Category: 2017 Blog Post

One element that connects many of our texts is the explicit binary between science and the supernatural. This becomes especially apparent if one compares Robert Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Stevenson’s Dr. Lanyon – a minor characters in the narrative that still serves an immense purpose in its progression – does not believe in the supernatural. He is the voice of reason in an essentially mystical Victorian London. Dr. Jekyll – like Dr. Lanyon – is a respected and successful doctor but he chose a different path. Unlike his colleague Dr. Lanyon, he experiments with the human soul which Dr. Lanyon dismisses as “unscientific balderdash” (17).  In this regard Lanyon reminds me a lot of the other – often medically or otherwise scientifically – inclined male characters in our class readings. Examples include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Dracula’s Dr. Seward. While Holmes’ disbelief in the supernatural is confirmed when the apparently supernatural hound in The Hound of the Baskervilles turns out to be nothing more than an illusion, Dr. Seward and Dr. Lanyon are equally confronted with the actual presence of the supernatural in their Victorian world. Both men are medical doctors who doubt the spiritualism of some of their contemporaries – in this case mainly represented by Stoker’s Van Helsing and Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll respectively. The main difference between Seward and Lanyon, however, is how these two men deal with their new knowledge of the supernatural. Dr. Seward learns about the existence of bloodthirsty vampires and without hesitation joins Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker in finding and fighting Count Dracula. In Dr. Lanyon’s letter towards the end of the narrative, we are told that Lanyon is in fact the first person to observe the transformation of Mr. Hyde into Dr. Jekyll. Being present and observing this mystical transformation makes Lanyon’s whole worldview collapse, his “life is shaken to its roots” (102). He tells Utterson that he “sometimes think[s] if we knew all, we should be more glad to get away” (56). Accordingly, Dr. Lanyon prefers to leave a world in which the supernatural exists and suspends science and reason – the main principles that govern his life.

Overall, ‘men of science’ can be found in most of our Victorian readings. Due to the established binary of science and the supernatural, these men’s’ principles are usually tested and pushed to their limits. Yet, the characters react to this revelation in very different ways. Dr. Seward takes action and fights the supernatural vampire, Dr. Lanyon becomes passive and resorts to silence. He chooses not to speak about what he has observed and only tells his friend Utterson about it in a letter that Utterson may read after Lanyon’s death. The reason for these varying reactions to the supernatural might be found in the general setups of the two narratives. In Stoker’s Dracula, Dr. Seward plays a crucial role and can be considered one of the main characters. Stevenson’s Dr. Lanyon, however, is only a minor character that has few appearances in the narrative. Accordingly, he does not become an essential part of the story’s resolution like Dr. Seward in Dracula. Generally, one can say that Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde does not have a resolution at all. After the confessions of Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll, the narrative ends and there is no climactic ending in which the evil supernatural being is hunted down and killed. Thus, Dr. Lanyon reacted to the supernatural in a very different way than Dr. Seward because the two men, despite their similarities, serve very different purposes in two rather differently structured narrative.

 

Works Cited:

Stevenson, Robert. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. C. Scribner’s Sons, New York: 1886. Print.

In both “La Belle Dame” by John Keats and “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, female leads take action to pursue and provide pleasure for themselves in the form of a male companion. This directly contrasts the passive role of middle class women during the Victorian era, where despite having opportunities to receive education and social skills, these were limited to whatever men found pleasing. In other words, women were expected to “doll themselves up” and then wait for a suitor to notice. Yet in the aforementioned poems, the Dame and the Lady decide to skip this middle step and pursue a man on their own. Both cases lead to devastation, yet in different ways.

The secondary narrator of “La Belle Dame” is a knight destroyed by the Dame. He was used by her for her enjoyment and now wanders the lake in a dazed lost state. It is made clear by the Knight’s dream of “…pale kings and princes too, pale warriors…” (lines 35-36) that he is not the only victim of the Dame. Clearly this is a woman well practiced in pursuing her interests, particularly those of sexual nature.

