The Dracula Myth

1
The Dracula Myth
2

• Rubbish Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with
  walking corpses who can only be held in their
  graves by stakes driven through their hearts?
  Its pure lunacy.
• Sherlock Holmes
• The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

3
The Vampire

• The modern imagination is so overexposed to the
  notion of a vampire that the word today invites a
  laugh or smirk when it instilled terror in
  earlier times. Night has lost its mysteries, its
  secrets, its fears. A universal figure of
  folklore and superstition, fact and fiction, the
  vampire metamorphoses and disguises himself,
  appearing again in new ways as times change.
• vampir blood-sucker in many languages,
  interchangeable with devil
• nosferat not dead - plague carrier - presumed
  to be contagious -
• succubus seduce sleeping young men and
  withdraws their life-power
• incubus male version impregnating female
  victims
• lamia beautiful girls who lure young men to
  their death
• soma the undead hulk i.e. the human form
  within which demon dwells
• dhampire vampire destroyer, usually vampires
  son

4
Based on two precepts

• 1. Magical power of blood
• Blood was the elixir of life. Loss of blood
  caused death so logically, its consumption would
  rejuvenate. Blood as an object of magic/taboo -
  blood sacrifices as propitiation so that the dead
  did not return to bring others to their realm.
  Blood as the soul. Regenerative power of Energy
  transfer.
• Belief in life after death
• When is the precise moment of death? Cases of
  people buried alive or whose grave is robbed. If
  there is a Land of the dead, then the dead must
  be living somewhere else. Living dead as both
  alive and dead, yet neither. Not ghosts, but
  actual corpses/zombies. Create rituals to
  communicate with those in the other world. Exists
  in both worlds.

5
The Vampire in Christian Europe

• Love ingredient
• Has sexual dimension yet centred around family
  unit. Element of attraction and repulsion.
• Horror ingredient
• Supernatural unknown. Mutilation of corpses
  (necrosadism) and copulation with corpse
  (necrophilia).
• Religious ingredient
• RC Church used vampirism to teach
  transubstantiation of Communion and Eucharist.
  Purgatory. The excommunicated, immoral and
  suicides were potential vampires, together with
  those who practised witchcraft or who were not
  buried according to the proper rites. Most
  effective insurance against undead was to live
  pious life.Vampire trials. Cross and holy water
  as weapons. Used to impose rules. Less difficulty
  accepting Christ.

6
Identifying a Vampire

• Loss of blood needs blood not for life but for
  power junkie alcoholic leech
• Corpse resists decomposition (the only proof of
  death)
• Inability to conduct commerce with unwilling
  clients
• No reflection because persons reflection of soul
  in mirror
• Transmutation change shape to bats and
  werewolves
• Rule-bound sleep in consecrated earth,
  neutralised in sunlight

7
Destroying a Vampire

• First determine the resting place of the vampire
  then
• Then impalement / transfixion with a wooden stake
  and a steady hand with one stroke, preferably
  face down.
• If vampire has been dead many years, it will
  crumble into dust.
• If not, decapitate with a spade, hack it into
  pieces and shred heart, or cremate, ensuring that
  any spider, lice, worm or snake trying to escape
  the flames is destroyed. The stake does not kill
  but holds carrion in place.
• Pour holy water over the grave.

8
The Vampire in LiteraturePolidori (1819), Rymer
(1853), Le Fanu (1872), Stoker (1897)

• In history/folklore In literature/imagination
• Any class, usually peasantry Aristocrat
  gentleman rake
• Native village Travels or urban life
• Does not distinguish victims sex Usually of
  opposite sex
• Visitations confined within family Outside his
  own ethnic group
• Stupid and newly-made Clever, worldly-wise
  cos centuries old
• Extra-Christian means of containment Greater role
  of Christianity
• Supernatural monster ? terror Suffering victim ?
  pity tragedy inner conflict?
• Different reasons why became vampire Mysterious
  origin often pact with devil
• Usually discovered and destroyed Regenerative
  with staying power
• Conflicts physical and external Symbolic and
  allegorical
• Central theme survival and blood Sex,
  seduction, recruitment and
• Possession
• Stress differences Similarities with reader
• Attack sleeping defenceless Courts and seduces

9
Motifs in Stokers writing

• Familial love, division of world into Good and
  Evil, punishments meted out to those who sin,
  inevitable triumph of Good, boundary between life
  and death. Return of dead to haunt living.
  Oppressive moralising. Obsessive view of women as
  hopelessly dependent on valour of men and
  appreciation of strong men.
• One of the worlds best-known books written by
  one of its least-known authors. Dracula never
  praised for literary merit but turned popular
  culture into myth.

10
The Origins of Dracula

• Dracula - the Gothic novel par excellence. Most
  potent literary myth of 20th Century but critical
  response was mixed. Neither made reputation or
  money. Introduced historical basis.
• Conceived as early as 1890. Thorough research.
  Toured Whitby. Real shipwreck of Russian schooner
  Dimetry in 1885. Originally four sub-books (like
  four acts of play theatrical possibilities).
  Supposedly set in 1893.

11
Vlad Tepes the Impaler prince (voivode) of
Wallachia 1462 squeezed between Holy Roman
Empire and Ottoman Turks father bestowed Order
of the Dragon (draculdevil) became known as
Vlad Dracul. Died 1447. Dracula son of the
devil ruled from 1456. Fought Turks but more for
Danube gateway and hatred for Turks than for
Christianity. Reigned till 1462. Died 1476.
Legend that he did not die because renounced
Orthodox faith. Nothing in his historical
character to connect him to vampirism.
12
Conclusion

• Definition of vampire is in process not static.
  Energy vampires, psychic ones constantly
  revived by Hollywood and HK. Little attempt to
  explain but simply accept they exist. Not allowed
  to rest in peace.
• PS You cannot kill a vampire, it is already dead.

