The Glamour Of Psychology

John Fowles'novel The Collector is a work which uses concise language and focuses on the psychological description of the literature. The purpose of this thesis is to combine the abnormal psychology with the novel The Collector, and focus on the abnormal psychological performance of the hero and heroine in The Collector, in order to seek a new way of reading and understanding the similar literary works.This thesis uses a text analysis method. First the thesis describes the origins and development of abnormal psychology, as well as its clinical application. From the angle of abnormal psychology there is no normal person in strict sense; problems involving abnormal behavior are all around us. This thesis focuses on the two main characters Miranda and Clegg as the research objects, and through reading The Collector and comparing with the abnormal psychology, it tries to find out the abnormal psychological performance which exists on the hero and heroine, such as the male hero Clegg's obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder and avoidant personality disorder; heroine Miranda's narcissistic personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. At the same time, the thesis also tries to reveal the similarities in abnormal behavior such as"collection"and"love"between the hero and the heroine, and the differences in abnormal behavior, for instance, the behavior performance and the psychological transformation of the initiative and the passive between the hero and the heroine. Through this method of abnormal psychological analysis, this thesis discovers the abnormal psychological performances which are highlighted in the hero and heroine. The existence of these performances depends on the time background and social causes and reflects the ingrained social problems of the postwar British social injustice, class inequality.Certainly, there are also limitations of reading analysis, which means that readers are suggested to have a basic understanding of a subject, and the literary works should have the"point"to combine with the subject. The thesis offers a few ordinary introductory remarks so that others may offer their valuable ideas, attempts to prove that analyzing the The Collector with abnormal psychology is feasible and effective and provides a new method and the angle of view for this kind of literary work.