DOCSLIB.ORG

Of the Requirernents for the Degree of Masters of Arts Department Of

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Of the Requirernents for the Degree of Masters of Arts Department Of University of Alberta 'That's Why the Lady is a Vamp' Discounes of Crirninality, Sexual Inversion and Vampirism in Fin-de-Siècle and Modemist Culhues April Miller A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Stucües and Research as partial fulnllment of the requirernents for the degree of Masters of Arts Department of English Edmonton, Alberta Spring 2000 National Liibrary Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions el Bbliographic Sewiees senrices bibliographiques 395 welltngton Street 395, Ne Welliigton Ortawa ON KIA W OEEawaON K1AW Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Liiof Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distri'bute or seii reproduire, prêter, distr'buer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfichdnim, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substântial extracts from it Ni Ia thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or othenvise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract This thesis hvestigates scientifïc discourses of criminality and homosexuality as indicators of public anxiety over the changing status of women in America and Bntain at the tum of the century. As women began to move beyond the confines of domesticity and the women's Bghts movement took hold, fernale social and sexual deviance was represented, in a myriad of cultural forms, as a dangerous source of social and racial decline. In criminological and evolutionary discomes, the criminal woman's body was constnicted as a physical and psychical illustration of atavistic reversion, an example of 'femininity' which, in overstepping the boundaries of acceptable female behavior, betrayed a dangerously primitive and overly masculine nature. Chapter one explores the rnasculinizing of exceptional women and the parallels between constmcts of female criminality and female sexual inversion as evidenced in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Chapter two considers the widespread appeal of the fernale semai predator and the multiple meanings of female vampirism by examining a wide range of popular representations, including paintings, pulp novels, silent fih and sheet music. By creating images of women that strongly Wed female sexual and social independence with perversion and monstrosity, the constmct of the 'mannish' female vampire was intended to wam against uncommonly independent 'femininity' and increasingiy uncontrollable women. Acknowledgements 1 would like to thank my advisor, JO-Ann Wallace, whose support and iosight made this essay much stronger. In particular, I would Like to thank her for encouraging me to tum my personal fascination with sheet music into a 'legitimate' academic pursuit. Thanks aiso to rny cornmittee members Pat Clements and Bill Beard for their input. And thanks to Erin Ward for being my 'ktreader' for this project and so many others. Contents List of Figures 1 Introduction: Recipe for a Vampire 3 1 Creating a Female Monster: Female Criminality and Socio-Sexual 8 Deviance in Bram Stoker's Dracula 2 Reproducing the Vampire: Women, Agency and Momtrosity in 49 Early-Tw entieth-Century Culture 3 Uncovering a Transgressive Potentiai and the Queer Meaning of 105 Top Hats and Sharp Teeth Appendix 1 115 Filmo graph y 116 Works Cited 118 List of Figures Figure 1. Head of a Crimind Figure 2. Head of a Criminal Figure 3. "Just By Way of a Change." Postcard, circa 190 1 Figure 4. "Popping the Question." Punch 1851 Figure 5. "Her First Masculine Attachent, Life magazine, 19 13 Figure 6. The criminal Gabrielle Bompard Figure 7. The female criminal, Louise C. Figure 8. "The Vampire". Edward Burne-Jones, 1897. Figure 9. Studio publicity photo of Theda Bara, circa 19 15. Figure 10. Studio publicity shot for La Belle Russe, 19 19. Figure 1 1. hblicity photo, circa 19 1 7. Figure 12. Publicity photo for Sin, 191 5. Figure 13. Publicity shot, circa 19 16. Figure 14. Advdsement fiom Photoplay magazine, June 1 9 18. Figure 1 5. Advertisement nom Photoplay magazine, March 19 17. Figure 16. A Fool niere Was song sheet, 19 13. Figure 17. I've Lost You So Why Should 1 Care song sheet, 1916 Figure 18. In the City of Broken Heurts song sheeî, 1916. Figure 19. Since Sarah Suw nteda Bara song sheeî, 19 17. Figure 20. Byron Gay's The Vamp song sheet, 1919. Figure 2 1. She's a Mean Job song sheeî, 1923. Figure 22. Just a Girl that Mm Forge? song sheet, 1923 99 Figure 23. Su& Green the Village Vamp Song sheeî, 1920 99 Figure 24. Rebecca Came Back From Mecca Song sheeî, 192 1 100 Figure 25. V~mpingSa1 Song sheet, 1922 100 Figure 27. Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel, 1930 Ill Figure 28. Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, 1930 111 Figure 29. Movie still from Queen Christha, 1933 111 Introduction: Recipe for a Vampire Mertrying, unsuccessfully, to summarize my thesis topic in ten words or les, 1 decided on a convenient, albeit ambiguous response to curious fiends: ?he vampire.' Wiîh startling fiequency, 1 found that the mere mention of vampires produced one of two results: a never-ending series of questions, or an uncordiortable silence. As 1 delved deeper into my subject matter, 1 began to realize that this aggregation of fear and fascination is characteristic of the public response to the vampire throughout history. Whether it be the lamia of Greek mythology, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Theda Bara's Vamp, or Fraa Rubel Kuzui's Bufi, the Vampire Shyer, the monstrous image of the vampire has captivated the popular imagination, inspiring both revolt and praise, for centuries. The vampire tnily is the monster we love to hate. While 1may have chosen the word 'vampire' to summarize my topic, this thesis investigates more than just the bloodsucking ghoul of ancient myth and folklore. Rather, 1 have chosen to explore how, through the deployment of discourses on degeneration, criminality and sexuak inversion, women went through a monstrous metamorphosis at the tum of the century as the New Woman, the sedinvert, the criminal and the sexually independent woman were assigned attributes of the vampire. As women began to move beyond the confines of domesticity and the women's rights movanent took hold, female social and sexual deviance was represented, in a rnyriad of cultural forms, as a cause of widespread social and racial decline. Finthemore, as dl women were deemed guilty by association, even seemingly 'normal' women were asmibed with distinctly vampinc physical and psychicd characteristics that challenged the conception of an idealized 'ferninitlet fom. During the fin-de-siècle, the public preoccupation with social degeneration, theories of evolution and changes to traditional gender roles both inspired and impacted a series of scientific discourses that served to link femaie sexual independence to semial perversion and social disease. Scientinc discourses of evolution and criminology sought to contain women within a haditional role by insisting that the woman who operated outside of the domestic realm threatnied the progress of the entire race. In criminological and evolutionary discourses, the criminal woman's body was constnicted as a physical and psychical illustration of atavistic reversion, an example of 'femininity' which, in oventepping the boundaries of acceptable kmale behavior, betrayed a dangerously primitive and overly masculine nature. Pseudoscientific discourses of crïminality insisted that as less evolved members of the race, al1 women harbored the potential for primitive reversion and criminal behavior, a criminality that manifested itself in a vampiric tendency to usurp the powers and privileges of the male. As has often been noted in analysis of the fernale offender, mord panic regarding women and crime often coincides with the periods when women make strides toward equality (Chesney Lind 2-3). At the tu.of the century, many people believed that sufnage and economic equality would render women incapable of Mlling their duties as wives and mothers, claiming that women who sought equality with men were fMgwith deviance and criminality. While women's naturaily primitive nature was viewed as the principle source of their deviant potentiai, the graduai increase in rights for women precipitated a fear of the complete dissolution of gender boundaries and the belief that women wodd increasingiy become participants in flagitious behavior. Just as the fin-de-siècle is often marked as a trirning point in popular understanding of gender relations, it is also fiequently highlighted as a pivotal moment in gay and lesbian history. As Glennis Byron explains, "this was not only the era of the New Woman, but also the tirne in which society became more aware of homosemrality," when the medical community cohed the term 'sema1 inversion' (19). Due to the link established between female criminaîity and chmging gender roles, the female offender was Unputed with many of the overly 'mannish' physical and