A Study On The Writing Of The Uncanny In The Collector

The Collector,the first published novel of John Fowles,continues to fascinate academic critics all over the world since its publication.Abroad and domestic studies reflect on issues of the survival predicament,the irrationality and madness,as well as the objectification of females."Unfreedom",which is implied by the cycle of imprisonment,however,is seldom tackled,and the complex psychology of "the uncanny" which runs through the whole novel has rarely got scholars’ attention.Due to its unique narrative style which echoes the text of The Sandman from which Sigmund Freud develops his own theory of the uncanny,as well as some uncanny motifs it represents,The Collector shares with Freud the same insight into the uncanny.Therefore,this thesis attempts to analyze this novel from the perspective of Freud’s theory of the uncanny and tries to explore the roots of the unfreedom of existence.As an unspeakable feeling of frightening derived from the recurrence of the repressed and the blurring of boundaries,the uncanny is favored by literary writers in their creative writings for its rich representations of negative aesthetics.In The Collector,Fowles creates a text of unfreedom through the writing of the uncanny in three aspects:the unhomely,the double and the boundary-transcending.Therefore,the body of this thesis is divided into three chapters.The first chapter discusses Fowles’ writing of the unhomely which subverts the stability.The sense of the unhomely which implies the coexistence of the homely and the unhomely brings about the emotional impact that is most easily perceived.The unhomely subverts the stability of narrative from three aspects:the estranged spatial arrangement,the time strategy of disorder and the aesthetic experience of shattered beauty.This chapter is therefore subdivided into three parts.The first part of this chapter sees into the unhomely home,namely,the cellar where Miranda is caped,which is treated as the estranged uncanny space in this novel.The second part talks about the uncanny time strategies such as time-freezing and prolepsis taken by Fowles to break the conventional linear time sequence.The third part is a discussion of the uncanny beauty in this novel in the form of beauty that is killed,as well as beauty in fragments.The second chapter explores Fowles’ writing of the double which intensifies the initial effect of the uncanny obtained through the writing of the unhomely.Due to the unique narrative mode of dual first-person narrative and embedded narrative,the double shows the ambivalence of the double role as the narrator and as the actor.In this novel,the double serves as the recurrence of the maternal complexes,as the guardian spirit of the self and as the split of the psyche.This chapter is subdivided into three parts.The first part of this chapter analyzes the multiple doubles in this novel,including Marian who is seen as the double of Miranda and Miranda who serves as the double of Clegg’s long lost mother,carrying both his desires and fears for a mother.The second part discusses the positive role the double plays in the text in preventing the characters’self from annihilation through the "rationalized narratives".The third part of this chapter is a discussion of the double as the manifestation of the splitting of the spirit,which is mainly reflected in the other self of the protagonists in dreams.While providing convenience for the double to achieve its effect of the uncanny,the unique narrative style of dual first-person narrative and embedded narrative at the same time builds the "boundary" and brings about the possibility of transgression.Among the various triggers turning the feeling of fear into the uncanny,the transgression of the boundary is most efficient in extending the feeling to the reader’s world.The third chapter,then,explores Fowles’writing of the boundary-transcending in this novel which shows the effect of the uncanny by giving the reader the ominous signs,by interweaving the truth and falsehood and by providing a fatal fate by witnessing a failed transgression of the boundary which embodies the failure of breaking free of the shackles of the distorted living reality.This chapter is then divided into three parts.The first part of this chapter talks about the "door" built by Clegg which serves as the boundary in a physical sense.The uncanny fear comes from the ominous signs brought by crossing over the door,into an unfamiliar and uncertain world.Also,the bad omens lead to the killing of the mother.The death of the mother is later discussed in the second part,which is seen as a declaration of the failure of the transcendence of the "rational text".Miranda’s text is seen as the boundary on a narrative level which makes possible the transcendence of the truth.The effect of the uncanny is then achieved through the tug of truth and lies.The third part sees Clegg’s imprisoning of Miranda as a transcendence of the traditional distribution of social wealth,which is the boundary lies between Clegg and the outside "normal" world.It performs the quality of the uncanny in the form of the recurrence of the repressed and is then declared as failure due to the uncanny encounters in Clegg’s life.This failure shows an unbridgeable rift between one’s psychological realities and social realities,which forms the anomaly of grotesques’ world,a world of dislocation.In The Collector,Fowles shows his concern about the existential predicament of individuals,especially marginal or abnormal ones,namely,the "grotesques".Through the writing of the uncanny,Fowles reveals the roots of unfreedom.The unfreedom of existence of grotesques is attributed to the innate desires and complexes which can be traced back to the protagonist’s childhood,as well as the dislocation and anxiety derived from the discordance between one’s spiritual world and the existential reality under modern civilization.To guide readers to seek freedom through the explication of unfreedom of existence is the great value the writing of the uncanny in attempts to achieve.