Heroes Flashcards
Dracula
Stoker mainly presents the typical gothic male hero, inspired to save the damsel in distress
However, he also depicts how the typical contemporary middle-class man cannot defeat supernatural forces, and how science alone cannot explain everything
Van Helsing is the true hero of the story as without him, the other men would not have defeated Dracula, suggesting the limitations of the rational scientific world that was developing at the time
Implying that the scientific world will not be able to overcome everything, and perhaps reflecting middle class fears of the return of the aristocracy, or the fall of their fortunes
Mina is also a hero in a way, she helps the men track down Dracula and organises the diaries of all the men
But despite this she is always seen for her maternal element, suggesting that women can be modern, but only to an extent otherwise they will threaten society and be punished for this, and be restored by male heroism, such as what happens to Lucy
TBC
In ‘The Bloody Chamber’ Carter positions the narrator’s mother as her ‘macho’ rescuer, thus radically reworks the traditional fairy tale representation of the maternal figure
In fairy tales, mothers typically appear as the wicked stepmother, the passive mother who is unable to protect her daughter, or as the fairy godmother whose benevolence nevertheless operates within strict patriarchal limits
Offers an alternative to traditional narratives that perpetuate the notion that girls must repudiate self-assertion in order to survive
Many of the narrators save themselves, such as in The Earl King the narrator must kill the Earl King in order to free herself, but also save men from joining the patriarchy, and frees the other women from their cages
Thus suggesting that women must also play a role in helping men out of roles they may be trapped in as well
In ‘The Werewolf’ the narrator saves herself, but using her father’s hunting knife, perhaps suggesting that women can never escape the patriarchy
Or that they must kill those women that perpetuate the patriarchy, or who believe they must become a man in order to survive
It is depicted in Wolf-Alice that women can co-exist with men actively when they learn they can be the same as men but in their own gender as men can be just as weak and need women to save them
