There are many parts of Dracula that drew my attention: one, because vampires are so cool, and two, because the story seems rich in symbolism related to many of the themes of the fin de siècle that we have discussed in class. However, the first page of the story opens a question that I’m curious about. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Moreau are both told through a first person narrator that is arguably bias. Prendick is hallucinating and Watson is, most probably, in love with Sherlock. Both of these narrators potentially reveal their own desires throughout their narration. If we read through the lens of Freud we, as readers, might delve between the lines of these texts and pick apart the desires and day-dreams of these authors and/or their narrators; if you’ll allow me to extend psychoanalysis to the characters as we do to their authors.
At a glance at the chapters, Dracula, it seems, is also told through first person narrator in the form of journal entries. These could be considered as unreliable. However, the short paragraph on the opening page to me, adds to this question. “How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made manifest in the reading of them….” (Stoker 6). Someone has constructed these journal entries. By writing the paragraph in the passive voice this someone has concealed much about their identity. Obviously they are invested in this story. Are we as readers meant to assume that this is the author? Or is there another figure outside of the story that is party to crafting the narrative?
This first sentence reads like a deflection of the exact question that this paragraph raises. I would have assumed that these fictional journal entries were ordered in such a way to enhance the drama and suspense of the story. However, by stating that the reason for the sequence will be revealed through reading it made me pause. Why does this invisible figure feel the need to reassure me that the story will makes sense? Beyond that the questions is not why, but how. Is this simple a teaser to make the reader feel the mystery before they have even begun? To do a little deconstructionist reading: I did not question this stories creation until this someone reassured me that all would be revealed. I did not question the authenticity of these (fictional) journals until this someone reassured me that really, really, everything in these stories is factual history. The reader is placed in a position to either trust this someone to do all that they claim to do, or to grow suspicious of the only information that we can/will be given about these events. Both of these options, from a literary criticism stand point, are not that useful because the text is all we have. By distrusting the text we cannot make any claims that stick. However, I feel to ignore this insistence on truth and order within the text would mean missing something the text is trying to do. I’m not sure how this will fit in, but I’m curious about whether we will meet this mysterious someone in the text, or whether they will float as a periphery God-figure who cannot be ignored, questioned, or investigated.
This seems to be exactly Freud’s anxiety at the start of “Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming”: “Our interest is only heightened the more by the fact that the writer himself gives us no explanation, or none that is satisfactory…” (Freud 143). It is frightening and exciting not to know how the author created the story. There is mystery and anxiety in this unknown world that writers inhabit that psychoanalysts, it seems, cannot. However Freud sees the text as insight into the author, even if it is not insight into writing. So I’m left with the questions: What do we do with this secret narrator? What will the text reveal about their mysterious motives? Or will we, like Freud, be left in the dark to perpetually wonder what is behind the curtain of creation?
I see your point about being very aware that “someone” has constructed the text you are reading, and that you are totally dependent on their telling of the story, but is this really any different in Dracula than in any other novel? Dracula is more explicit about it, by presenting the journals and letters as “real” and then including the disclaimer, but every novel is a story constructed by an author whom the reader is totally dependent on. Your points also raise another question: can there be more of a story than what is in the novel? Given that the characters do not exist outside of the text of Dracula, how can there be any parts of the story that are left out?
Your point about another “God-figure” surrounding the narration of the text is interesting and forces the reader to feel uncomfortable. Constantly wondering who this other narrator is however, definitely an aspect of anxiety existing with the fin de siecle. Additionally, I feel as though putting the blame on another narrator is almost what makes the rest of the book accessible. As if it is ok to believe that the narrator is really just the workings of an other individual. That “other” person who created a novel filled with terror and absurdities that the society within the Victorian era feared, therefore simple blame it upon someone else. Almost like a scapegoat. I think it is a purposeful tact. Additionally I partially agree with Maggie, alike any book isn’t the reader always weary upon the supposed narrater? It is something that has to be accepted I believe or else the reader couldn’t proceed throughout the reading.