chapters 17-21 - complete

Question 1

before they meet, Seward expects harker to embody ___ but instead he finds ‘___give a quote__’

Answer 1

muscular Christianity
a ‘quiet, business-like gentleman’

Question 2

how is the asylum a liminal setting

Answer 2

exposes the boundary between madness and sanity

Question 3

Dracula is the other - a post colonial reading would take this as implying he is also what?

Answer 3

a monster

Question 4

there is an antithesis between the ‘other’/’monster’ and what people in the story?

Answer 4

‘good men’

Question 5

in the quote ‘man’s brain’ and ‘woman’s heart’, the organs are examples of what

Answer 5

metonyms (for intelligence and care)

Question 6

when mina is wronged, what does harker become consumed by?

Answer 6

‘volcanic energy’
- demonstrating a hyper masculinity

Question 7

give a quote about mina being connected with the maternal

Answer 7

she has a ‘mother spirit’

Question 8

how is mina antithetical to the vampire women in a key way (to do with the maternal)

Answer 8

mina has the ‘mother spirit’ but the vampire women and Lucy eat children (subvert maternal conventions)

Question 9

being a sceptic in victorian literature is good/dangerous

Answer 9

dangerous

Question 10

Dracula has what type of animal at his command which he floods the chapel where he is storing his coffins with - what does this animal symbolise (give 4 things)

Answer 10

rats
○ Otherness
○ Invasion
○ Contamination/disease
○ They reproduce quickly
§ Population anxiety
§ From a post-colonial perspective this shows xenophobic fears

Question 11

mina’s symptoms of becoming a vampire sound like what condition
- give an example of one such symptom

Answer 11

female hysteria
- being over emotional (‘crying like a silly fool’)

Question 12

the fact that the coffins go to London links to what genre

Answer 12

the urban gothic

Question 13

why are urban settings primed for the gothic

Answer 13

• meeting place for many people so fears around immigration and disease can be exploited

Question 14

what does renfield exclaim about Dracula? what does this show?

Answer 14

‘come in Lord and master!’
- he is a willing slave

Question 15

what two contrasting things is renfield described as?

Answer 15

a ‘pet lunatic’ and a ‘polished gentleman’
- He defies social categories, disturbing the Victorian mindset
Showing appearances can be deceptive
This is disturbing to Seward
He calls Renfield a ‘pet’ (dehumanising him)

Question 16

renfield is an example of someone who is undergone ___at the hands of Dracula

Answer 16

degeneration

Question 17

renfield compliments 3 of the 4 men - what is the quote that evidences this, who is left out?

Answer 17

‘nationality, heredity…possession of natural gifts’
harker is overlooked (not mentioned by Renfield)

Question 18

at the end of the scene where renfield pleads for his release how is renfield described as speaking? what wider theme does this link to?

Answer 18

with a ‘well bred voice’
the ‘lunacy panic’ - who is mad and who isn’t?

Question 19

what is the lunacy panic idea

Answer 19

fear as to who is mad and who isn’t

Question 20

mina is experiencing troubled sleep, over emotionality during her degeneration however she decides to do what?

Answer 20

‘I shall put a bold face on’
- suppress her own emotion to preserve Jonathan’s state of mind in a performance of femininity

Question 21

mina says what about the role of women and gender performativity - give the quote and a sentence of analysis

Answer 21

‘I suppose it is just one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn’ (when talking about repression of over emotionality)
howing stoker sees this repression as a necessary part of the role of women - he sees women having a duty to present as the ‘Angel in the house’
□ However he also acknowledges that this role engenders a certain amount of pathos, as women are ‘poor’
- However this is also a ‘lesson’, showing gender identity is learnt and a performance
§ From a feminist perspective, this is gender performativity
□ The idea that gender is a ‘performance’ which we learn from other people and have to

Question 22

what is gender performativity as an idea?

Answer 22

the idea that gender is a performance which we learn from other people

Question 23

in the scene were mina is forced to drink Dracula’s blood, how is the imagery of breastfeeding drawn upon? how is it subverted (give 2 ways)

Answer 23

mina is sucking from Dracula’s ‘bosom’
as Dracula ‘opened a vein in his breast…pressed my mouth to the wound’
- the imagery is very disturbing and subversive
- having a male in the female position subverts the image
- having an adult (Mina)in the position of the child shows a Gothic disturbance to the natural order

Question 24

the end of the scene in which mina is forced to drink Dracula’s blood is sexualised - give a quote to support this - what is blood a proxy for?

