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| Whistler's Symphony in White, No. 1 (1876): |
Below is
the rough reading schedule for next week. The readings are suggested
goals to keep you on track with the reading.
However, there is no immediate penalty for being a dozen or so pages
behind! Pages below correspond to the Bedford/St.Martin's edition.
Monday:
Chs.I-V (pp.26-83)
Wednesday:
Chs.VI-X (pp.83-147)
Friday:
Chs. XI-XIII (pp.147-189)
Answer ONE
of the following for Friday
1. Last
week we discussed theories of identity and constructions of the
'subject.' How do the characters of either Johnathan Harker or
Dracula address some of these issues in their 'performance' of
identity? Consider the following quotes as you respond:
* Harker:
"I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would
kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest
some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain; but it is the
truth" (Ch.III/61).
* Dracula:
"Here I am noble; I am boyar;
the common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a
strange land, he is no one; men know him not--and to know not is to
care not for" (Ch.II/45).
2.
Dracula has no single
narrator binding the entire novel together from either an omniscient
or an unreliable point of view. Rather, the book is cobbled together
from several different narrators, some consciously narrating
(Harker's diary, Mina and Lucy's letters, etc.), while others are
forced into the role unknowingly (newspaper reports, phonograph
recordings, shipping receipts). How does this affect how we read the
work and understand even the simplest ideas of plot,
characterization, and narration? Is the entire work 'unreliable'?
Or does the factual nature of the sources (private diaries, public
newspaper clippings) make it more reliable than our previous works?
3. When
Harker first beholds the three 'brides' of Dracula, he remarks, "I
seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with
some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or
where" (Ch.III/61). How might we use Freud's theory of "the
Uncanny" to read this passage and others in the opening
chapters, even though the monsters are clearly real? Is
the Uncanny still valid when actual horrors are unloosed upon the
fictional world?
4.
How does Stoker's characterization of Dracula differ from modern
versions of Dracula and of vampires in general? Though Dracula is
not the first literary vampire in England (he is preceded by
Polidori's Lord Ruthven by several decades), he created the
prototypical mythology that all subsequent vampires follow.
Nevertheless, Stoker's 'Dracula' shows some remarkable differences
that often surprise or even disappoint readers. What might these
be...and what might Stoker's intentions have been in writing him this
way?
I think one of the main differences between Stoker's Dracula and the other Vampires that we are used to is that he doesn't have a slant. The Twilight vampires are shown as fighting against their nature to try and be "good" also there is no concept of just snacking on humans for them. Once the bite a human it either dies of becomes a vampire. It's very good vs. evil. Then you have the vampires of The Vampire Diaries who can feed from humans without killing them and it is even "pleasurable" for the human. Dracula, however, doesn't seem to have any great moral choice. Maybe that is because we don't have anything from his point of view, but I think it's more likely that Stoker wants us to see him as animalistic. Dracula in a way represents deep human urges that "civilized" people (like the English) would not humor. Those being sexual, but also the urge to take whatever you desire from others, to dominate, and to an extent even to be someone else. Dracula makes himself look very young by "bloating" himself on blood, but he also fakes being Harker and being English. Also the women in the story are able to shape themselves from dust to the women of Harker's dreams. Dracula also becomes a dog and a bat. This desire to change and mold oneself is more prevalent in teens, but really so are all of the desires that our society tries to repress. I think Dracula is depicted this way to frighten the English, but maybe also to remind them of a tawdy "uncivilized" teenage stage they went through.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great point, since Dracula isn't trying to conform to our (or their) ideals of a 'good' or even an ambiguous person. Dracula is meant to be real in the story but symbolic within the culture; he represents a racial fear of contamination and also a split with the past; the new generation with their faith in science and technology was making a great break with the past--meaning religion, superstition, and even to some extent the cultural taboos of Victorian England. The question is, can science alone make this shift? Is the new generation (Harker, Mina, Seward, etc.) strong enough to deny their cultural heritage and renounce the 'vampires' inside them? The novel would suggest not. And though they do destroy Dracula, is the battle over? Have they 'saved' themselves? If Dracula had a different slant none of this would have worked, which is why you can't really read the 1990 Coppola film this way. Dracula is evil but also empathetic...in the book he might be sympathetic only at the very end, when he is "released" from his own curse.
Delete3. When Harker first beholds the three 'brides' of Dracula, he remarks, "I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where" (Ch.III/61). How might we use Freud's theory of "the Uncanny" to read this passage and others in the opening chapters, even though the monsters are clearly real? Is the Uncanny still valid when actual horrors are unloosed upon the fictional world?
ReplyDeleteOne reason these 'brides' have an uncanny quality to them is because they represent unconscious longings (in this case sexual ones) coupled with the paradoxical desire to be horrified which in a way is thrilling (to a point anyhow). Consider for a moment how thrilling some scary dreams are to some people. Sexual drive itself is based upon unconscious needs that harken back to a time when humans were primitive and more animal-like.
