Life’s Blood, or Death’s?

Final Blog: Life’s Blood, or Death’s?

It’s interesting how Bram Stoker’s Dracula use of blood touches in many ways our Christian beliefs about what is the force of life, by how it is conditioned to us in the novel.  As blood is transferred from being to being, its meaning takes shape in forms of both life and death. As readers we are never explicitly told by Who’s hand or perhaps by what power, miracle, or curse Dracula has become a creature like this in the world. Fear of death.  However, perhaps out this fear of death we form such powerful beliefs in the soul and an afterlife, to spend an eternity in a heaven ruled by a loving God.

Several times throughout the novel what is ironically referred to as the ‘giving of life’ actually requires the ‘taking’ of life, life through the consumption of blood and eating of life. Renfeld is a patient at the asylum where Doctor seward practices psychology, for that period.  Renfeld manipulates the meager food chain at his disposal by spreading out sugar to catch flies, to catch spiders, to catch small birds. His eating of his collection of flies, spiders, considered him to be what is called zoophagous, which means ‘life eating’.  On page 27, the abhorred attendant reports to Doctor Seward that “he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!” Doctor Seward believes Renfeld is an undeveloped homicidal maniac.  

Our blood is precious to life itself.  Without it, we would die, but obviously not  in the same way as Dracula. Blood is sacred in Christianity when referring to the blood Jesus spilled laying down his life so that any who professes belief shall receive  eternal salvation. I don’t know. We’re not told how Dracula became this seemingly demonic, blood-sucking creature. Maybe Dracula was there and drank some of Jesus’ spilled blood, and so that Dracula’s earthly salvation comes with stipulations.  Through the transfusion given to Lucy, Doctor Seward made an interesting comment, being that something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy’s cheeks. Doctor Seward remarks on page 138, “After a time – it did not seem a short time either, for the draining away of one’s blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a terrible feeling.” If you’ve ever given plasma, you know this pain. However, Bram Stoker infuses these romantic notions that play into our sense of chivalry when Doctor Seward says or narrates further on page 138 “No man knows till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.” This painful and pure gift from the men parallels Jesus painful and eternal gift on some level, in that the men give of theirs so willingly so that poor Lucy’s life might be saved.

I realize this a little rough for an opening. I plan on expanding with comparisons from the bible some vivid passages about blood that reference life on earth versus life eternal.  I am excited for feedback!  Happy Thanksgiving everybody!   

Superstition and legend in Dracula

Superstition and legend are two categories that take place in Dracula that really provide the novel with the details that make it one of mystery and help create an atmosphere that separates the old (superstition) with the new (science) a novel focused on myth. These two categories allow the reader to imagine a time, place, or person in a way that was never even thought of when this novel came out. Superstition and legend are the key components in making a fiction novel what it is, and it is by these methods that the basic understanding of any fiction-based novel is given substance and structure. Since superstition and legend are present in this novel, why is it that it takes the characters so long to realize what Dracula is doing and try to stop it?

            Superstition is defined as a widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice. This term also has many references throughout Dracula that indicate the characters have somewhat of an understanding as to what is taking place. For example, when Jonathan Harker first arrives in Transylvania he notices the townspeople with religious artifacts and praying for him on his journey. When Jonathan is shaving and the Count has no reflection or crawls on the walls out of the castle. “I had hung my shaving glass by the window…this time there could be no error.” (148) Another example would be with Van Helsing and outing the garlic flower around Lucy to protect her. “Showed a great bundle of white flowers… hang around your neck.” (409) These incidents and more are just a few of the areas where superstition as well as legend takes a foothold into the storyline and novel. There are ample amounts of these categories taking form and hinting at the Count being a vampire, however, the main characters do not wish to accept the fact that this is true or are obliviously to what is happing and almost find out too late. The use of superstition and legend within the novel helped bring the story almost away from fiction and into reality. Legend also plays a role in Dracula. “Then he spoke to me mockingly… now you shall come to my call.” (807) 

            Another area where superstition and legend take a foothold in this novel is where one of the characters uses these two categories everyday to combat an evil that is the major threat in the book. That character is Van helsing. Yet the question still remains why he not only uses superstition and legend to fight against the vampires and the count, but why he seems to be the only one with experience in this particular field. Since this is the case, why does he not share his information with the others as soon as possible? Instead he waits until a certain situation presents itself and the damage has already been done. Yet, looking on the other side as well brings up the question of why the other characters are not asking Van Helsing sooner what is happing and how they should stop it. He only starts to “fill” them in once they are out of Transylvania.  

             In this post I would like to focus on the importance and realization of superstition and legend and be able to describe why or why not the characters were able to realize what was taking place around them and with other people. i would like to go into more detail about the role that both superstition and legend play in Dracula. I think it would help my paper if I also focused on the difference between the people of Transylvania and of England and how they grew within themselves as the novel went on. Similar to a character development sequence. There is so much detail and substance that could be put into this paper in regards to both legend and superstition, it will be difficult to narrow down the topic and still be able to put together a paper that embraces the categories in full.   

             

Mina's Salvation (Final Blog Post)

The destruction of the Count in Dracula would not have been possible without Mina Harker’s careful documentation of the journals and records that followed his departure from London and yet she is constantly belittled for her role as a Victorian woman while simultaneously forced to adhere to it. Despite being “saved”, Mina’s role as a vessel of purity and virtue for Van Helsing, Harker, etc. means she is no less a prisoner.

Throughout the novel Mina is used as a vessel by both the “righteous” men and Dracula alike. While the Count’s intentions are obvious more “devious” such as on page 347 he out right states that she will “do (his) bidding,” but Van Helsing is guilty of the same manipulation.  He places an overabundance of praise on her for such simple tasks like collecting data, as if she was a small child or a dog, and is completely unlike his interactions with any male character. Mina even notices this, saying “you praise me too much…you do not know me,” (221). In fact Van Helsing does not seem to know Mina much at all, preferring to lump “feminine ideals” onto her instead. On page 226 he goes to great length to describe a apparently angelic she is saying “She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter…So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist.” Mina, though incredibly and capable (when allowed to be) is elevated to an extremely holy state that, though flattering, is essentially dehumanizing and decreases her ability to form her own identity. Van Helsing manipulates Mina into a vessel in which he and other men can draw virtue from, basically an object to be used, not a person. Both the Count and Van Helsing use Mina for their own gain.

Despite the odds, Mina is not without hope. After Lucy’s death and finally aware of the danger everyone is in she shows a great deal of courage telling Seward that they must “rid the earth of this terrible monster” and is eager to aid in the fight. She even shows amazing foresight on the same page (261) saying that “We need have no secrets amongst us; working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark,” and is proven correct when Van Helsing’s decision to leave her out of the circle of trust leads to her disastrous encounter with the Count.

This is still pretty all over the place but I hope the basic direction that I’m going for still comes across. I’m not very good at coming up with my own prompts, and I think that shows seeing as this is the only blog post I’ve put up that hasn’t exceeded 1,000 words. In my final paper I was hoping to also include an analysis on why the last entry to Dracula isn’t written by Mina despite the story’s extreme focus on her throughout the novel. Also, as you can see, my second body paragraph is pretty short. If anyone can recall moments in the novel wherein Mina shows a great deal of cleverness or independence I would very grateful (it’s getting pretty late here and I’m literally running out of juice). Other suggestions would also be very welcomed!

Differences of women in Dracula-- Chantal Espinoza

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the sexuality of the female vampires is something that the men in the story cannot resist. Why? What is it about them that cause the men to get weak in the knees? The obvious reason is that they aren’t like the women of that time. Victorian women were conservative, and ultimately not the type of woman people think of when they think sexy. This leads one to think, why does Stoker display both aspects of women? Why does he show “voluptuous” vampire women and pure, angelic Victorian women like Mina too? Stoker shows both types of women to show that no matter how strong and powerful men like to make them out to be, especially in the time period when it was written, by emphasizing the role of women throughout his book.

            Victorian women, especially in the beginning of the novel, were depicted as helpless. The only thing that they (Lucy and Mina, in this case) had to worry about was their potential husbands, home life, ect. Especially Mina, who as Sally Ledger states was “a woman who, firmly rooted in the maternal paradigm, settles for the ‘ideal’ of middle-class Victorian womanhood,” (Prescott et all 488). As Mina herself explains in the letters to Lucy, all the stuff she does, that in any other case would be described as breaking the typical female barriers of that time, she does for her husband. Mina explicates this in one of the letters to Lucy; she tells her that she’s “been working very hard lately, because she wants to keep up with Jonathan’s studies,” (Stoker 53). As Salli Kline describes all of this is just “up-to-date housekeeping,” (Prescott et all 490). The typical ideology of that time was to keep the women educated enough to care for the children, but one may argue that the skills that Mina possesses may out-smart some men of that time. In slight contrast, Lucy, a young girl who is young, beautiful, innocent and admiring of men, who is “unconscious of her sexual yearnings and flirtatiousness as she awaits her wedded state and, presumably, the maternity that will accompany it,” (Almond, 226). Everything changes, though, when she starts to become a vampire. Lucy starts to dissolve all the Victorian ideology of a good, pure, light-hearted woman--- and becomes blatantly seductive.

