Author: A New Woman

The Birth of Venus by Michael Field reflects a strange sense of doom that is also present in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray that can be linked to the influence of aestheticism that affected the literary community in the late 19^th century.

The first three stanzas of The Birth of Venus focus on the beauty of the goddess and her surroundings. These stanzas are heavy in color-imagery and flower motifs, including a “ruffled cloak of rose, daisy-stitched” and “Flora, with the corn-flower dressed, /Round her neck a rose-spray curled /Flowerless, wild-rose at her breast.” In addition, the poem is full of references to innocence and purity including the line “New-born beauty with a tress / Gold about her nakedness,” as well as all the flowers and mention of springtime, which are associated with newness and rebirth.  One would think that all this beauty would describe a happy goddess. However, in the last stanza where Venus is described in more emotional aspects, phrases such as “tearful shadows,” “reluctant sympathies,” “lone,” and “stranger,” imply that she is not necessarily as content as the rest of the poem seems to constantly suggest, the optimistic visual symbols and references being contrasted with a more emotion-based sense of doom and fear.Venus’ lack of knowledge of the world is portrayed as more of a curse than a blessing in the same way that Dorian’s initial innocence becomes his downfall, because innocence becomes an open doorway for corruption.

The ending line, “she is love that hath not loved,” reminds me of Dorian Gray. Venus is the goddess of love, and yet she has no knowledge of how love is supposed to feel, only what it is supposed to look like. Dorian Gray is in a very similar situation. He is loved by so many, and yet is unable to give it out himself because he is too focused on his physical appearance. Venus is also distinctly aware of the eyes of Zephyrus and Boreas on her, “one in wonder, one desire.” Dorian’s fixation on Basil’s portrait of him is based on his obsession with his public appearance. The only time he thinks that he is in love is during his so-called love affair with Sibyl Vane, which turns out to be only a performance to this public of what he thinks love is, ironically stemming from her performances of love on stage. Again, this reflects aspects of aestheticism and the idea of art for art’s sake, with love being the art that is admired but never personalized.

 

 

The definition of “vivisection” is “1: The cutting of or operation on a living animal usually for physiological or pathological investigation. Broadly: animal experimentation especially if considered to cause distress to the subject. 2: Minute or pitiless examination or criticism.”  (from Merriam Webster)

The definition makes explicit that the word is meant to be negatively connoted with cruelty. It is a word that is not commonly used in modern day-to-day language, and yet appears frequently in The Island of Doctor Moreau and is echoed in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

In The Island of Doctor Moreau, Moreau vivisects various animals to interface them with humans, a process that, as definition 1 describes, causes extreme distress to the animals—not only during the surgeries themselves, but in post-operational life as well as they are forced to ignore their animal instincts and behave like men. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the word appears in Lord Henry’s thoughts after a discussion with Dorian. The passage reads, “[Lord Henry] had been always enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others” (56). Although this does not mean literal surgical vivisections, it is almost unclear whether or not Lord Henry is talking about “minute or pitiless examination or criticism” or if he still means to invoke the imagery of surgery in a more metaphorical sense. In any case, Lord Henry’s choice of the word with all its connotations is referencing Dorian’s physical appearance. If he means it in the surgical sense, one can imagine one of Moreau’s beast men, whose body is drastically altered by operation. If he means it in the critical sense, it is as an art critic critiquing a painting. The casual use of the word invokes a tone of nonchalance and carelessness with which Lord Henry others. This passage shows that he regards Dorian’s life as some sort of project, caring only for Dorian’s physical being and not for his emotional or mental health. Lord Henry’s disregard for anything beyond the surface of Dorian’s life is a reflection of the aesthetic art movement, since Lord Henry treats Dorian like a piece of art. He only values Dorian for the pleasure brought by looking at him, manipulating him, and watching his life unfold, without concerning himself with the mind and emotions behind all this. Although Oscar Wilde is promoting aestheticism, as we can see from the preface, Lord Henry’s callousness under the guise of appreciation for the aesthetic seems to be a critique of the movement, suggesting that perhaps aesthetic views should be reserved for art and not for human lives.

 

 

Stoker’s Dracula is divided into clear villains and heroes. Characters such as Harker, Van Helsing, Quincey Morris, Arthur Holmwood, and Mina are the civilized English citizens and Dracula’s is the violent, animalistic, outlandish villain.

However, in her article Dracula: the Unseen Face in the Mirror, Carol Senf argues that the body of “good” characters and the character of Dracula are more similar than they appear at first read, the difference in perspective being that “Stocker’s narrative technique does not permit the reader to Enter Dracula’s thoughts…”(Senf 427). Dracula’s behavior seems evil, but in reality, the Protagonists echo the exact same behavior. Their saving grace in the eyes of the reader is that the readers get an inside look at the logic behind their actions, while readers are left to assume the worst of Dracula’s.