These 'brides', though very much real in this account, are disturbing to Harker because he sees them as being not entirely real yet real enough for him to express a 'forbidden' desire for them. They seem familiar to him because in a way he's seen them before (at least he thinks that he has) in a dream sequence and/or in his conscious thoughts. As a 'proper Englishman' though he'd probably never seriously entertain the idea of romantically/sexually interacting with these beings under normal circumstances. It's the dream-like surreal nature of the experience that offers him the license to desire these creatures.
The uncanny nature that these 'real' creatures possess is at work here in this fictional setting because Harker has a sense of deja vu something that's probably a shared experience with some readers one might imagine. Deja vu is itself an uncanny experience. The voluptuous yet forbidden object of desire mIght be regarded as a kind of archetype almost. If this is the case, it might also help to explain the uncanny nature of Harker's experience here. Dracula himself, ignoring his evil supernatural nature, is the 'cool dude' that 'red-blooded' males want to be. Perhaps Harker is in some way identifying with this desire to be 'hip' like Dracula to be desired by beautiful sexually charged women.
Yes, the deja vu element is unsettling, because it suggests he knows them in some deep, unconscious way (in his dreams?). This suggests that we all know dark or "voluptious" thoughts when society is no longer watching...because we can't take culture to bed with us. In our dreams, the past lives within us...which is why, perhaps, Lucy and Mina are always attacked at night (sure vampires roam at night, but it makes a nice symbolic connection to dreams). You cannot control your dreams any more than you can "be" 100% good, Victorian, or moral. You can make choices during the day, but you might still have a desire to kill, to steal, to be with vampire brides.
Delete2) Every story has an unreliable narrator, whether it's intentional or not. Having more than one narrator helps to alleviate that problem, because if there was only one narrator, then the story would only be from their view and would therefore be biased and slanted. With each subsequent narrator, the story is shown in multiple lights, allowing the reader to see the story and characters in new ways than before. With more narrators comes more complexity, but I think that can be a good thing. The downside is that with so many characters telling the story it frequently jumps around, which can be confusing.
ReplyDeleteDiaries and letters are very personal in nature, so I can believe the information retrieved from the diaries and letters more than somebody simply remembering a past event. Something written down can't be corrupted the same way a memory can in a person's head. However, with Mina being the one who collected all of the letters, diaries, etc., and formed them into a cohesive story, one has to wonder how much she might have altered.
I like how this novel solves the problem of Gothic narration; there's no one madman (or woman) controlling what we know or see. We get everything--though, to be sure, Mina is behind it all. However, by seeing everything the way only a detective might, we can piece together a story that goes beyond one person's limitations or biases. We get multiple perspectives on Dracula--who he is, what he's doing--and because of Harker's journal, we read everything against the grain since we've actually heard him speak, and in a sense, bare his soul. It's hard to say if this makes him more human or relatable to us, but it does question whether he is an unmitigated force of evil (though he clearly has a symbolic function in the work). In many ways, he is an outdated imperialist, as he once commanded armies, destroyed castles, and envlsaved peoples. He is what the British empire once was and will become eventually...an anachronism. The perspectives help us tease this out, and in some ways, maybe make us less sure of "who" is the true hero and villain of the story. And indeed, I think Mina emerges as the true "hero" much more than anyone else--certainly more than Harker, Seward, Quincy and Arthur!
DeleteAll week I've been itching to discuss the reliability of the novel. First time I read this novel, I was questioning it.
ReplyDeleteThere are some moments that I think we can trust and some that we can't. First let me say that I feel that most moments we can trust what is being said. Harker's journal is very honest, and most of the time it makes him look incredibly gullible. And actually, just about every journal does that. It helps us know what's going on. My problem with this journal format, is that we can't really know what was said, because it's being journaled from the perspective of a person, and that person cannot possibly remember everything that was said. So in a sense, it's easy to trust the plot, but hard to trust the interactions of people.
Another thing we can trust is the newspaper articles, etc. Many papers try and write from an unbiased perspective. Knowing this, we can actually get a picture of what is going on.
Damn it damn it damn it, I forgot!
ReplyDeleteThe way Stoker blended these different views and how they collide is a valuable indication that we can trust what is being given to us. It affects how we read because; opposed to the distrust we had with narrators previously in class, now we have narrators whom we can trust, despite differing perceptions. These different characters have different perceptions, so we deal directly with an element of characterization. The plot between people can be different, because we are dealing with people.
The ideas of plot in this context are interesting because there is a very strong general plot (dealing Dracula) and sub-plots (Harker\Mina, Quincy, Van Helsing, etc…) As I said before, this aspect changes some things but the general over-arching view is held: there is a flippin’ vampire.
This work is a reliable work. Despite personal subjectivity in the character’s words, their stories collaborate. If we also take the newspaper articles and other published things, this view makes sense. In addition to this, the people who don’t know what is happening corroborate what happens to the people that know (kind of in Harker’s case) what is going on.
I believe that if this were a court case, it would be good for a court of law. That alone makes it more reliable than the other works.