Dracula - Context C1-4 - complete

Question 1

Give the 3 places that the uncanny can arise in according to Freud

Answer 1

○ First, they can arise when primitive, supposedly disproved beliefs suddenly seem to be confirmed or validated once again.
○ Second, the uncanny can arise when repressed infantile complexes are revived.
- the juxtapositions f qualities that shouldn’t be mixed

Question 2

what is the style of the novel

Answer 2

Epistolary

Question 3

give 4 things that the story being written in epistolary style does

Answer 3

○ The form also gives a sense of immediacy and vividness which helps the reader feel the extreme emotions the gothic genre aims to invoke within its readers
§ Builds tension with shifting perspectives, as we know some things the characters don’t
§ It’s disorientating
§ Adds to the verisimilitude (as multiple people verify the account)

Question 4

How do vampires pervert the sacrament of holy communion

Answer 4

○ Catholics are granted spiritual life by drinking the blood of Christ through transubstantiation
○ However Dracula is granted physical life by drinking the blood of humans

Question 5

What does the use of vampires as (atheistic?) degenerate figures link to in the context of the Victorian period

Answer 5

○ This exploration of vampires and soulless, amoral, atheistic degeneration links to the context of an increasingly secularised society obsessed with technological and scientific advancement, and thus potentially on the brink of moral collapse due to a loss of religion

Question 6

What does ray cluley think about whether Dracula is a masculine figure or not?

Answer 6

he says he is a highly masculine figure - ‘it may be that Dracula is the ultimate patriarchal fantasy’
As he is able to create more vampires by biting them, and hence he has the strength of men and the power of women and is thus completely self sufficient

Thus, he sees Dracula as the epitome of male dominance over women

Question 7

Harker becomes increasingly _____as the first few chapters progress

Answer 7

feminised

Question 8

what did V____say in Fortified Masculinity about the ideal male

Answer 8

the ideal male is in a ‘constant effort of closing oneself off to the Other’
(Other means foreignness, exoticism or strangeness)

§ Harker at once begins to lose this aspect of his masculinity when he starts eating foreign food and living in the strange castle Dracula

Question 9

give 5 aspects of mascluinity highlighted by Samantha _ in ‘Dreading he knew not what’

Answer 9

• virility
• chivalry and morality
• intent to exclude the other
• asceticism
• autonomy

○ Thus as the first four chapters progress, Harker loses his virility(constantly sleeping and often tired), intent to exclude the other(eating foreign food and living in a stranger’s house), his autonomy (as he becomes a prisoner), his asceticism (as he is sexually attracted to the vampire women), his chivalry (as he becomes increasingly fearful, although this is interspersed with moments of bravery like climbing into the Count’s room) and to a lesser extent his morality (which he sacrifices somewhat in his encounter with the vampire women? Or possibly sacrifices when he uses the crucifix however this is ambiguous as the crucifix seems to have protective qualities)

Question 10

what is the study of physiognimy and give 2 main proponents of the ideas of physiognimy

Answer 10

a psuedo-scientific pursuit which included the judgement of the character of a person by their face
- cesare Lombroso - Italian criminologist famous for the study of physiognimy
- max nordau published ‘degeneration in 1892 on this topic

Question 11

what are the two possible symbolci meanings of the castle dracula

Answer 11

psychoanalytic reading - it brings out harker’s subconscious desires
- or (gothic reading) brings out Harker’s and the readers primal fear of enclosed spaces

Question 12

Who proposed the terror vs horror theory/frame for thinking about the gothic

Answer 12

ann Radcliffe (18th century author of gothic texts such as the Italian and teh Mysteries of Udolpho)

Question 13

what is terror according to Radcliffe

Answer 13

• it precedes the horrifying experience
• it is dread/anticipation whcih can be drawn out putting a people in a state of anxiety

Question 14

what is horror according to Radcliffe

Answer 14

• the revulsion that follows a frightening experience

Question 15

Describe the use of terror vs horror in the first four chapters of Dracula

Answer 15

• the sense of terror builds on the way
• horror = seeing Dracula climb down the wall in a ‘lizard fashion’
• and the vampire women (horror)
• and the count in the coffin gorged with blood like a ‘leech’

Question 16

what is the sublime and how does it link to the first 4 chapters

Answer 16

• vast/dark/gloomy/threatening/great and overpowering objects
• there is delight/pleasure mingled with ‘horror’ (according to John Dennis)
• links to castle Dracula

Question 17

In 18__, sir Charles ___ publishes ‘__ ___ __’ , what does it say And why is it significant