Senf notes that “behavior generally attributed to the vampire—the habit of attacking a sleeping victim, violence, and irrational behavior—is revealed to be the behavior of the civilized Englishman also” (Senf 427). In fact, the protagonists might even commit more of these behaviors than Dracula himself, yet they are justified because the believe that they are doing it for the sake of ridding the world of evil. Among the first shows of rationalized violence comes when Harker is staying at Dracula’s castle and comes across Dracula lying in his coffin. Harker says, “A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face” (60). It is difficult to distinguish the sudden urge to hack at a body with a shovel as anything but grossly violent and wild, yet it is forgiven because the reader can see that Harker’s purpose in doing it is in the interests of saving the world. The most violent and graphic scenes in Dracula are carried out by the protagonists; Arthur Holmwood kills the now evil undead version of Lucy while she lies in her tomb, ambushing her in the same way the Dracula does to his own victims. “[Arthur’s] untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it” (230). The graphic imagery of Lucy’s violent death is more disturbing than any scene in which Dracula They later kill Dracula in the same way, stabbing him while he lies in his box at sunset.

 

Although one party commits the same acts of violence as the other, the narration of the protagonists’ thoughts and logic behind these acts allows them to be excused from the consequences that Dracula faces for doing the same things. Dracula is given characteristics that highlight his “otherness”—his foreignness, his animalistic physical features, the quaint beliefs of his home country—in order to disguise the fact that he is no worse than the narrators themselves. It is simply a matter of perspective.

The Longman Anthology highlights several themes of the Victorian era. Two of these themes, modernity and religion, are highlighted and called into question in Dracula, reflecting Stoker’s doubts in regards to the Industrial Revolution, the subsequent urbanization of the city, and the crisis of faith that occurred in Victorian England, which is also addressed in Dracula.

Signs of modernity are juxtaposed by those of the old-world at every turn in Dracula. The Longman Anthology says that “the ‘newness’ of Victorian society—its speed, progress, and triumphant ingenuity—was epitomized by the coming of the railway.” Dracula essentially lives in gothic times; it requires a coach and carriage to reach his home. However, the further and further one travels from Transylvania and the closer one gets to London, the more modernized transportation becomes. Transylvania is also where Harker comes across people who don’t follow “modern” religion. The Longman Anthology discusses the clash of different sects and variations of Christianity, but more importantly that modern scientific discoveries cause a crisis of faith.

Harker states that he is an Anglican, dismissing the beliefs of the innkeeper and other village people in Transylvania as an old-world religion—superstition not yet updated according to Darwin or other recent discoveries. However, Stoker proves that Harker’s way might not be the only way. For example, the villagers seem to know a truth that Harker, his mind limited to things he can understand through science, does not have access to. Despite Harker’s dismissive attitude towards the act of the innkeeper’s wife putting a crucifix around his neck, the power of the crucifix is later verified which, in turn, begins to validate some beliefs of old religion. This is further confirmed by Van Helsing’s method of care for Lucy, which requires a marriage of western and non-western practices to protect Lucy from whatever is hurting her. While he does use the very modern technique of blood transfusions to restore her several times, he also covers her in garlic flowers based off of the superstition that garlic wards off vampires, and this succeeds in deterring Dracula on several occasions.

In his use of both modern beliefs and old beliefs, Stoker shows that he is necessarily condemning modern religion in favor of ancient religion, or vice versa. He is simply suggesting that the people of Victorian England, who are so set on thoughts of advancement and the new, might do well to avoid complete desertion of the old

(I know this is the example quote from the prompt outline but I swear I coincidentally picked the same passage during the exercise in class before I ever saw the prompt sheet)

“Each of these creatures, despite its human form, its rag of clothing, and the rough humanity of its bodily form, had woven into it, into its movements into the expression of its countenance, into its whole presence, some now irresistible suggestion of a hog, a swinish taint, the unmistakable mark of the beast.” (29)

In this passage, Prendick has left his room and wandered into the forest, where he comes across a trio of “grotesque human figures” and stops to observe them. Although there are many different species of man-animal hybrids on the island, these are among the first he has seen.

The most frequently used word in the passage is “it,” which is used to describe the pig-men hybrids. His use of the term “it” shows Prendick’s distaste for what he sees and his refusal to acknowledge them in the same terms as he would a full human. The passage could have easily been “Each of these creatures, despite their human forms, their rags of clothing, and the rough humanity of their bodily forms…” but Prendick makes the choice to identify each creature as an “it,” as a thing instead of an actual living gendered being.

Interestingly, Prendick never specifically describes exactly which features resemble those of a pig, nor how strongly. The words “suggestion,” “taint,” and “mark” all lack a sense of the concrete, despite being paired with words like “irresistible” and “unmistakable.” This almost oxymoronic assertion of the pig-ness of these humanoids leaves their actual physical appearance up to the reader’s imagination. This means that these creatures could have any degree of animalistic features, depending on the reader.

Prendick is both horrified and fascinated by the intertwining of man and beast in these creatures’ appearances. Wells’ places emphasis on the visual unmistakability of these combinations, and yet as these animals/men are unavoidable throughout the island, Prendick also can’t help but notice distinctly human qualities about them. It is ironic that among the first humanoid creatures he sees on the island are part pig, as “pig” is a common insult among “real” men. A pig is stereotypically slow, fat, dumb, dirty, and lazy. These human focal points and the constant reoccurrence of man-beasts throughout the island begs the question, “what makes a human a human?” and plants a seed in the reader’s mind that perhaps men aren’t all that different from animals after all.