THE COLLECTOR - A FREUDIAN INTERPRETATION

The purpose of this diploma seminar is to give an in-depth Freudian reading of the novel The Collector by John Fowles and apply basic Freudian psychoanalytic concepts to it, with the intent to analyse the main characters, the relations between them and the meaning of dreams and symbols which appear in the novel. The analysis has shown that the actions of the main character can be explained with Freud's theory of Self and other psychoanalytic concepts: the main character has been marked with the loss of his mother in his childhood that he is not willing to accept. Due to his unconscious wish to get her back in his childhood, he fixated his libido on butterflies, which became a symbol for his lost mother. After winning money on the football pools, the main character is abducted by his unconscious wishes, his Id, which causes a transfer of his libido from butterflies to young women. As he suffers from an unresolved Oedipus complex, he is incapable of having sexual intercourse, so he seeks in women the image of his ideal mother, who would satisfy his infantile sexuality. The ideal mother is unattainable, so he must satisfy his sexual desires through sadistic acts directed against women. As he is condamned to kidnapp and torture women forever, he can be considered a serial killer in evolution.