{"id":948,"date":"2023-09-18T15:01:14","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T19:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=948"},"modified":"2023-09-18T15:01:14","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T19:01:14","slug":"burying-the-undead-in-dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/09\/18\/burying-the-undead-in-dracula\/","title":{"rendered":"Burying the Undead in Dracula"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Bram Stoker’s\u00a0Dracula,\u00a0<\/em>the concepts of life and death are some of the most important motifs throughout the novel, as, aside from the obvious amounts of violence present, characters are dealt with situations that highlight the beliefs on life and death during the Victorian Era.<\/p>\n

In chapter 15, Van Helsing confronts situations regarding death when thinking of what to do with Lucy’s dead body after Dracula has killed her.\u00a0 He thinks intensely of his confusion of whether to respect the dead body or to go through cutting her head off and filling it with garlic. During this process of preparing to perform these rituals, the thought of vandalizing a dead body to this extent is normally unthinkable to someone at the time, (even nowadays, given that I personally haven\u2019t heard of anyone getting their head stuffed with garlic). Though in this situation, Van Helsing doesn\u2019t really think twice about it, and understands the importance of the situation. This adds a level of horror to what is already a scary book, given the differences of norms set in this world and those in the real world. This made me think back to the Longman Anthology, where within a chart of data providing what were common expenses of those of the Victorian Era, a \u201cRespectable Christian Burial\u201d was listed under \u201cCost of Goods\u201d (1046).
\nSomething else I find interesting in relation to the concept of death as understood in this era is the term \u201cburied life\u201d, especially as examined through a religious lens. The anthology describes this term as \u201cindividuals struggling for identity in a commercial, technocratic society\u201d (1069). I think this it is certainly significant to think of this term in regards to what the Anthology coins a \u201ccrisis of faith\u201d\u2019 in the Victorian Era. Explained in the Anthology, \u201cThe crisis of religious doubt occasioned by biblical scholarship and scientific discoveries hit Christian belief hard\u201d (1056). In taking the two of these terms together, it is likely that people of the Victorian Era lost a sense of identity in their struggle for religious belief. Obviously throughout history, specifically European history, religion has been key to what comprises one\u2019s identity, and the scientific progress and religious doubt of the time would only exacerbate a crisis of identity.<\/p>\n

To tie this back into Dracula<\/em>, maybe this would make the book all the more creepy reading it as a Victorian. This makes me think back to the article\u00a0from \u201c<\/em>Transylvania Superstitions\u201d, as I wonder how religion and superstition would interact during the Victorian Era, particularly regarding how one would interpret\u00a0Dracula.\u00a0<\/em>Gerard explains that \u201csuperstition in all its manifold varieties constitutes a sort of religion, applicable to the common household necessities of daily life\u201d (Gerard 332). In serving as a \u201csort of religion\u201d maybe the formulation of such superstitions such as Dracula are to fill the emptiness felt with the \u201ccrisis of faith\u201d. To put it more simply, if people are turning away from Catholicism and other mainstream sects of Christianity, what makes some witches and werewolves so much more crazy?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Bram Stoker’s\u00a0Dracula,\u00a0the concepts of life and death are some of the most important motifs throughout the novel, as, aside from the obvious amounts of violence present, characters are dealt with situations that highlight the beliefs on life and death during the Victorian Era. In chapter 15, Van Helsing confronts situations regarding death when thinking … Continue reading Burying the Undead in Dracula<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}