When I read The Collector by John Fowles, I didn’t assume I was guilty of empathising with a stalker-kidnapper. I felt, in my teenage brain, that Fowles was a brilliant writer and the book had nothing to do with what I’d been through. It was also pleasure to read Miranda’s side of the story. She had a voice. She was full of life and Fredrick was trying to possess its temporary nature, and possession without the burden of accountability seemed to be the stalker’s intent.
The generic stalker has a relationship with his prey, and the relationship only goes so far as the prey gives. Anything is encouragement: politeness, letting them down easy, a smile, niceness, helpfulness. These are all boundary-crossing behaviours: permissions. They are part of the courtship. The cultural mindset was and still is that stalking is the mildest of crimes, embedded in the larger social fabric as a perfectly legitimate form of romance. Lolita was considered “a tender love story”, so The Collector can be interpreted as one as well, perhaps the corpse of one.
But Fredrick, the Collector, is a dull, boring anti-intellectual with an ordinary day job. Although he’s puritanical with Miranda, he managed to inspire several real-life serial killers.
And he was never meant to be attractive. His core personality, his deepest need, was to possess a static version of the living. Even his object, Miranda, couldn’t reach him.
The attractive stalker
You, a brilliant exploration of a stalker-serial killer by Carolyn Kepnes, isn’t your regular chapri, blitzing every other female with his prurient fantasies. Oh no. Joe, brilliantly played by Penn Badgley in the series, is an elevated stalker, and soon you’re pulled into his vortex, waiting for Beck to recognize what an absolute catch he is.
Martha, the real-life inspired character from the series Baby Reindeer, on the other hand, is frumpy, overweight and pathetic. Both Joe from You and Martha from Baby Reindeer are erotomaniacs. They sincerely believe they are the best thing to come into their victims’ lives. They know that Donny and Beck aren’t just going to glide into their arms, and a bit of manipulation is required. While Joe surveils Beck from the shadows, Martha is more direct, reappearing and overstaying at the bar Donny works at. Although both are proficient stalkers, Joe’s method is to stay out of sight until he can show himself in the right lighting. Martha’s overbearing presence at the bar exposes her need to be seen and acknowledged. She feeds on Donny’s acknowledgment of her existence, whereas Joe’s curated appearances in Beck’s life come via invitation only. Like a vampire, Beck has to let him into her life, and when she does, he has to be the most perfect thing for her.
Joe Goldberg, Nice Guy on Crack.
Stalkers aren’t really sadistic, they don’t play with their prey, at least not in the beginning, but yes, deluded enough to assume that they are the answer to whatever the prey is lacking in their lives. The stalker latches on, reading minutely into body language, looking for vulnerabilities. After the initial assumption that an imaginary connection exists, fear and disgust from the victim seem like rejection. They’re in deep by that time, unwilling to let go. Their marvellous gifts unappreciated, the stalker turns to predatory mode. They blame the victim for their actions.
Beck is a basket case, a literal slob, wannabe writer and has a terrible choice in friends. She doesn’t have a clue that her adult decisions are weighed down by her father leaving (though Joe does). She uses her beauty to draw people in but with a complete lack of self-awareness. She is a premium victim, already fattened up for the kill. The oddest thing about her is how easy she is to spy on: the windows to the apartment are wide open to the world while she goes about the most intimate business “[…] as if you need to remind your imaginary audience that you're a writer when we (I) know what you truly are: a performer, an exhibitionist.”
Joe intends to rescue her, and here’s where Kepnes’ genius comes in: we too are convinced that all Beck needs is a Joe Goldberg in her life. He’ll tidy her room, cook for her, draw the boundaries she fails to draw. Keep the users, emotional leeches and the wannabe lovers outside the line. He’ll protect her like the white knight that he, and we, believe he is.
