Dracula Flashcards
SCIENCE / MODERNITY vs RELIGION / SUPERSTITION
- key points
- published 1897
- Concepts of infectious disease/germ theory not widely understood
- reflects society undergoing rapid technological change, questions this scientific, logical approach to solve humanity’s problems
- Voices Victorian fear of the unknown and uncontrollable. Suggests that old wisdom — superstition, the supernatural, and religion — are not to be discarded as irrelevant.
- Instead = used in harmony together. Science alone will not defeat Dracula; protags draw on both science and superstition to combat him.
SCIENCE / MODERNITY vs RELIGION / SUPERSTITION
- structure (1)
Epistolary elements (journal entries, phonograph and telegrams) = technologies of the time provided value
- Published in 1897, a number of key movements shaped comp
- Enlightenment Era: 1700s-1800s - overcoming superstition and ignorance, relying on rational thought and the scientific method = gain knowledge + make societal progress (Bristow). Built foundation for modern science in Western cult, led to…
**- Industrial Revolution: **1800-1900s - rapid growth in technological advancement, driven by scientific discovery.
Demonstrated = manuscripts of new techs:
- Telegraph (1837), “enable the Crew of Light to communicate rapidly across great distances”, often within the same day (Hindle).
- Phonograph, wax cylinder model used in the novel invented 1888, one year prior. Saved an immense amount of time, similar to the…
- Typewriter, MH: “I feel so grateful to the man who invented the ‘Traveller’s’ typewriter… I should have felt quite astray if I had to write with a pen…”
- Journal in shorthand: prevents D from accessing or reading J’s diary
Stoker displays the value of modern technologies in a rapidly advancing Victorian era.
SCIENCE / MODERNITY vs RELIGION / SUPERSTITION
- characterisation (2)
Characterisation = flaws of a scientifically-focused society.
- Modern theories (Darwin’s Theory of Evolution 1859), challenged trad religious beliefs (creation of the world), species originated from preexisting + natural selection.
- Stoker highlights anxieties of modernity = relevance of superstition/religion
- Lucy — inability to diagnose = limitations of science
- Arthur says she “has no special disease”, Dr Seward later concludes it “must be something mental”
- Clung to religion and spirituality = explain mass death and sickness (science/med not fully understood. Wrapping around “something tangible like a vampire, made it easier to blame and eradicate” (Howe).
- Van Helsing — wise, godlike, uses combined supernatural and modernity = defeat
- Despite extensive knowledge of medicine, “tradition and superstition are everything.”
- Crucifixes, communion wafer, garlic alongside science/med
- = phenomena exist beyond rational/logic.
- Dr Seward — purely scientific
- Initially doubtful (VH “in some way unhinged”)
- Beliefs questioned after discovering the power of alternative methods
- Discovers that J: some problems “which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill.”
Stoker suggests the over-reliance on science to solve societal issues, and illustrates instead turning to old superstition and religion as a more valuable method.
SCIENCE / MODERNITY vs RELIGION / SUPERSTITION
- setting (3)
Shift in setting represents transition from modernity to superstition
- Beginning: Jonathan travel Western, Victorian London, to Eastern region of rural Transylvania.
- Ruined castle and roads, no tech, unsettling changes to his normal life, unfamiliar land.
- “every known superstition in the world” is concentrated in Carpathians.
- D: “Transylvania is not England”
- Attitudes of villagers: approaching with crosses and charms to ward off evil
Begins to question perception of reality.
- Forced to ABANDON what he knows as TRUTH (Morrell).
- OG belief systems uprooted, replaced w superstition/religion. Must embrace or suffer consequences of supernatural (adopts the crucifix after seeing its power)
Dracula is a “success as a horror story because of the way it plays on human fears about basic parts of mortal life”, addressing the Victorian fear of lack of control that arises with societal progress (Hollingsworth).
FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN, ‘THE OTHER’, EAST VS WEST
- setting (1)
East and the Western worlds = polar opposites, two distinct, separate regions.
- First established: “impression [he] had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East”: (clearly defines transition from West to East, opposing forces)
- London (WEST): Victorian order, rationality and progress. Structured institutions (education, law, religion) uphold strict social order.
- JUXTA: Transylvania (EAST): chaotic, ‘strange’
- Stoker’s “imperial gaze”, assumption that the “white Western subject is central” (Kaplan)
- J: “The further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains”, diff b/w London + Trans roads “not kept in too good order.”
- JUXTA: disorganised, unlawful East, structured, ordered West.
- Unsettled: “queer dreams”, “dog howling”, “thirsty” = foreign alienation.
Dracula arriving Whitby
- Visual imagery/pathetic fallacy = threat to West
- “the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed”, with “the spirits of those lost at sea” touching their “living brethren with the clammy hands of death.”
- Ship = fleets of ships by the British Empire to invade foreign lands.
FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN, ‘THE OTHER’, EAST VS WEST
- characterisation - Dracula (2)
Stoker uses characterisation establish “clear hero and villain” from novel’s onset (Howe)
- Europe long history viewing Slavic people as ‘the other’.
- Roma and Jewish: were persecuted, forced to move and inhabit infertile soils, trafficked, segregated.
- = Europeans attempted purge their communities of the ‘outsider’: feared/disliked for holding onto their trad culture
= in lit appearance of ‘foreign’ scapegoats become more apparent” = DRACULA. (Hindle)
- High class + rank in his home country, wishes to rule not only over his people, but those in foreign lands, too.
