THE COLLECTOR by John Fowles NARRATION AND THE NARRATOR

John Fowles (1926-2005) British novelist and essayist. Professor of French and English. The Collector (1963) – his first published novel and an international bestseller. Several of his novels were turned into films.

Types of Narration First-person narration Third-person narration Stream of consciousness* (not to be confused with first-person narration)

*Stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that imitates the character's process of thinking. It is characteristic for the stream of consciousness to involve loosely connected sentences, sometimes lacking proper syntax and punctuation. There is no clear logic; links between phrases are not logical but associative. It’s a form of interior monologue.

Stream of consciousness (example) “How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen; looking at the flowers, at the trees with the smoke winding off them and the rooks rising, falling; standing and looking until Peter Walsh said, "Musing among the vegetables?"—was that it?—"I prefer men to cauliflowers"—was that it? ” Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

Basic means of characterization in prose fiction Characters being talked about by the omniscient author (omniscient/limited) Characters talking about each other Characters talking for themselves What means of characterization are used in The Collector? What do they do for the reader?

Point of View Establishes the perspective from which the characters are seen and the events are presented. Determines the plot (succession of events), the details, the style, the language, and more. How does the point of view in The Collector affect other elements of the novel?

Narrator Created by the author. A narrator always differs from the actual author, even when certain biographical details, including the name, coincide.

Persona Persona (“mask”) – a first-person narrator radically different from the actual author in his/her opinions and characteristics. Personas are often unreliable, creating an ironic distance between their perspective and that of the readers.

First-Person Narrator First-person (“I” or “We”) narrator can be: A participant of the story and its main character; A minor character; An observer who does not take part in the story. What examples of different first-person narrators can you remember? What possibilities does a first-person narrator give to the author? What are the limitations?

Unreliable Narrator First-person narrators can be limited by their lack of knowledge or experience, by being childish, deliberately deceptive, insane, or evil, etc. Perceptive readers have an advantage in understanding and can interpret the events for themselves and see dramatic irony*.

* Dramatic irony Dramatic irony occurs when a character states something that they believe to be true but that the reader knows is not true. The key to dramatic irony is the reader's foreknowledge of coming events. Second readings of stories often increase dramatic irony because of knowledge that was not present in the first reading. http://serc.sogang.ac.kr/erc/Literature/Irony.htm