The tale of the Lady from mythical land of Shalott runs along a similar theme, but with a significantly different end. In the poem, the Lady consistently tends to her weaving; a notably common domestic trade during the era of Sir Arthur (when the poem takes place) and the Victorian Era (when the work was written). When the Lady sees handsome Sir Arthur in her mirror, she does not prune herself to try and lure him, but rather turns from the mirror and gazes upon him directly. If the mirror can be taken to provide for the “lens” of a father or older brother a Victorian woman would have to “look through” to really have better opportunities in life, then here we see the Lady turn a literal 180 degrees from this form of containment. Because normally a single woman would have only the opportunities given to her by her closest male relative, this scene demonstrates the Lady’s moment of retracting from the crutch of masculine dominance over a women’s freedoms in a relationship / marriage. Unfortunately, the tale ends with the Lady floating along a frozen river “till her blood was frozen slowly” (line 147) all alone, with not even family to see her off.

Both poems, notably written by men, seem to be cautionary tales about giving women too much freedom – at some point they may seize it for themselves and only devastation will occur. This is clearly no greater tragedy for the patriarchy of the Victorian Era.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula presents the character of Dracula as a metaphor for the cultural paranoia of physical and moral decay surrounding syphilis and the author’s own experience with the debilitating illness. Social changes such as the emergence of “the New Woman” and progressive ideas about gender roles prompted a societal fear of declining female virtue and chastity. Syphilis was most prominent in Whitechapel, a district in London notorious for its high levels of prostitution and made famous by the Jack the Ripper murders. Many 19th century scientists believed that prostitutes conceived syphilis in their sexual organs as a result of their promiscuity. While encompassing society’s disapproval of prostitution, Dracula also demonstrates Stoker’s belief that swapping fluids with a stranger at night leads to a life of misery. The likeness of vampirism to syphilis are similar in their foreign origin, the way they spread, and the effects on the victim. Stoker demonstrates how a lack of a moral values leads to contracting foreign disease.

 

Both vampirism and STDs are believed to have started outside of London and arrived in London via ship.  According to Mark Rose, syphilis has New World origin and was transported across the Atlantic back to Europe following Columbus’ visit to the New World. Vampirism originated in Transylvania and was transported via Dracula to London by ship. Dracula arrives in England and “has succeeded after all, them, in his design in getting to London” (Stoker 200). He moves throughout the streets of London, undetected. Dracula appears as any other Londoner: “a tall, thin man with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard” (Stoker 183). Syphilis could lay dormant for up to 25 years, so someone could have syphilis but no one would know.  Both vampirism and syphilis lurked in the streets of London and could be unnoticed.

 

Mina’s idea that “some of the ‘New Women’ writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting” posed a shocking and progressive proposition upon conventional Victorian marriage norms (Stoker 99-100).  Upon receiving three marriage proposals on the same day, Lucy expresses her frustration that she cannot engage in polygamous marriage and marry all three of her suitors. Lucy writes Mina, “why can’t they [Victorian society] let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?” (Stoker 67). Due to Lucy’s promiscuity, Dracula views her as an easy target and Lucy is vulnerable to his evil powers and vampirism. Conversely, due to Mina’s chastity and her “traditional Victorian qualities of determination and loyalty towards her husband,” she is protected against the risk of contracting Dracula’s lure to vampirism (Buzwell).  British society frowned upon both parties involved in prostitution, that being the prostitute herself and the man likely cheating on his wife to engage in the exchange. Stoker believes that if one lacked moral values to prevent falling to the sexual lure of adultery, one would contract a sexually transmitted disease as a result. Stoker, whose writings demonstrated signs of guilt and sexual frustration within his marriage, likely had sex with a prostitute and contracted syphilis himself.

The similarities between syphilis and vampirism demonstrate Stoker’s belief that moral virtue will protect one against the harm of foreigners.

 

Works Cited

Buzwell, Greg. “Dracula: vampires, perversity and Victorian anxieties.” Discovering Literature: Romantics     and Victorians, British Library, 15 May 2014, www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/dracula#.

Rose, Mark. “Origins of Syphilis.” Archaeology Archive, version 50, revision 1, Archaeological Institute of America, Jan. 1997, archive.archaeology.org/9701/newsbriefs/syphilis.html.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Penguin Group, 1993.

 

Works Referenced

Hall, Lesley A. “’The Great Scourge’: Syphilis as a medical problem and moral metaphor, 1880-1916.” Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 23 May 1998, www.lesleyahall.net/grtscrge.htm.