cerebral characteristics associated with the female sexual invert. While the discourse of sexuai inversion may have been constnicted as a means of justifying the existence of the homosemial and denouncing the persecution of same-sex desire, theories of inversion, like Lombrosian theories of female criminaMy, aligned fmale independence with physicd and mental deviance and 'mannish' behavior. By suggesting that both sexuaiiy and socidly deviant women possess identifiably 'masculine' characteristics, discourses of crimuiaiity and sexual inversion atternpted to neutralize the dangerous potential of socidly dismptive types of women. My thesis, then, investigates scientinc and popular discourses of criminality and homosexuaiity as indicaton of public amiety over the changing status of turn-of-the- century women and the belief that changes to traditional gender roles threatened to stall, or even reverse, social and racial advancements.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Making Sense of Mina: Stoker's Vampirization of the Victorian Woman in Dracula Kathryn Boyd Trinity University
    Trinity University Digital Commons @ Trinity English Honors Theses English Department 5-2014 Making Sense of Mina: Stoker's Vampirization of the Victorian Woman in Dracula Kathryn Boyd Trinity University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/eng_honors Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Boyd, Kathryn, "Making Sense of Mina: Stoker's Vampirization of the Victorian Woman in Dracula" (2014). English Honors Theses. 20. http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/eng_honors/20 This Thesis open access is brought to you for free and open access by the English Department at Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Despite its gothic trappings and origin in sensationalist fiction, Bram Stoker's Dracula, written in 1897, is a novel that looks forward. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Britons found themselves in a world of new possibilities and new perils –in a society rapidly advancing through imperialist explorations and scientific discoveries while attempting to cling to traditional institutions, men and woman struggled to make sense of the new cultural order. The genre of invasion literature, speaking to the fear of Victorian society becoming tainted by the influence of some creeping foreign Other, proliferated at the turn of the century, and Stoker's threatening depictions of the Transylvanian Count Dracula resonated with his readers. Stoker’s text has continued to resonate with readers, as further social and scientific developments in our modern world allow more and more opportunities to read allegories into the text.
    [Show full text]
  • The Dracula Film Adaptations
    DRACULA IN THE DARK DRACULA IN THE DARK The Dracula Film Adaptations JAMES CRAIG HOLTE Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Number 73 Donald Palumbo, Series Adviser GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Recent Titles in Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy Robbe-Grillet and the Fantastic: A Collection of Essays Virginia Harger-Grinling and Tony Chadwick, editors The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism M. Keith Booker The Company of Camelot: Arthurian Characters in Romance and Fantasy Charlotte Spivack and Roberta Lynne Staples Science Fiction Fandom Joe Sanders, editor Philip K. Dick: Contemporary Critical Interpretations Samuel J. Umland, editor Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination S. T. Joshi Modes of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Twelfth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Robert A. Latham and Robert A. Collins, editors Functions of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Thirteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Joe Sanders, editor Cosmic Engineers: A Study of Hard Science Fiction Gary Westfahl The Fantastic Sublime: Romanticism and Transcendence in Nineteenth-Century Children’s Fantasy Literature David Sandner Visions of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Fifteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Allienne R. Becker, editor The Dark Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Ninth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts C. W. Sullivan III, editor Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Holte, James Craig. Dracula in the dark : the Dracula film adaptations / James Craig Holte. p. cm.—(Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy, ISSN 0193–6875 ; no.
