Drac / Frank comparison quotes Flashcards
Monstrosity
D: "aquiline" "he lay like a filthy leech" F: "breathless horror and disgust filled my heart" "demoniacal corpse" "yellow skin"
Innocence of monsters
D: “There lay the count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed”
F:”a grin wrinkled his cheeks”
Voice of monsters
D: “my revenge is just begun!”
F: “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend”
“Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned away in disgust?”
Reverse-colonialism
D: “create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons”
“I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London”
F: “a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth”
Setting
Drac - submerging into civilised society
vs. Frank - distanced from society
D: “I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me.”
F: “fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours”
Dehumanising women
D: after ‘rape’ staking of Lucy, she is referred to as “the thing”; “the body”
“We men are determined to destroy this monster; but it is no part for a woman”
“She has a man’s brain”
F:
Distorted ambition
D: Seward experimenting with Renfield: “I might advance my own branch of science”
F: “I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers”
“animate lifeless clay”
Setting
Journey of discovery; unchartered territory
D: Jonathon “in the midst of the Carpathian Mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe”
F: Walton “region of beauty and delight”
“land of mist and snow”
Effeminate male
- emasculation through taboo homosexuality
D: “fair cheeks blazing red with passion”
“then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious”
F: “every night I was oppressed by a slow fever… most painful degree”
Women sexuality
D: “shone like pearls against the rubies of their voluptuous lips”
“languorous ecstasy”
“Why can’t they let a girl marry three men”
“voluptuous wantonness”
desire for sexual liberation - “half-reclining white figure” to “breathless”
Female innocence - Lucy’s letter vs. Elizabeth’s letter
SIMILARITIES:
- only time hear their voices are in letters - both these letters are a subconscious cry for help
- both letters (although in different ways) express an insecurity, both of which are exploited by monsters - both die as they are both lost
DIFFERENCES:
- Lucy’s letter is self-pitying, inconsistent, flirtatious - insecurity
- Elizabeth’s letter is selfless, adheres to social expectations, but insecurity - wants own children and self of belonging
dreams in Frankenstein
F: “I thought I held the corpse of my dead mother”
Elizabeth “livid with the hue of death”
Similarities / Differences in Jonathon and Frankenstein’s reaction to their monsters
SIMILARITIES
- both JH and Frank take advantage of creatures in vulnerable positions: JH strikes Dracula; Frank abandons monster
- both afraid of reverse-colonialism: JH demonises Dracula; Frank demonises monster
- both have selfish motivation : JH strikes Dracula to save own masculinity, knows can’t defeat; Frank flees monster to save his own reputation
DIFFERENCES
- at sight of monster, JH strikes it and is determined to defeat it; Frank flees his monster - monster is reflective of Frank’s scientific ability
Walton / Dracula
- Walton goes from civilised land to the wild
- Dracula goes from the wild to civilised land
=> both underestimate the power of nature/humanity with overreaching ambition - Walton desires companionship - one that mirrors his ambitions, as a rival to sustain his challenge and spurn him further?
- Dracula views friendship as a way to take advantage “to know not is to care not”
=> respect established through fear
Feminist perspective Madonna-whore complex
Elizabeth = angel
Lucy = when fallen, her demonic presence unifies the men
=> women characterised by either angel or demon
