Reading and Teaching the Class Boundaries through a Petit Bourgeois, Clegg in John Fowles’s The Collector

Abstract

This paper aims to read The Collector focusing on the complicated relationship between class and capital by using Bourdieu’s theory of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital which can only be achieved by the recognition within the class. Especially the ruling class reflects the interactive mechanism among economic, cultural, social capital based on the class production. The reason why a petit bourgeois, Clegg who won the jackpot failed to move up in social class is that his capital composition ratio is far different from that of upper class. The differences between Clegg and Miranda represent the class struggle between the Few-Miranda-and the Many-working class, Clegg. Clegg’s collection, some of the rarest butterflies, a Victorian mansion, an upper class lady, Miranda kidnapped by him, is a sign of the desire to elevate his status. However his acquisition of the symbol of wealth reveals the essential differences between the two classes. Because the ruling class highlighting the difference of the capital composition ratio uses these differences which are designed to serve as the ideological apparatus for the class reproduction to maintain their symbolic power. The taste is not the preference of the individual but the product of the class. In other words, the class can decide the possibility of acquiring the cultural capital. That means the cultural capital is divided according to the social and economical bases in a society and there are cultural differences which are supposed to represent the class division and the subsequent class boundaries. Clegg’s immorality and violence are partly due to his poor education and lack of opportunity based on an inherited hierarchical society. This is why the change in the class boundaries has to happen and the cleft will be able to be sustainable to let differences attempt to cross the boundaries no matter how long the struggle takes.