Answer 24

§ ‘I must suffocate or swallow some of the…’
Blood is a proxy for semen

Question 25

where does the scene were mina is forced to drink Dracula’s blood take place?

Answer 25

in mina’s bedroom

Question 26

in gothic/victorian literature a woman’s bedroom is a proxy for what

Answer 26

the woman’s body

Question 27

a woman’s bedroom is meant to be ___. it can’t be entered by anyone apart from her and_____ as invasion of the bedroom constitutes an invasion of ____

Answer 27

sacrosanct/absolutely pure
husband
the body

Question 28

how does van helsing justify his entrance to mina’s bedroom when entering to try and save her from Dracula

Answer 28

he is a doctor

Question 29

give a quote from the scene when mina is forced to drink Draculas blood about kitten and milk imagery
- how does this emphasise the cruelty of Dracula’s act? what does it suggest about dracula’s moral position? what does it suggest about mina’s level of innocence?

Answer 29

‘a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk’ (compared to Dracula forcing mina to drink his blood)
§ Because it is a child (meant to be morally pure and innocent) being cruel
§ However they have no sense of right and wrong - which makes children amoral
§ So this image is amoral and not immoral
□ Perhaps the count has no sense of right and wrong - no moral compass at all?
§ The kitten is more innocent than the child (Mina is more innocent than an innocent child - very innocent?)

Question 30

what does Dracula describe mina’s blood as and what ritual does this link to

Answer 30

‘my bountiful wine-press’
- transubstantiation
- a subversion of the eucharist

Question 31

Dracula teases her during his attack - what kind of moment is this?

Answer 31

a sadistic moment - like the marquis in the bloody chamber who calls the protagonist ‘my little nun’

Question 32

mina is both ___ and __ impure after her encounter with Dracula

Answer 32

physically and morally

Question 33

drinking Dracula’s good is equivalent to what for mina?

Answer 33

sex outside of marriage - she is effectively a fallen woman

Question 34

mina has blood smeared on her lips after her encounter with Dracula - what does she call this blood

Answer 34

‘pollution’

Question 35

the count has what on his forehead

Answer 35

a mark - due to Jonathan hitting him with a shovel

Question 36

how is Harker emasculated in the scene where Mina is forced to suck Dracula’s blood - give 4 ways in which this happens

Answer 36

he is the victim of a symbolic adultery (cuckolded)
○ As Mina has been attacked on the bed she shares with Harker
- They invade his bedroom
- His face is ‘flushed’ he seems to be in a ‘stupor’
Mina feels sorry for Harker ‘As if [Harker] were the injured one’

Question 37

in the scene were mina is forced to suck dracula’s blood there is a great deal of ____ as it is a violation of her identity and body and she says she feels an ‘____ grief’ what does she feel this grief for?

Answer 37

pathos
endless
- her life/connection with God

Question 38

mina does/doenst feel complicit in her violation by Dracula? give a quote to support your answer

Answer 38

does
○ ‘what have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days’
○ She says ‘I did not want to hinder him’
§ She understands her complicity

Question 39

what does Dracula call mina?(referencing the bible) who does this make mina?

Answer 39

‘flesh of my flesh’ (this is verbatim in Genesis 2:23)
eve - the ultimate fallen woman

Question 40

after mina is violated by Dracula how is Jonathan described (after being emasculated)

Answer 40

having ‘all the man in him awake’

Question 41

give a symbol showing mina poses a threat of corruption to Harker

Answer 41

Harker’s ‘white night-robe [is] stained with blood where her lips had touched’

Question 42

mina recognises what Dracula has done to her - what does she exclaim?

Answer 42

‘unclean, unclean!’

Question 43

how could mina’s interaction with Dracula and the corresponding effect on the relationship between mina and harker be read as a microcosm?

Answer 43

• If Harker stands for all men, and Mina stands for all women
  
  • Mina now thinks of herself as Harker’s ‘worst enemy’ because of her capacity for corruption - she thinks she shouldn’t touch or kiss him anymore as he is unclean
    This scene could be a microcosm for contemporary attitudes to gender role

Question 44

give 3 characters in other texts which can be used to explore madness

Answer 44

bertha mason in Jane eyre
victor frankenstien in frankenstien
Jekyll

Question 45

mad characters in the gothic often posses what

Answer 45

forbidden knowledge

Question 46

how does the fact that angela Carter has read Dracula influence our reading?

Answer 46

• She is using stoker’s writing (AO4)
  
  • For example Dracula has used symbolic sex scenes and a sadistic character (Dracula)
    ○ She turns symbolic scenes and supernatural characters into literal sex scenes and human characters (such as the Marquis)