusions to Shakespeare's play, The Tempest). What does she try to teach him, and why does it ultimately go astray? Does class get in the way, as Frederick claims it always does? Can she ultimately not see him as her equal? (besides the obvious fact that he's abducted her and is a monster!) 

Q4: According to her diary, what events or aspects of her captivity does she see/record quite differently than Frederick? What would have shocked or surprised him to read--and what might he have tried to suppress us from reading if he could?

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