    [Show full text]
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker
    Dracula By Bram Stoker ENG113 Professor Harris Kyle Brady, Amanda Saxer Aurora Smith, Taylor Smith Juliet Stubblebine Vampires: A Background Vampire s • General Definition – Vampires (and werewolves) are among oldest creatures in mythology & exist universally • Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, Romans • Origins of Vampire Myth – Stems almost exclusively from 18th Century Slavic tales – Began as vague demon & explanation for eclipses •Causes – Almost everything! • Reasons Behind the Myths We Know and Love – Stake through the heart – Decapitation – Lack of reflection – Garlic – Crosses Relevant History Historical Events Jack the Second cholera Irish Potato Ripper Pandemic reaches Famine terrorizes British Isles (until 1852) London 1832 1845 1888 1837 1851 1895 Queen Victoria Napoleon III of France Oscar Wilde Rules (until 1901) becomes dictator convicted (until 1870) of sodomy Major Themes of the Era Age of Reforms Worker’s rights Age of Empire Public health acts Voter reform Women’s Rights Food/Drug Acts Several revolts in colonies Bankruptcy/ Wars to create colonies/ Insolvency Act prevent other countries Limits to death from colonizing penalty Crimean War, Second Trade Unions Opium War, Anglo- Judicial Reforms Persian War, etc. Age of Consent raised Greater religious freedom Age of Scientific Advances Industrial Revolution Trains Shift from Astronomical agrarian to Darwin/Evolution urban Photography Frequent New Elements outbreaks Medical of disease Dynamite Invented Telegraph Oceanography Telephone Motion Pictures The Underground
    [Show full text]
  • 'Nosferatu' Revisted
    Fewster: 'Nosferatu' Revisted What is it about the Dracula narrative that is attractive dramatically? Its format is hardly exciting in that it is written as a series of letters. Similarly what could one possibly do in a theatrical production that has not been done? This would form the key research question that underlined my own subsequent production i.e. how does one approach such a classic? Indeed, when I ran a research seminar on the intended production, I was met with initial scepticism and resistance with a general response of “Why bother?” This is a fair question when one considers the plethora of dramatic renditions on stage and screen, in particular the ubiquitous vampire television series. Ultimately the answer to this question could only be explored through practice: textual in adapting the script, and physical in rehearsing the play. The capacity for Dracula and the vampires to turn into—variously—wolves, bats, rats and from smoke into the flesh of the living dead stimulated my creative thinking about how one might stage these transformations. I also began to imagine how an audience might literally follow the story’s protagonist, Jonathan Harker and his journey to Transylvania and back through everyday spaces such as corridors, café, paths and old buildings on the University Campus where I work. I re-read the Stoker novel and re-examined the two German films Nosferatu (1922 Dir. Friedrich Murnau) and the remake: Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979 Dir. Werner Herzog). As a playwright, I chose these sources for two reasons: I did not want to overload my creative sensibility with too much source material and the novel and the 1922 film are in my view historically the key transmitters of the Dracula fable.
    [Show full text]
  • SLC 442 Dracula and Vampire Belief in the World Global Awareness (G)
    GENERAL STUDIES COURSE PROPOSAL COVER FORM Course information: Copy and paste current course information from Class Search/Course Catalog. School of International College/School College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department/School Letters & Cultures Prefix: Number: Title: Dracula and Vampire Belief in the World Units: SLC 442 3 Course description: Is this a cross-listed course? No If yes, please identify course(s): Is this a shared course? No If so, list all academic units offering this course: Note- For courses that are crosslisted and/or shared, a letter of support from the chair/director of each department that offers the course is required for each designation requested. By submitting this letter of support, the chair/director agrees to ensure that all faculty teaching the course are aware of the General Studies designation(s) and will teach the course in a manner that meets the criteria for each approved designation. Is this a permanent-numbered course with topics? Yes If yes, all topics under this permanent-numbered course must be taught in a manner that meets the criteria Chair/Director Initials for the approved designation(s). It is the responsibility of the chair/director to ensure that all faculty teaching the course are aware of the General Studies designation(s) and adhere to the above guidelines. (Required) Requested designation: Global Awareness–G Mandatory Review: Yes Note- a separate proposal is required for each designation. Eligibility: Permanent numbered courses must have completed the university’s review and approval process. For the rules governing approval of omnibus courses, contact [email protected].
