Category: 2023 Blog Post

Dracula by Bram Stoker relies on suspense and tension to truly expedite the novel’s horror and thriller aspects. One way in which this mood is accomplished is through the books epistolary format. The entire novel depends on no main protagonist but rather a grouping of letters, diary entries and journals collected by an ensemble of characters. Other than broadening the points of view for the readers and tying in a number of perspectives, the format sets the novel in an interesting timeline. Every excerpt we as the reader get to view has been written contemporaneously with the events taking place, meaning that we aren’t quite sure who makes it out alive. If the journal and diary entries had been written from characters looking back on past events then we know their reflection is coming from a safe place, or at least one where they are alive, but it’s the uncertainty that really heightens the suspense and works so well for the story. We can really see this with the death of Lucy who was once so enthusiastic in her letters and respected by the people around her and watch as these outside observations turn from complementary to concerned. Tensions also rise with the fact that we may be reading from unreliable sources, or at least that there may be some possible biases amongst the array of characters since we are only seeing snippets of the truth.  

 

Chapter 22, of Bram Stoker’s Dracula reveals the anxieties of the time period that Bram Stoker lived in. Through the entire progression of the Dracula text Bram Stoker shines a spotlight on the fear of the unusual. Despite the fact that unusualness is what fuels a horror novel, it is the unusualness that follows one of the main characters, Dracula, throughout the novel. Stoker writes, ”And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilize this earth…”(Stoker 317). In this scene from page 317 Dr. Van Helsing is telling the others about the need to eliminate Dracula. At base level this excerpt seems to only be about the removal of a monster that goes against the beliefs of the church, however, with knowledge of what Dracula is a symbol of the meaning changes. Dracula is a symbol of fear of foreigners. Dracula’s character drives the fear that makes this novel a horror novel not through gore and blood only but by playing with the internalized fear of Europeans in this time period and reverse colonization. 

Bram Stoker’s utilization of the words “duty” and “sterilization” have more meaning than what can be seen on the surface. At face value “duty” means a job and “sterilization” means to destroy or get rid of completely. The utilization of this diction with regard to the killing of Dracula puts emphasis on an almost “clinical” side of the group’s view on Dracula. Dracula is foreign to the group, and in this time period the idea of foreigners also brought the idea of disease into mind. Not only does this bring in the idea of disease into mind but specifically the spread of foreigners like a disease. The idea of Dracula colonizing England through his bite is parallel to the fear of reverse colonization in England at this time. Dracula’s actions have the effect they do on a reader of this time period as they target a fear of the normal becoming abnormal.

Sources Cited:

Bram Stoker, et al. Dracula. London, Penguin Books, 2019.

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott is about a woman in a tower locked into an endless cycle of weaving. I’ve noticed that a lens of reading I have trouble putting away is that of a person with OCD. I think because OCD is such a misunderstood illness, as well as one that is so deeply ingrained in the person, many authors, especially from before the modern era, will describe a character with OCD tendencies without even meaning to. I believe the Lady of Shalott is one of these characters. The lines that made me think that come from the second stanza in part II which read, “A charmed web she weaves away. A curse is on her, if she stay Her weaving, either night or day, To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be; Therefore she weaveth steadily”(Tennyson).

I was diagnosed with OCD when I was sixteen, but am able to trace symptoms all the way back to when I was six. A phenomenon that’s been incredibly common for me, and other people with OCD is feeling an unknown force of something bad you cannot name. You know that something bad will happen when you don’t complete a compulsion, but you can’t always name what that bad thing is. The O in OCD obviously stands for obsessive which refers to an intrusive thought. The C stands for compulsive which is your response to the obsession. I believe the Lady of Shalott’s obsession is the curse, and her compulsion is not to stop weaving. As any therapist will tell you, most(if not all) obsessions about something bad happening don’t come true. But unfortunately, when the Lady of Shalott breaks the pattern, she dies, fulfilling the curse.

I don’t know enough about Tennyson or the year 1832 to say if this was intentional. But this is exactly what I mean by how OCD becomes such an ingrained part of the person. As always, one of our texts comes back to a woman who is in some way, mad, whether her particular madness is actually OCD, like I believe, another condition, or just general madness caused by being in the tower. I think the idea of this particular type of mad woman dying because she stops her compulsion should upset me in some way, but oddly, the part that sticks out to me is that I can relate to something written so long ago. I don’t think the madness of humanity has changed much, it’s just our reactions to it.

 

In The Lady of Shalott, the poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson encapsulates a story of a woman and her ill-awaited fate. The thirteenth stanza reads almost like a nursery rhyme and is what I deem the climax of the story.

