John Fowles' 1963 novel The Collector is a deeply disturbing and intensely psychological book based on principles of beauty, power, control and class. The story follows Fred Clegg through the capture and abuse of Miranda Grey, an attractive young art student from London, reveals Clegg as a damaged man who cannot sustain a relationship with another human being. Clegg blames Miranda for his problems, and he is abusive and manipulative towards her in a way that perhaps reveals more about his personality than he intends. Say no to plagiarism Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be prohibited"? Get an original essay One. The crucial issue in Fred's thinking is his concept of guilt. He never admits that he is guilty of Miranda's capture, rather he blames the victim for his actions. He repeats this pattern every time he does something unpleasant to her, for example the two cases of '. photographic rape." This mentality reflects a common attitude among males at the time this novel was written, and indeed today. His method of shifting blame is exemplified by the sentence on page 124, where he blames Miranda for the his own death, saying “I was acting as if I had killed her, but she died after all. He claims that her death was his fault, despite denying her a doctor while she was clearly dying of pneumonia. Clegg's ability to form a proper sexual relationship with someone is in a similarly morbid state when Miranda attempts to appeal to Clegg's physical lust, she is very surprised by what she encounters. She finds that he is physically incapable of having sexual intercourse, which he believes is purely physiological , despite the clear psychological overtones of his condition and the way he sees all things sexual as "dirty" and "dirty." After Miranda is done trying to break Fred (mentally) through sex, Fred loses respect for her and goes on to say, "Everything I did after that was because of that night." Clegg's concept of respect is curious and he seems to believe that Miranda is different from other women. As he says at the beginning of the book, "It wasn't like a woman you didn't respect and therefore didn't care what you did." This statement illustrates a belief of Clegg's that is deeply flawed: the idea that if you don't respect a woman you can do her whatever you want. So it is this night that Miranda reveals herself to Clegg, allowing him to see her as a whole woman, when he loses respect for her for his misunderstanding of basic social rules, reflecting his misunderstanding of structure of class. For Clegg, the unattainable is maddening, like a butterfly he cannot catch. Likewise, Miranda's educated and cultured nature in the background there are mocking shots at his social status, the distance between them is apparently to blame. of her, because she is of a higher class than him died with me in London". This shows that he believes she will love him, in a strange Stockholm syndrome way, because there is no one to see her with him. Clegg's statement implies that it is Miranda's fault that she is of a "higher reproductive stock" than Clegg, and that she should suffer as a result, so that he can be with her without the impediment of class boundaries. It is clear from the beginning of the novel that Fred Clegg is deranged, but the real proof of this comes when Miranda says: “. Oh God, you're not a man, if only you were a man. This in a certain way,..