13
A Biography of Charlotte Brontë "one of the
saddest in literature" (Ashe)
14

• Born to Rev. Patrick and Maria Brontë in a bleak
  moorland called Thornton whose other children
  were Maria (1814), Elizabeth (1815), Charlotte
  (1816), Patrick Branwell (1817), Emily (1818) and
  Anne (1820).
• Moves to Haworth where father becomes rector
• Mother dies of cancer
• 1824 Sent to Cowan Bridge. Maria (HB) and
  Elizabeth develops TB and dies at home.
• 1831 Close-knit, private, isolated family -
  serious children - reading, imagination,
  nature - lived in fantasy world Angria and
  Gondal - place called Thorncliffe
• 1839 Tries teaching as a governess rejects
  marriage proposals
• To Brussels with Emily - fell in love with M
  Heger, who was already married

15

• 1844 Tries to start school but no one responds.
• First published poetry as Currer, Ellis and Acton
  Bell - sold two books Anne's Agnes
• Grey and Emily's Wuthering Heights are published
  but The Professor is rejected.
• 1847 Jane Eyre
• Branwell dies from drink and drugs and Emily dies
  from consumption
• Anne who was infected by Emily dies
• 1853 Villette
• Marries her fourth suitor
• Dies in pregnancy - survived by her blind father
• 1855 The Professor is published posthumously
  biographer Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë

16
Jane Eyre - Gothic?

• Jane Eyre has all the trappings of a
  stereotypical Gothic novel a castle that is
  eventually reduced to ruins, a Byronic hero with
  a secret past, a virgin heroine, even an "unholy
  monk".
• "the canonical female gothic text" (Diane Long
  Hoeveler)
• "has received the most attention by critics as a
  Gothic text" (Alison Milbank)
• "the greatest Female Gothicist of all" (Ann
  Ronald)
• Exhibits an inclination towards the Gothic that
  was less evident in the more conventional works
  of the authors of the same era e.g. in setting.

17
Brontë vs Austen

• Overt disdain for the fictional depiction of a
  well-ordered ornamental society
• Why do you like Miss Austen so much? I am puzzled
  on that point I had not seen 'Pride and
  Prejudice' till I read that sentence of yours,
  and then I got the book. And what did I find? An
  accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a commonplace
  face, a carefully fenced, highly cultivated
  garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers,
  but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no
  open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no
  bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her
  ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but
  confined houses.

18
Brontë vs Austen

• There appears to be a desire in Brontë to break
  free from the literary tradition of her
  predecessors.
• What sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly,
  it suits her to study but what throbs fast and
  full, though hidden, what the blood rushes
  through, what is the unseen seat of life and the
  sentient target of death that Miss Austen
  ignores Jane Austen was a complete and most
  sensible lady, but a very incomplete and rather
  insensible (not senseless) woman, if this is
  heresy I cannot help it (qtd in Peters, 1991,
  225).

19
Brontë vs Austen

• Brontë sought to reflect some form of truth in
  their expression of reality, insisting on a need
  to be original and different.
• Were I obliged to copy these characters, I would
  simply not write at all. Were I obliged to copy
  any former novelist, even the greatest, even
  Scott, in anything, I would not write. Unless I
  have something of my own to say, and a way of my
  own to say it in, I have no business to publish
  unless I can have the courage to use the language
  of Truth in preference to the jargon of
  conventionality, I ought to be silent.

20
Jane Eyre - Controversy?

• Appearing under the androgynous pseudonym Currer
  Bell and subtitled "An Autobiography", Jane Eyre
  caused an initial stir concerning the mystery of
  the author's identity and gender. The personality
  of the author Charlotte Brontë merged with the
  fictitious editor Currer Bell and the fictional
  autobiographer Jane Eyre. In addition, the actual
  autobiographical references in Jane Eyre to
  Charlotte's own experiences further blurred the
  line where reality ended and invention began.

21
Jane Eyre - Controversy?

• Critics could not reconcile the novel's mix of
  realism and the fantastic. One wrote "reality
  deep, significant reality -- is the great
  characteristic of this book". In direct
  opposition, The Christian Remembrancer wrote,
  "The plot is most extravagantly improbable".
• What drew the most contention was the ethics
  rather than the aesthetics of the novel. In 1848,
  Elizabeth Rigby in The Quarterly Review described
  the novel as "an anti-Christian composition
  with a pervading tone of ungodly discontent".
  The novel's revolutionary tone and nonconformist
  politics were deemed dangerous and "neither the
  writer nor the editor of the book can have
  considered how much mischief may be done by
  publishing such a creed as this". Because of the
  illegitimate romance between Jane and Rochester
  as "hardly 'proper' between a single man and a
  maiden in her teens", the novel was even banned
  in girls' schools up to the late 19th Century.

22
Jane Eyre - Controversy?

• Charlotte Brontë's response in the Preface to the
  second edition of Jane Eyre addressed these
  "timorous or carping few in whose eyes whatever
  is unusual is wrong". She reminded them that
  "Conventionality is not morality.
  Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the
  first is not to assail the last."

23
Conclusion

• Situating the novel in opposition to the "warped
  system of things", Charlotte Brontë had
  intentionally flouted the rules and inadvertently
  determined Jane Eyre as a radically subversive
  text.

24
Announcements

• The Addams Family Friday 4 pm
• National Day 8 August?
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
• The Picture of Dorian Grey
• The Master of Rampling Gate