“She left the web, she left the loom

She made three paces thro’ the room

She saw the water-flower bloom

She saw the helmet and the plume,

            She look’d down to Camelot

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack’d from side to side;

‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried

            The Lady of Shalott”

Many interesting gems are hidden in this stanza. First, the usage of anaphora and the repetition and emphasis of “she”, not only brings attention to the end of the sentence, like what poems usually do, but it also brings attention to the beginning of the sentence. This creates a theatrical and powerful effect and sets the tone and tension for how the next stanzas would read.

An example of a similar poem is “Humpty Dumpty” written by Samuel Arnold

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.”

Humpty Dumpty now is known as a children’s nursery rhyme, but it is only because of its addictive repetition that it can be so. The use of anaphora can create a subconscious rhythm that gives it a childish and youthful flow to the poem and a similar effect is shown in the 13^th stanza.

This stanza is also the first time the word “me” is mentioned as the Lady of Shalott is speaking for the first time. Right before she does so, “the mirror crack’d from side to side”. There is nothing good about this line. Whether it is an egg or a mirror, something breaking or cracking is significant at any given moment. The poem could end right after this stanza, and it could be easy for anyone to predict what would happen to the Lady of Shalott.

The way this stanza was structured and written is significant because it shows the kind of person the Lady of Shalott is, childish and ignorant. It is said that Humpty Dumpty was rumored to be an egg because no sane person would be stupid enough to fall off a wall that would send you to death. In the same way, the crack of the mirror signifies not only her death but the ignorant actions that brought her to her own death that no one would be able to save, not even eighty men.

Jonathan Harker’s note at the end of Dracula encapsulates British Victorian anxieties regarding “good” versus “bad” immigrants. In his note, Jonathan muses over the aftermath of the demise of Dracula– the representation of the “bad” immigrant that Victorians feared. Jonathan uses most of his short note to focus heavily on the death of Quincey, a foreigner from America, and ends his writing with the thoughts of Van Helsing, a Dutch doctor (Stoker 402). Both Quincey and Van Helsing represent the idea of the “good” immigrant in Victorian England.

At no point in the novel were Quincey and Van Helsing considered to be bad immigrants or foreigners, but they are clearly portrayed as odd and out of place throughout the story. The other characters tend to note Quincey and Van Helsing’s strange accents and behaviors, such as Quincey’s stereotypical American enthusiasm for guns and overly Texan turns of phrase. So, while Quincey and Van Helsing were both accepted by the English characters in the novel, it was still made obvious that they did not truly belong amongst the British.

In Jonathans note, it is clear that the “unbelonging” of Quincey and Van Helsing has shifted after Count Dracula’s death. In giving up his life to defeat Dracula and save Mina, Quincey has cemented himself as someone who can truly belong in England. By sacrificing himself, Quincey demonstrated that he was dedicated to Jonathan, Mina, and the rest of the Englishmen in Dracula and, therefore, showed that he was truly loyal to England. Although Van Helsing did not give up his life to defeat his vampire foe, he put his life on the line multiple times throughout the story, and his knowledge and expertise were some of the main reasons why their mission was a success. Because of his continuous demonstrations of loyalty to the English characters around him (especially Mina), Van Helsing solidified himself as a “good” immigrant by showing that he would not betray England or its people.

The dichotomy between “good” and “bad” immigrants is so strongly depicted in Jonathan’s note because it shows the triumph felt by the “little band of men” upon their final defeat of the “bad” immigrant that plagued them (Stoker 402). The naming of Mina and Jonathan’s son after Quincey, too, shows how Quincey has almost been reincarnated as a “true” Englishman by sacrificing his life for Mina. Now, the spirit of the “good” immigrants (Quincey and Van Helsing) can live on within a “true” British person.

 

Does Stoker believe women are unable to survive without men?

 

In Stoker’s novel Dracula, he makes it very clear that Dracula, the source of terror and destruction, only targets women. While there are sexual undertones in Dracula sucking their blood and attacking them, there is an underlying belief that Stoker has, demonstrating that women, due to their feminine nature and their lack of natural strength, are unable to protect themselves from harmful things. Therefore, Stoker makes it clear that men not only can, but have a responsibility to protect women and be their guardians.

While Lucy is in distress from blood loss, she requires multiple blood transfusions. Each of these transfusions are performed by men, and Van Helsing, referring to Arthur, specifically says, “ ‘He is so young and strong and of blood so pure that we need not defibrinate it.’ Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the operation” (Stoker 133). The idea that Arthur is “young and strong” is emphasized, and these lines demonstrate that a man, being so fit to protect and provide, are supposed to do so since women cannot do that themselves. Additionally, fitting with late 19^th century values, there is more emphasis placed on the quality of his blood, since he comes from an upper class family. This belief that he has a biological difference in him due to his class furthers the idea that men, specifically upper class men, are supreme beings in society.

