{"id":958,"date":"2023-09-18T11:34:51","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T15:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=958"},"modified":"2023-09-18T11:34:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T15:34:53","slug":"jonathan-needs-to-get-out-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/09\/18\/jonathan-needs-to-get-out-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan needs to get out more"},"content":{"rendered":"

During Jonathan\u2019s trip to Transylvania, he is fascinated by the way the locals look. In some of the towns he passed through, \u201c[t]he women looked pretty, except when you got near them…\u201d and of course, \u201c[t]he strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who are more barbarian than the rest…\u201d (9). He doesn\u2019t even think of them as people. Regarding the Slovaks, he was told that they were \u201c…very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion,” which just goes to show how ignorant he is of cultures outside of England (9). While racism and xenophobia do play a role in this, I think class does too. Jonathan is very dismissive of the peasants\u2019 superstitions and concern for him. When his landlady pleads with him to not go to the Count\u2019s castle on St. George\u2019s Day, he calls it \u201c…very ridiculous…\u201d but he does feel uneasy (11). While this could just be a shortcoming of Jonathan\u2019s character, I think Bram Stoker means it as commentary on the \u2018dignified English society\u2019, because part of the reason Jonathan is so skeptical of the locals is that they use crucifixes and idols, which \u201cEnglish Churchm[e]n\u201d look down on (11). However, he does not refuse the crucifix his landlady offers him, because it would be rude, which I think begins to hint at the role of class in the novel (11).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After his harrowing ride with the superstitious peasants and wolves to the Count\u2019s castle, the Count\u2019s civilized \u201c…courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all [Jonathan\u2019s] doubts and fears\u201d (23). I think it\u2019s funny that Jonathan can pinpoint what it is about the peasants that makes him feel uneasy: they are funny looking, superstitious, and worship idols, but he can\u2019t with Dracula. When \u201cthe Count leaned over [him] and his hands touched [him, he] could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank…\u201d (25). And this comes after Jonathan describes Dracula\u2019s as having fangs, claws, and hair growing out of his palms (24-25). Because Dracula has thus far acted respectable and courteous toward Jonathan and is a count who knows a lot about England and can speak English, he sees no reason to see any of these features and doubt Dracula\u2019s humanity like he did with the Slovaks. It made me wonder if Jonathan had ever seen a Romanian or if he thought all Romanians were as alarming looking as Dracula. This also plays into Stoker\u2019s possible commentary on English society during the fin de si\u00e8cle because Jonathan\u2019s obviously an educated person since he passed his solicitor examination before leaving London (22). It says a lot about English society that an educated person knows so little about people outside of England, especially because with new technology like the trains Jonathan takes to get to Romania, it is not difficult to travel anymore. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel like Stoker could be pointing out the irony of a person from a country that prided itself on being scientific and advanced and superior to other countries being completely out of place in another country that\u2019s considered inferior. And he doesn\u2019t stand out because he\u2019s better than everyone else, he\u2019s just ill-equipped. He doesn\u2019t speak the language the peasants speak (he has to pull out his polyglot dictionary to figure out that the locals are talking about witches and hell [12]). He\u00a0doesn\u2019t take their superstitions seriously and ends up being kidnapped by a creature the scientifically minded British don\u2019t believe exist, and he doesn\u2019t understand paprika. One would think that someone who lives in a country that had colonized almost half the world would know a little bit more about people and cultures outside of their small English bubble.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During Jonathan\u2019s trip to Transylvania, he is fascinated by the way the locals look. In some of the towns he passed through, \u201c[t]he women looked pretty, except when you got near them…\u201d and of course, \u201c[t]he strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who are more barbarian than the rest…\u201d (9). He doesn\u2019t even think … Continue reading Jonathan needs to get out more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-958","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\/958","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\/5325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}