    [Show full text]
  • Technologies and the Diversification of Sexualities in Bram Stoker’S Dracula
    2015 HAWAII UNIVERSITY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES ARTS, HUMANITIES, SOCIAL SCIENCES & EDUCATION JANUARY 03 - 06, 2015 ALA MOANA HOTEL, HONOLULU, HAWAII TECHNOLOGIES AND THE DIVERSIFICATION OF SEXUALITIES IN BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA PARK, HYOWON YONSEI UNIVERSITY, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Park 1 Technologies and the Diversification of Sexualities in Bram Stoker’s Dracula Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a novel manifestly charged with sexual imagery. The punctures Dracula leaves on his victim’s neck and his invasion on England signify sexual penetration, especially his targets being middle-class English women. Specifically, the novel narrativizes perverse sexualities: Dracula, despite his male sexual identity, assumes a female role of giving birth to new vampires by copulating not through the female sexual organ but through the punctures on their necks. This story about an East European abject being’s perverse sexuality is recorded by cutting- edge technologies of the nineteenth-century: stenograph, phonograph, and typewriter. The novel is a synthetic work of stenographic, phonographic and typewritten records. These technologies, however, are not merely fancy, cutting-edge elements utilized by the author to draw readers’ attention. Rather, they constitute the perverse sexualities count Dracula and some of his English adversaries exemplify in the novel. In this essay, I will attempt to show how the qualities of the three technologies triggered the diversification of sexuality in Victorian England. Martin Heidegger, in his essay, “The Question Concerning Technology,” usurps the traditional definition of technology as means to an end. Rather, defining the essence of technology as instrumentality, which is the essence of Dasein, he argues that technology is the fundamental factor that defines Dasein.
    [Show full text]
  • Patriarchal Propaganda and Manipulation in Bram Stoker's Dracula
    Patriarchal Propaganda and Manipulation in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: In Search of a New Model of Victorian Femininity Treball de Fi de Grau/ BA dissertation Author: Maria Magdalena Veny Planiol Supervisor: Dr David Owen Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística Grau d’Estudis Anglesos June 2020 CONTENTS Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 2 I. Contextual historical overview ................................................................................. 2 II. Critical framework ....................................................................................................... 5 III. Aim and structure........................................................................................................ 9 1. Chapter I: Dracula as an element of patriarchal propaganda ......................... 10 2. Chapter II: The building of an acceptable model of Victorian femininity through manipulation… .................................................................................................... 16 3. Chapter III: The success of Mina Harker's manipulation… ............................... 22 4. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 25 Works Cited ..........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Recording Angels: Examining Female Narrators in Vampire Fiction and Film Jacqueline T
    College of the Holy Cross CrossWorks Honors Theses Honors Projects 4-1-2017 Recording Angels: Examining Female Narrators in Vampire Fiction and Film Jacqueline T. Bashaw College of the Holy Cross, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://crossworks.holycross.edu/honors Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Bashaw, Jacqueline T., "Recording Angels: Examining Female Narrators in Vampire Fiction and Film" (2017). Honors Theses. 12. https://crossworks.holycross.edu/honors/12 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Projects at CrossWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of CrossWorks. Recording Angels: Examining Female Narrators in Vampire Fiction and Film Jacqueline Bashaw College Honors Program English Honors Program Advisor: Professor Debra Gettelman Reader: Professor Toby Mountain 2 Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………...3 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………4 Chapter I: The Struggle for Narrative Authority in Le Fanu’s Carmilla…………………..11 I. Introduction II. Female narrators and Gothic frame narratives III. Le Fanu’s frame narrator IV. Laura’s narrative insecurity V. Carmilla’s narrative voice VI. Conclusion Chapter II: Mina Harker: Recording Angel………………………………………………….27 I. Introduction II. Other women in Dracula III. Mina’s religious role IV. Mina as narrator and compiler V. The Recording Angel Chapter III: The Silent Narrator: Mina on Screen……………………………………..……54 I. Introduction II. Murnau’s Nosferatu III. Murnau’s narrative structure IV. Nina’s supernatural perspective V. Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre VI.
    [Show full text]
  • Catholicism in Dracula and Its Adaptations
    COVER SHEET This is the author-version of article published as: Starrs, D. Bruno (2004) Keeping the faith: Catholicism in "Dracula" and its adaptations . