Close Reading Questions for Stoker's Dracula, Chs. I-V (pp.26-83)

(at left: Caspar David Friedrich's Moonrise Over the Sea (1822), a Romantic-Gothic image that captures the Gothic revival tone of Dracula quite well)

1. Why does Stoker call the region of Translyvania an “imaginative whirlpool” (28)? How might this play into British notions of the Orient and Freud’s “uncanny”?

2. Examine the “seduction” scene between Harker and Dracula’s brides in Chapter III: how does he react to their advances (look closely at the language), and how does this either resemble or contrast with Carmilla’s seduction of Laura? Does Stoker mean this passage to be similarly subversive?

3. What reading material does Harker find in Dracula’s library? How might this underline Dracula’s later statement that, “to know her [England] is to love her” (45)?

4. Discuss the effect of Harker’s journals as a narrative strategy in the first few chapters. Why tell the story entirely from this point of view (rather than an omniscient or even normal first-person narrative)? Does this resemble the techniques used by Le Fanu in In a Glass Darkly? Is the technique ever strained beyond belief (or effectiveness)?

A Pitch for Fall 2010

NOTE: The new questions for Carmilla are in the previous post...

(at left: portrait of Rudyard Kipling, one of my all-time favorite authors, who is featured in English 4983 by his greatest novel, Kim)

It's enrollment week, and for those interested, I have included a blurb and a reading list for my two Fall 2010 courses that may be of interest.  Both will touch on themes in this class, the "Colonial and Postcolonial Literature" class more explicitly than the Humanities.  However, both courses will be of interest to English majors and those who enjoy literature and its cultural implications.

ENG 4983: COLONIAL AND POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE (TR 11-12:15): In this course we will read works that chart the boundaries of the colonial British empire in India, Africa, and the Carribbean. These works, often written by outsiders with only a tenuous connection to England, give us a unique glimpse into the true nature of “Englishness,” particularly in the years leading up to WWI. As the empire fades, we will also read several works by writers of former British colonies who struggle to assert a national voice in the Queen’s English.

BOOKS:
* Behn, Oroonoko (Norton Critical edition)
* Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (Norton Critical edition)
* Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Bedford St. Martins edition)
* Tutuola, The Palm Wine Drinkard (any edition)
* Kipling, Kim (Longman Cultural edition)
* V.S. Naipaul, An Area of Darkness (any edition)

HUM 2113: GENERAL HUMANITIES I (T 6:30-8:30): A better name for this course might be “Cultural and Literary Archeology,” as we will unearth selected “classics” from the literary canon and analyze them through related art, philosophy, music, and architecture. The goal is to understand the very human ideas and impulses the fuel even the most exotic texts, and reconstruct the seemingly invisible roots that bind the ancient world to the present.

BOOKS:
* Plato, The Last Days of Socrates (any)
* The Bhagavad Gita (Penguin)
* Tales from the 1,001 Nights (Penguin)
* Hrafnkel's Saga and Other Icelandic Stories (Penguin)
* Machiavelli, The Prince (any)
* Shakespeare, The Sonnets (any)

Second Set of Questions for Le Fanu's Carmilla

(at right: Grimshaw's The Lovers (circa 1870)

1. In Helen Stoddart’s essay, “ ‘The Precautions of Nervous People Are Infectious’: Sheridan Le Fanu’s Symptomatic Gothic,” she writes that “Laura is a passive and helpless victim—the incredible essence of Victorian driven-snow purity who emerges as one overwhelmingly baffled…the fight for Laura’s sexual and imperial rights as a child-bearer and soul-maker will have to be fought for her and not by her” (Stoddart, 32). Why does Le Fanu make his heroine so weak and ineffectual (as opposed to a later woman, Mina, in Dracula, who is quite capable of holding her own)?

2. Why might Carmilla be a story of women terrorizing (or seducing) other women? Men have virtually no role in this story, except as protectors trying desperately (and often, incompetently) to secure their women from harm. Why do you feel a woman is the threatening force in the story, and why doesn’t she attack and kill other men as well?

3. Reflecting on the nature of her illness, Laura writes, “Had I been capable of comprehending my condition, I would have invoked aid and advice on my knees. The narcotic of an unsuspected influence was acting upon me, and my perceptions were benumbed” (283). Note the use of the word “narcotic” here and “benumbed,” both of which conjure up drugs and intoxication. Of course, these words equally apply to the infatuation of being in love (or lust). Can we make a case for her being infatuated (in love?) with Carmilla? Is it simply the result of witchcraft…or did she, at the time, truly want to “die” with her? NOTE: the word “die” which Carmilla uses repeatedly to describe their union was an Elizabethan term for “orgasm.”

4. Why might the vampire be a uniquely Freudian creation? The preponderance of vampires in ancient civilization and folklore suggests that it did exist—that is, it is a cultural memory from our “animistic past” that reflects something real that has been suppressed. What might this be? What is uniquely “uncanny” about the vampire itself, and how might Le Fanu conjure this sense of our shared past in his story?

Private Collection of 18th Century Erotica Discovered!

(at right: a chapbook from 1814, typical of the eighteenth century chapbooks discussed in the article)

As you'll recall from The Gothic Tradition, Gothic literature was long considered an unhealthy and debased genre, very similar to erotica, which it sometimes dabbled in (especially in works like Lewis's The Monk).  Young women often hid their gothic fictions as men hid their erotica; now, apparently, a 300 year-old collection of erotic chapbooks (cheap publications once sold by "chap men") has been discovered in a library in the famous Lake District (once home to Wordsworth and Coleridge, among others).  Read the full story here:

http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/5765762.Stash_of__saucy__literature_uncovered_at_historic_Troutbeck_house/

Close Reading Questions for Le Fanu's "Carmilla"

(at left: John Atkinson Grimshaw's painting, Full Moon Behind Cirrus Cloud from the Roundhay Park Castle Battlements, 1872). 

1. Wrting in The Uncanny, Freud reminds us that “whatever has an uncanny effect in real life has the same in literature. But the writer can intensify and multiply this effect far beyond what is feasible in normal experience…fiction affords possibilities for a sense of the uncanny that would not be available in real life” (157). In what way does Carmilla convey this deepened sense of the uncanny? What elements of the uncanny do we find here that are similar (or more pronounced) to what we find in Green Tea and/or The Familiar?

2. The word “languor” is used several times in the story, each time to characterize Carmilla’s appearance and demeanor. What is the significance of this word, and why does Laura see this as a negative quality? You might consult the OED to shed light on this facet of the story.

3. Examine the numerous passages where Carmilla “woos” Laura, as in the following: “In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love” (263). What do you make of the frank sexual nature of Carmilla’s speech (and actions)?

4. What role do dreams play in the story? Why are several pivotal events portrayed as dreams or dream-like memories? Consider Robert Tracy’s note in the Introduction, “To dream is dangerous in Le Fanu’s world” (xxv). Who dreams and why in this story—and how, as readers, are we invited to play the role of Freud in interpreting them?

Breaking News: Clarie Clairmont Memoir Recently Discovered--Disses Shelley and Byron!

The following article, from the Daily Mail (UK) discusses a forgotten memoir recently discovered by Claire Clairmont, written in her 70's.  In the work she blasts both Byron and Shelley as "monsters," and sheds new light on the relationship between the group in the fateful year of 1818.  Read more! 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1261350/Lord-Byron-described-free-love-worshipper-monster-ex-lover-newly-discovered-memoir.html

Close Reading Questions for Le Fanu's "The Familiar"

(at right: Arnold Bocklin's painting, "The Sacred Wood" (1882), a once famous painter of the fantastic, mythical, and supernatural).

1. According to the OED, the word “familiar” has several possible denotations, including:

• 1. a. Of or pertaining to one's family or household. (Now rare, and with mixture of other senses.) Of an enemy: That is ‘of one's own household’: lit. and fig. Of habits: Pertaining to one's family life, private, domestic

• 1. d. familiar angel: a guardian angel. familiar devil, spirit: a demon supposed to be in association with or under the power of a man.

• 8. Free, as among persons intimately acquainted, unceremonious; occas. Too free, taking liberties with; also in to make familiar with.

• B. b. An officer of the Inquisition, chiefly employed in arresting and imprisoning the accused.

How might all of one of these definitions help us read or interpret the story? What is ultimately so “familiar” about Barton’s condition?

2. Unlike Mr. Jennings, Barton is a hardened heretic, and even after numerous visitations, he insists, “I can’t pray…there is something within me that will not pray…The idea of an eternal Creator is to me intolerable—my mind cannot support it” (61-62). What role do you feel Barton’s skepticism plays in the story? Does he ultimately undergo a transformation?

3. Is “The Familiar” a story of the uncanny—or simply a ghost story? Do the events and visitations have elements of the uncanny, or does the fact that other people see it—or think they see it—remove this from the realm of psychoanalysis (or metaphysical medicine)?

4. Why do you feel the “frame” of Dr. Hesselius has been almost entirely removed from this story, existing only at the very beginning and end of the story? Is there a reason we hear this story almost completely second-hand, instead of from the doctor’s personal observations?