 

What are the Authors of Dracula and Goblin Market getting at with their writing? Well, we can ignore the very valid meta-narrative that exists in the subtext and cultural context of the work. We could instead obsess over a postmodern interpretation, lacking real understanding and become extremely neurotic. I’d like to give a deconstruction  of this apprehension and misunderstanding regarding the legitimate concerns of Victorians who by the way are human beings, not the evil monsters it seems we are so fond of making them out to be. Ironic so many are so quick to “other” Victorians over “othered bodies”.

Why is it that there is anxiety surrounding “reverse colonization” or more accurately the colonization of one’s country? Well on a material level the more people you include in your country the fewer resources are distributed to its individual citizens. The world is a zero-sum game, there are not infinite resources. So when “foreign bodies” are introduced there are more competitors for the limited resources you possess within your country. We can connect this to Dracula’s desire to move to England: he is looking for a greater pool of resources to pull from. “This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad.” (4.62). Then there is the question of sovereignty. When you accept foreigners into your society they become a part of it but not fully. They have different desires and needs and will compete with you for political power. So not only do you have to compete with your own countrymen but you also have to compete with foreigners, or maybe just people of a different ethnic or racial group. Sovereignty and political power are seldom achieved in countries where different racial and ethnic groups must compete. We can connect this to Dracula extending his power when he arrives in England, controlling people who he has corrupted. Then there is the question of purity. In every culture that existed up until the 19th century the idea of purity featured prominently. It is held as an ideal and virtue that is in many ways the embodiment of beauty and the transcendent. When you introduce foreigners into your society you destroy the purity your ancestors have bestowed upon you, a carefully guarded gift that they fought for. So you move farther from the ideal while simultaneously shame the sacrifices made for you. That is why the “goblin men” are stigmatized, because they are a disruption in the society that has been carefully constructed fro these young women.

Why might they fixate on the “monstrous bodies” of foreigners? The focus on bodies might be because of the real physical differences that exist between people. Those real differences have real consequences in the real world. Bodies are not just avatars that are interchangeable. They represent a continuation of the mother and father. They are representative of a greater people that they belong to as bodies. So the fixation on bodies may have to do what they represent. The bodies are also sublime and horrific, interesting for a writer to write about.

Evidently, Dracula responds to a fear of reverse colonization in the United Kingdom. He represents the threat of foreigners invading England and wreaking havoc upon English people and ways of life. Dracula is free to reign over Transylvanians, yet it is only when he threatens the motherland of England that the courageous Brits muster up the strength to defeat him. Though Dracula had existed in Transylvania for centuries, only when he begins to threaten Great Britain with his wrath does he become a legitimate threat, one that is worth taking action against. Moreso, the emphasis on Dracula’s foreignness represents England’s preoccupation and fascination with all things exotic. Upon viewing Dracula’s castle, Mina notes how “there was something wild and uncanny about the place,” perhaps suggesting that Transylvania is an unruly place that must be subjugated by the English in order to be controlled (439). Additionally, all the vampires have a seductive, alluring quality that confounds the other characters. His strangely beautiful and attractive appearance seems to pose a threat to the other male characters. Despite Lucy’s three suitors, it seems that Dracula got the best of her in the end, turning her into a vampire and effectively killing her. Only by destroying Dracula are they able to save Mina from becoming like him, too. English colonialism is very much present in these ideas; the only way to protect English ideals are through conquering and destroying Dracula and the other vampires. In the end, Lucy resembles him in that she shares a similar foreign beauty that is almost repulsive to the British men. She becomes voluptuous, like the other foreign female vampires. In a way, Lucy becomes like those exotic women – seductive and desirable, yet repulsive. Dracula, an unwanted foreigner has taken and corrupted the delicate, innocent English woman and turned her into a lustful, child consuming monster that rejects any and all notions of western femininity.  Only after killing Lucy are they able to restore Lucy to how “we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity” (264). Thus, the vampires represent an obvious bias against foreigners – that they will invade the country, stealing and corrupting their women, thus devastating English culture and ideals.

The idea of sexuality experiences an immense amount of change in the Victorian Era and Christina Rossetti does a great job exploring many of the opinions during this time in her poem, “A Triad”.  Upon my first reading of this piece, I noticed that there are three types of women:   one unmarried whore, one young, love struck married girl, and one married woman who is sad and lonely in her relationship.  I think these three women are great portrayals of the many different types of women and relationships of this century and although the poem is short, Rossetti does a great job in depicting the criticism each woman faced.