Additionally in the story, when Dracula is hunted and killed, the men do the “hard” tasks, leaving Mina mostly out of the action. This provides more evidence that Stoker believed men were far more important than women, because he also put Mina in a vulnerable place and made her suffer, while the male characters provided for her safety. Without male characters, Dracula would not have been able to function as a story, because Van Helsing would not have been able to make his discoveries and give key insights to the characters, and Dracula would have feasted on the blood of women with no repercussions.

At first blush, Lucy is a figure of girlish innocence who dies pure. However, an alternate reading suggests that Stoker attempts to use Lucy’s promiscuity to justify her fate. She is portrayed as overly flirtatious when, after turning down two proposals, she “couldn’t help feeling a sort of exultation that he was two in one day.” After all three proposals she wonders “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her…?” The idea of a woman not being singularly connected with only one man would have made her “a horrid flirt” and I believe that Stoker intended the audience to view her as such. Many characters view Lucy as the embodiment of purity and innocence, making her ‘promiscuity’ a representation of evil living hidden amongst goodness. 

Lucy attempts to take the traditional (and only socially acceptable) path, a monogamous marriage to a man. She never lives to see her wedding day as she dies shortly after getting engaged. She dies because she has been seduced by Dracula. One of her first encounters with him sees her “waking unclad in a churchyard at night,” which would be the height of scandal for a young lady if anyone other than Mina was to find out. Lucy effectively cheats on Arthur with Dracula. In a world where a one-time blood transfusion is as good as a wedding, Dracula weds Lucy night after night. Only once she is dead do the other characters see her secret inner self reflected on her outer self. Her pristine white dress is stained with blood and “the purity [turned] to voluptuous wantonness.” 

Bram Stoker uses vampirism to show different vulnerabilities in women. In opposite fashions,we see Mina and Lucy fall prey to the aggressor in Dracula. Lucy faces a quick decline from her normal self, whereas Mina’s transformation drags on throughout the whole novel. Lucy Westenra turned victim to Dracula immediately. “My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness” (Dracula XVI). Stoker portrays Lucy with an alter-ego. Her once kind, heartfelt personality drifted to a soulless, powerful vampire. Stoker writes this to show how some females were hurt by the expectations of society. Once Lucy transitioned to a vampire, she became a hopeless, broken woman, hence Van Helsing and Holmwood finally taking her life. Stoker breaking Lucy’s character shows the reader how women that fell vulnerable to the expectations of Britain society became the complete opposite of the ideal nineteenth century woman. 

Opposingly, Mina spent her journey fighting off the evil spirit of Dracula. Stoker writes, ”She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do” (Dracula XXII). This quote describes Mina in a completely different manner with respect to Lucy. Mina symbolizes the strength of women to persevere throughout 18th-19th century Victorian society. During this time period, most women were looked at as weaker than men. They were often viewed to be controlled by their emotions, modest, and self-deprecating. Mina’s impressive ability to fight the vampire’s power was Stoker’s purpose of writing. He wanted Mina to be an inspiration to all women reading this novel. As Mina became more and more “powerful” by avoiding Dracula’s possession, the men in the story felt more impelled to take care of her. Stoker’s showing of feminine power represented what all women in the 19th century could be if they did not fall vulnerable to proprietary men.

Dracula has been popular since the day it came out because of the threat of death in the battle of good versus evil. Lots of people adhere to scary movies or Halloween for similar reasons. The first step is having a sense of darkness, and in Dracula, the dark figure is Dracula. When characters are around these dark figures, like a vampire that drinks people’s blood, it gives the reader anxiety and pushes them to keep reading to find out if the character can survive. For example, when Jonathan Harker contemplated his escape from imprisonment, he stated, “I determined then and there to scale the wall again and gain the Count’s room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of evils.” (Stoker, Chapter 4). In these moments, the reader is glued to the book because people tend to imagine what they would do in the same situation. For example, readers might ask themselves, how would I escape? or I wonder if Dracula will catch him. 

The thought of not knowing what will happen next is what allows Dracula and many other stories like it to succeed. However, in order to establish the anxiety that keeps readers attacked, there has to be a display of evil to begin with. For instance, in Dracula’s attack on Lucy, Dr. Seward states, “the flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her mother’s bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white and mangled” (Stoker, Chapter 12). The reader is constantly exposed to the descriptive language of Dracula’s attacks, allowing them to have a great sense of the danger Dracula poses. Moments of violence from Dracula and other vampires create suspense and uncertainty for the reader, which allows the Novel to become exciting and popular.