            The first time the readers encounter female vampires is when Jonathan Harker has a run in with three of them. These three beautiful women exude sex appeal. As Stephanie Demetrakopoulos explains, in the Victorian view, “only fallen (and hence lower-class) women enjoyed sex” (Demetrakopoulos 106). But these women, as Harker explains, were far from that. He described the women “ladies by their dress and manner” (Stoker 48). Yet these “ladies” are far from the typical aristocratic women idea in the Victorian era. The moment they walk in, Harker is “in an agony of delightful anticipation” as he sees them under his lashes (Stoker 48). He wants them to kiss them with “their voluptuous lips” even though they made him “uneasy” (Stoker 48). What is it about their sexuality that causes Harker to pretty much give up his life just to have a kiss from these sexually aggressive vampires? One clear, and simple, argument is that these men are sexually deprived. In the Victorian era, a “good woman” only had sex with their husbands to get pregnant and reproduce (Demetrakopoulos 106). This explains why the sight of these female vampires so, for a lack of a better word, turns on men and why they female vampires exploit that.

            Stoker’s world in Dracula shows two very different representations of women: one that is pure, and the epitome of a perfect Victorian wife; and the other is a sexually driven vampire women who use this power to their advantage. Stoker shows these two sides to show the male audience how harmful it can be to allow themselves to think just based their sexual drives.

Alright, so I feel like I may be all over the place in this post. Prior to writing this, I was going to write about Mina and her transformation from pure to un-pure. However, as I started writing and reading outside research this concept became way more enticing.  I'm planning to go more in-depth with Mina's character and how everyone (the men) treat her like an angel that can't be harmed and with Lucy's transformation (and the three women too). If you guys have any suggestions as to how make this make sense or something, that would be awesome. I feel that as I kept writing it became more focused, so I apologize. Thank you so much, and tell me what you think! Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!!

Last Blog Post Adam Serna (Deifferent Roles in BNW)

What is the relationship between the different genders in Brave New World?

 

In today’s society women have worked their way up to be seen as equals or even better than men in some case, whether it be in work force, intellectual sense, or even physically/athletically. In Huxley’s brave new women seem to play an overall less powerful and important role than men, in the government and in the society in general. What is the difference between the roles of men and women in the Huxley’s Brave new world?

The men in Brave new world seem to have much more powerful roles throughout the society compared to women. The person in charge of all of the fetuses that are produced (the Director of Hatcheries) is a man. The most powerful person in the book, a world leader, Mustapha Mond, is also a man. Even the characters who start to build a little bit of reluctance to the utilitarian way of life in the society are men, those being Bernard Marx and Hemholtz Watson. Does Huxley do this to show that men are more capable of thinking outside the box so to speak, more so than women? Why are there no women mentioned in such positions of power like, director of anything, or world leader? What qualities do men posses that women don’t that allows them to be eligible for such positions of power rather than allowing a woman to fill that position?

For my paper that I do over the differences I’d like to try and answer all of the questions I stated above. I would like to go out and research the role of women in today’s society in more depth. I would also like to go out and research the role of women from the earlier years of civilization and see how much their role has changed throughout history, and whether it was for better or for worse. The final thing I would like to research is how women’s roles in society could progress or even regress during the future to see if it matches up with what Huxley describes it as in Brave New World. I think that would be the most interesting thing for me. I’d like to see how women’s roles as well as mens have changed throughout history and what correlations I can find to explain those changes. What where the roles of men and women over the years?  Have roles of men and women changed over the years? How have they changed? Or have they even changed at all? If they have changed, why have they changed?  Answering these questions will allow me to better pinpoint Huxley’s view points on the roles he has put his characters in.

                From what I remember in Brave New World men play a more powerful role such as Directors while woman play what I would call a facilitative role, being nurses and things like that, always being under the men. I would also be interested in seeing if these roles carry into the different castes that the people of the world state are placed into. I can’t remember if only certain genders do certain jobs, so I will have to go back and reread those sections and find out.

                That’s what I’d like to write my paper on, I think it is a good topic being that there are a lot of different views one can have on it, so hopefully I can do a good job of presenting each view.

Who all is in Group G?

I apologize for not knowing how to look this up, but who is in our group?

EXTRA CREDIT MEETING.

WE NEED TO MEET UP. 
Extra credit doesn't hurt. I think that we can just meet up either tomorrow or right after class on Friday at the library. Let's discuss what will be the best thing for all of us. I can't do Saturday or Friday night because I will be out of town this weekend. Please comment a time that works for you and let's get that extra credit!! :)