- Represents East = foreign, invades, attacks, drains ‘civilised’ world of resources (blood).
Metaphor: reverse colonialism
- belief that the primitive will colonise the civilised world = collapse of British empire.
- voices Victorian fear of ‘The Other’ (unknown)
- Western colonialism ongoing, Dracula’s character linked by reversing the roles (East as an imperialist threat)
- Superior power to extract the ‘life’ of weaker forces to gain further strength, control.
- Houses across London — establishment of British colonies across globe
FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN, ‘THE OTHER’, EAST VS WEST
- characterisation - Harker (3)
In contrast, Jonathan Harker, “the epitome of the white middle-class man in Victorian England”, figure representing the ‘righteousness’ of the West (Hollingsworth).
- 1890s: British power/global dom all aspects of culture, trade etc declining = unrest in England.
- Counter this, Stoker uses Harker’s character = power of lawful, rigid Western societal system = British superiority
- **Solicitor: **upholds the law, what is good, morally and socially correct.
- **Meticulous journal: logic and facts
- Punctuality + order: **“rushing to the station at 7:30” and having to “sit in the carriage for more than an hour”
- While Dracula uses knowledge of the law to exploit it for what is seen as ‘evil’,
- J + co only unlawfully for purpose of a **‘higher law’ **(protect British society from foreign threat)
- Use this very social order to defeat Dracula (lack of connection to science, law and religion = downfall)
THE ‘NEW WOMAN’/ SEXUALITY
- representation (1)
Lucy + Mina display differing aspects of NW
- Approaching 19th century, Britain was advancing rapidly, (tech + cult) (Boyd).
- ‘New Woman’ pop 1880s = “progressive women who asserted their individuality and independence” (Hindle).
- Trad Victorian society = societal unrest “cultural order” challenged.
Lucy
- Heavy emphasis on physicality: “prettily” “sweetly” (objectification = sexual desire)
- “why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her?” … “heresy”.
- Reveals “the facade she wears to appease Victorian society” (Tota).
- Context: strict religious/gender norms, sexual drive viewed as wrong/irregular.
- Blood transfusions = sex: “made her truly his bride”. From four diff men
Mina
- “simply overwhelmed with work”: assistant schoolmistress, shorthand, typewriter.
- Meticulous journal: “peppered” with scientific theory, historical understanding, and literary and legal references (Boyd).
- Studious, industrious demeanour: contrast to Lucy, flighty, childlike
- Demonstrates equal or greater int capacity to her husband (team)
- Uncommon skillset for Victorian woman = contribute academically to society.
THE ‘NEW WOMAN’/ SEXUALITY
- preference (2)
Intellectually independent yet still conforms to a patriarchal role, and rejects the sexual autonomy aspect
Lucy
- “clear analogy between sexual desire and monstrosity” (Hollingsworth).
- Lust = religiously dangerous, enticing men to sin: JS: “unholy light”, luring or seducing Arthur, “under a spell”.
- Simile: brows to “coils of Medusa’s snakes” = parallel, Medusa “beautiful maiden” seduced by Perseus, punished = head of snakes = monster for sinning (Macquire).
- Reject trad motherhood: preys, JS/VH: “careless[ly]” fling a child on the ground, “growling over it as a dog growls over a bone”.
- “taking sustenance from children” = a “horrifying reversal” of the traditional female caregiver role (Clippard).
- Sexually independent NW= threat, undermining soc institutions + roles.
Mina
- Respects trad roles, despite independence
- Int regularly used to aid her husband + other men, socially acceptable and non-threatening
- Shorthand, typewriter, knowledge of train timetables “useful to Jonathan” once married
- Embodies “assertive New Woman” and the “compliantly feminine one” (Hindle).
- Dutiful, obedient: hypnosis, assist quest in subordinate way by “turning herself into a passive object” (Tota).
- VH: “man’s brain” and “woman’s heart”, “the good God fashioned her for a purpose” = ideal
THE ‘NEW WOMAN’/ SEXUALITY
- fates (3)
Two divergent fates reinforce Victorian attitudes towards NW: Stoker’s preference for more conservative approach
Lucy
- overt sexual drive + disregard for soc norms is punished by gruesome death, glorified
- VH to Art “strike in God’s name”
- Destroying Lucy sinful, non-religious behaviours morally correct, service to society.
- Women’s sexual proficiency = dangerous as weakened “foundations of the male-dominated Victorian society” (Carmichael).
- Objectification “the Thing”: distances from violence, justifies death = not human, monster
- Pathetic fallacy: after “air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang”
- Threat contained, restoring peace (Abid). men’s heroic acts = social order reestablished
Mina
- NW still adheres to Victorian values = survive.
- Simile: “gripping her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down” in a way that resembles “a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk.”
- Clear “non-consensual sexual nature”: Mina’s moral integrity = physically forced (Hollingsworth).
- JUXTA: Resistance to vamp corruption: Lucy begs Arthur to kiss her, Mina’s avoidance declares she must “touch or kiss [Jonathan] no more”
- Religious aspects: ‘selected’ by God based on morality to live or die. “Unclean” and “not worthy in His sight”, only live if “God will let [her]”
Mina vs Lucy = type of “gender boundary” deemed acceptable for women to cross (Tota).