Answer 17

the earth is millions of years old (it should be much younger according to the bible)
- this challenges literalist Christianity

Question 18

what was Catholicism associated with in Victorian Britain

Answer 18

Foreign customs/superstitions

Question 19

when did Darwin publish his books nd what was it called and why was it significant

Answer 19

arwinism - ‘On the Origin of Species’ published 1859
○ Directly challenged Christian creationist and design theories
○ Also begged the question of where the soul comes from?
§ The culmination of the Victorian love of science and Christian values
- The challenge of science to religion led to religious polarisation

Question 20

How are vampires ‘other’

Answer 20

○ Part of the irrational world
○ Operate at night
Live in the world of dreams and nightmares

Question 21

How is otherness ambiguous in society

Answer 21

both glamorous and threatening

Question 22

what is liminality

Answer 22

tension between antithetical states of being

Question 23

how are vampires liminal (what antithetical states do they straddle)

Answer 23

○ Human and animal
○ Living and dead
○ Young and old
○ Sane and mad
○ Modern and ancient
§ The characteristic of immortality/eternality straddles these two oppositions
○ Master and servant
§ Which Dracula literally straddles
§ But also metaphorically as the vampire has lots of physical strength (physical mastery), but is made servile by his desire for blood

Question 24

What does sue ___say about the vampire

Answer 24

‘the vampire frequently acts as a lightning rod for the specific cultural anxieties of the moment’

Question 25

What are wolves symbolic of

Answer 25

• predators
• fear of the unknown/supernatural
• connects to werewolves
• disturbed natural states

Question 26

how is the crucifix an ambiguous symbol?

Answer 26

• is it a religious weapon/form of defence?
• or is it a mark of superstition

Question 27

what is the idea of the angel in the house and who was it modelled on

Answer 27

• Queen Victoria (a symbolic mother for the country)
• she was a supportive mother, wife, homemaker, with impeccable virtues
• blended piety and domesticity

Question 28

when was Dracula published

Answer 28

1897 (At the end of queen Victoria’s dates)

Question 29

give queen victorias dates

Answer 29

1837-1901

Question 30

how is it significant for the novel that it was published at the end of queen victorias reign

Answer 30

she was aging
- there was a sense that traditional values of womanhood were in decline with her

Question 31

what was the idea of the new woman

Answer 31

• • Progressive women in search of economic, educational and sexual liberation(the ability to choose sexual partners
  • while maintaining social respectability
  • Proto-feminist (as not yet seeking suffrage)

Question 32

What is female hysteria

Answer 32

• a condition that some women suffered because they didnt conform to society (particularly societal expectations around sex, and hence they repressed sexual desires leading to:
• nervousness
• insomnia
• irritability
• loss of appetite
• ‘tendency to cause trouble’

Question 33

what are the two contrasting biblical examples of femininity

Answer 33

• eve and the Virgin Mary

Question 34

what is the Madonna whore dichotomy

Answer 34

• a distinction between types of femininity rooted in the biblical distinction between eve and the Virgin Mary
• women are pure Madonna or impure whore

Question 35

what did Freud say about the Madonna Whore dichotomy

Answer 35

‘where such men love, they have no desire, and where they desire, they cannot love’

Question 36

• what is a fallen woman
• How are fallen woman a danger to the morality of men - give an example from the bible

Answer 36

• eve corrupts Adam by committing original sin
• Adam is thus the victim
• a woman who has had sex before marriage = a fallen woman
• thus in the same way as eve tempts Adam, a fallen woman tempts men as she has given into temptation

Question 37

how is the bedroom a very gothic place

Answer 37

• dreams, nightmares and sex happen here
• it is so personal it is almost symbolic of the id?

Question 38

Give an example of a cultural object that explores the dream-reality liminality

Answer 38

Henry Fuseli’s ‘the nightmare’ (1781)
= it depicts a damsel in distress who is trapped under an incubus
- it is unclear whether she is dreaming of the incubus or whether it is really there

Question 39

Compare Philip ___’s painting in ____ (date) called ‘the Vampyre’ to Henry Fuseli’s the nightmare

Answer 39

Jones 1897
- the man is the victim, a woman is vampirically sucking male blood
- showing the growing cultural anxiety around fallen women/women as temptresses rather than victims

Question 40

name 7 important gothic trope words to get into essays

Answer 40

• virginal female victims
• the troubling fantasy world of sleep and trance-like states
• sin
• transgression
• taboo
• eroticism
• anxieties/preoccupations with x

Question 41

in the 19th century what 4 gothic tropes become linked TRIAL DELETION

Answer 41

sin, transgression, taboo and eroticism