Unfortunately for us, it’s precisely what Beck doesn’t want in her life. She wants an unavailable man, much like her father, either cold and conceited like Benji, the spoilt playboy or Dr. Nicki, the married not-really-a-doctor. Joe’s frequent visits to her room when she’s not home reveal the progressively messier state of her mind. Your opinion of her by the end of the book worsens, much like Joe’s, and before you know it, you’ve been had by that unreliable narrator.
Martha, Starving Girl
Predators are unwell, with a burning void within them, but they don’t really want to get any better. Instead, they want to feed. Continually. Once they have sucked their victim’s light, they will move on to the next one. Someone has already groomed the victim for them. Perhaps they're victims themselves.
Abused by two father figures, Joe has a deep father wound, hence his engulfing nature. Martha, from what I gathered from the series, is a victim of neglect in an unstable home. She’s a starving girl looking for emotional handouts, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll never stop to feed a starving girl.
Donny’s permissiveness directly results from his failed career and, as we later find out, his past abuse by a trusted male figure. Despite Martha’s unhinged emails, he says that he needs her in an almost symbiotic way. When he realizes how deep her delusions go, it’s too late to hit rewind. And he hasn’t hit rock-bottom yet.
Telling from my frequent head-slaps while watching Baby Reindeer, I reacted in a way that blames the victim. It comes from years of hypervigilance and looking over one’s shoulder. Like I mentioned earlier, stalking is considered the least dangerous of crimes, and entrenched in our romantic literary canon. It happens so frequently to girls with no encouragement, that we have a tendency to go over our own behaviour with a fine-tooth comb, wondering when we gave ourselves away and inadvertently invited the stalker into our lives. With Donny, I can’t help but wonder where his brains are at.
Chaos attracts Chaos
It's not like Donny is bereft of sensible advice. His current girlfriend and his ex question his behaviour and know something’s up. He makes stupid decisions; he lies to everyone, his comedy isn’t that great, and then you figure this series isn’t really about a stalker at all. It’s about Donny.
His boundaries, fragile to begin with, have already crumbled at that point. I think we’ve all given ourselves to authority figures to better ourselves at some point in our lives, but not all of us have experienced an abuse of that trust.
If the wound goes deep enough, one seeks chaos as a source of comfort. Donny’s sexual exploits reflect his chaotic inner world. One bad decision leads to another and so on.
At first, Martha is a source of mild irritation, like toilet paper stuck at the bottom of one’s shoe, but there are red flags and there’s plenty of evidence to halt the process. Donny identifies the one moment when the deal is sealed. Perhaps because of his unresolved issues, he can’t seem to make any decisions. It takes forever to even approach the police. He’s not the only one who suffers. His girlfriend has to endure Martha’s jealousy, and it’s about time to draw the line. He’s continually surprised at the brutish nature of Martha’s actions. She is a real pain in the arse, for all of us. She’s also written more convincingly without the attempt to seduce us, because she possesses none of Joe’s social sophistication or intelligence. She’s desperate, sly and pathetic, bulldozing right through Donny’s life with no particular plan.
It's no wonder why we love Joe and hate Martha. We have a tendency to accept evil men at the expense of their victims, and they don’t even have to be a snack like Joe. Like Fredrick in The Collector, his victims are worthy of the purest adoration (until he’s done with them). This purity of intent softens us.
Maybe he just likes you.
Never mind that stalking and peeping are both statistical precursors to greater crimes, it’s what ye olde serial killers of the 70’s and 80’s began with. The notion that stalking is wrong is recent, and the funniest thing about vocalizing one’s fears is finding out how many people, especially women who know you, will defend the stalker’s actions and vociferously argue for their humanity. Again, the purity of their intent matters more than your humanity as a victim. Your fears and eventual paranoia are misplaced. The inevitable question of “well, what were you doing there?” is coupled with the notion that our existence at all times in all places would be questioned, but, in my experience, not the stalker’s. Since we’re so forgiving, the stalker can’t understand that he is what he is: a creep.
Art aside, that’s IRL.
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