The first woman is described as “one with lips / Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow” (Rossetti 1).  The Crimson lips brings us back to color red as a symbol of impurity alluding to the one type of woman during this time period who others judge as a whore because she is not tied down to a man.  The second woman “Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show” (Rossetti 5).  This woman is the type of woman whom all Victorian women were supposed to aspire to be.  She is young and in love with a man who basically uses her as a showpiece.  The third woman is “blue with famine after love” (Rossetti 6) who perhaps started her relationship as the young love struck woman but overtime found herself lonely and heartbroken.  These three women depict the complexities of marriage which is new to this time period.

I think the main message that a reader can take away from this poem is that no matter what path a woman chose; their life always ended in a sort of misery.  Rossetti unites these three woman in that they are all battling to find happiness yet as each woman chooses their path, there will always be criticism from others.  They may stay forever on “the threshold” (Rossetti 14) of life and never be able to cross it to find true happiness but I think these three women helped all women in years to come to challenge the norm and cross the threshold to find the independence they were searching for.

Although all the examples of sexuality in “Goblin Market” are purely ones of metaphor, there is still an extremely prominent theme of sex and female sexuality in the poem. Even though Lizzie stays composed and refrains from the “fruits of the goblins” that come out at night, telling her sister Laura “Their offers should not charm us, their evil gifts would harm us.” Laura is seen as pure, graceful and elegant– how the proper woman during the Victorian Era should be. Laura, on the other hand, while she starts out as pure, ends up becoming very impure and develops an “addiction” to the fruit. Once she is lured into the goblin’s’ market, she began to “suck their fruit globes fair or red, sweeter than honey from the rock… she never tasted such before, how could it cloy with the length of use?… she sucked until her lips were sore… and knew not was it night or day as she turned home alone.” Quite obviously, Laura’s encounter with the goblin’s “fruit” is a metaphor for fellatio and loss of her virginity. From this moment on, there is an obvious divergence between Laura and Lizzie– while Lizzie stays pure, works on her chores, and lives for the day, Laura spends her time pining for the fruits of the goblins, thus craving the night and not getting to her chores at all. While Lizzie yearns for the light (referring to heavenly, good tendencies), Laura yearns for the darkness (referring to sin).

When looking at this poem through the lens of the article “Daughters of Decadence: the New Woman in the Victorian Fin de Siecle”, it can be concluded that Rossetti is against the age of the “new woman”, and hopes for womankind to stick to the strict gender roles established for them. One of the largest factors the “new woman” embraces is her sexuality and need for lust. “Pursuing new sensations” was very important to the “new woman”, and freedom to have sex was one of the sensations women were wanting to enjoy. Rossetti warns in her poem the dangers of premarital sex, declaring that all who do will waste their lives away craving nothing but sex and losing sight in the jobs that women must perform. According to Rossetti, sex (after marriage!) is important, because it is seen at the end that the sisters are married with children (which implies that they have had sex), but ultimately, there is no stronger love and passion than love for a sister rather than a man. This is implied when the two say together “for there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather; to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands.”

What I am really trying to say here is that while there were many writers that supported this new Victorian idea of the “new woman”, there were many authors, like Rossetti who condemned it.

Rossetti’s poem, “Goblin Market” demonstrates the danger of overindulgence of sexuality. The Goblins’ fruit is representative of sex or sexual activity in some way, which can be clearly seen through the various ways the fruit is treated, one being Laura’s orgasmic reaction to eating it. Once Laura has eaten the fruit she is totally consumed by it as demonstrated by how she pledges to return the next night to buy some more. She says, “I ate and ate my fill, yet my mouth waters still.” Laura craves the fruit, and in other words she craves sex. It is the only thing that can occupy her mind, yet it is killing her. The fact that her mouth continuously waters for the fruit shows a fear of overindulgence. Laura becomes all consumed with the fruit, which leads to her literally becoming blinded. I think this shows how the Victorians were in some way afraid of sexuality because they believed that it would unleash something within a self. Sex is so taboo, that there seems to be a fear that once someone experiences it, they will turn into a sex crazed person.

After Laura eats the fruit she literally can do nothing else, “She no more swept the house, tended the fowls or cows, fetch’d honey, kneaded cakes of wheat…and would not eat.” It is as if once Laura has this experience she cannot be a good domestic woman. She stops her household chores and her hunger seems to be totally satiated for she ate no more. She only regenerates when she is repulsed by the fruit, “Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart, met the fire smoldering there and overbore its lesser flames.” It’s almost as if Laura is being exorcised. Her disgust for the fruit overpowers the passion she has for the fruit. And only when she fully recognizes her disgust, is when she regenerates. Rossetti ends the poem by restoring Victorian ideals.

