A Necrophilous Character Vs A Biophilous Character

This dissertation is to psycho-analyze two antithetical characters in John Fowles'The Collector in the light of Erich Fromm and Karen Honey's existential-psychoanalytical characterology. Necrophilous and biophilous orientations are very new in Chinese literary criticism. Humanistic psychoanalysis postulates that human individuals are unique and there is an innate growth mechanism within individuals that will mobilize their libido toward the realization of their potentialities, or self-actualization if environmental social conditions are right. Still, they hold there exists a universal set of values rooted in people's biology that allow people to make moral decisions by looking inside themselves for meanings rather than relying on the prevailing judgments of dominant society. The life-forwarding orientations are people's primary potentiality and destructiveness is a secondary potentiality. Nature distills a love of life. If individuals'growth is checked by unfavorable circumstances, they will develop aggression and destructiveness to answer their existential needs. Human destructiveness embedded in character structure will exhibits itself in the form of malignant narcissism, sadomasochism, malignant anal-hoarding orientation and necrophilous orientation while biophilia expresses itself as independence, freedom, spontaneity and ability to love others. These antithetical needs are built into their character structure as a ready-made substitute of human instincts. Clegg's character structure mainly goes in destructive orientation and regresses progressively into...