Science and Pseudoscience figure prominently in Dracula because they reflect the confusion that Victorians felt about the mysteries of the modern world.  Throughout the novel, the line between science, pseudoscience, and superstition is blurred.   Although living in a time of modernity, some vestiges of the older times were still part of Victorian life such as superstition, belief in the occult, and seances.  Characters in Dracula  attempt to use science in order to explain a world of chaos and disorder, thereby representing a distinct Victorian anxiety.

Throughout Dracula, characters continually attempt to use science in order to solve their problems with the supernatural.  With the exception of Van Helsing, all of the characters need to be told that supernatural means need to be used to counteract supernatural forces.  For example, despite all of the evidence to suggest that there is no scientific explanation for Lucy’s behavior, her unnatural pallor, and her lack of body decomposition after death, Dr. Seward remains apprehensive.  He asks Van Helsing, “‘But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem and nothing to gain by it, no good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledge, why do it? Without such it is monstrous.’” (Stoker, 236).  Dr. Seward’s sensibilities as a Victorian doctor are challenged by Van Helsing.  He believes that nothing can be gained in terms of scientific knowledge by driving a stake through Lucy’s heart, but he fails to acknowledge what he saw before her death; that there were bite marks on her neck, garlic that had to be put around her neck, a crucifix, and that they had to transfuse blood into her despite the fact that he never saw her bleeding. Throughout Dr. Seward’s time with Lucy, un-scientific phenomena occurred, but he rejected it and refused to believe it because he could not concede that science was not able explain what happened before his eyes.  Moreover, the books that Van Helsing consults in order to treat Lucy’s vampire are all in Amsterdam, that is they are outsides of the confines of England.   

Van Helsing says, “I must go back to Amsterdam tonight. . . There are books there and things that I want” (Stoker, 178) and again later in the novel, as whenever he has to do research about the supernatural, it appears that no resources in England will help him.  One connotation of this is that the intellectual elite of England’s modern society is done with the supernatural superstitions of the past, while foreigners are more reluctant to part with old ways of belief.  This reflects the debate in Victorian society of science, versus religion, versus superstition which is why this science and pseudoscience feature so prominently in the novel.

Overall, science is the first resort of Dracula’s main characters.  This illustrates the changing times in Victorian society, showing that although science was deemed to be the best way to explain phenomena, other forms of belief such as superstition, and religion still had a place in the world.

Dracula as a story may be seen as a classic horror tale of a bloodsucking monster who dines on the blood of the living, an embodiment of Satan himself getting the weak to bow down to him. But an underlying meaning of the character and what he represents is what I feel Bram Stoker was genuinely trying to get across to his readers, the hope to display woman as having the same desires as men through sexuality in his writing. Stoker, by pointing out the sexual repression of women during the Victorian era was hoping to display how during the period they were expected to be pure until marriage and not show or perform any seductive or flirtatious acts around men. An example of how Bram Stoker was attempting to get this message across can be seen in this quote. “In a sort of sleep-waking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips, “Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!”(Stoker, 70-71). The context of this quote is from Lucy attempting to seduce Arthur Holmwood in an attempt to kill him to escape what is her apparent demise. The relation to the new woman and this quote is that while Lucy is turning into a vampire, she becomes overly sexualized. Like other vampires around Dracula, her repressed sexuality is finally noticed, and she becomes the sexual aggressor instead of having men flock to her in attempts to gain her hand in marriage.

This piece of text taken from Greg Buzwell’s article Dracula: vampires, perversity, and Victorian anxieties, ties well with what I believe Stoker was hoping to get across, “Some critics have argued that Stoker uses the character of Lucy to attack the concept of the New Woman – a term coined towards the end of the Victorian era to describe women who were taking advantage of newly available educational and employment opportunities to break free from the intellectual and social restraints imposed upon them by a male-dominated society.” These “new woman” were trying to change the game and become the ones who were going after men, or at least add a balance that was unseen before this time. To summarize the main point, I believe Stoker is promoting not primarily sexualization of woman, but the ability to let women feel and do as they please instead of leaving themselves to do what men decide is ok for them to do within this era.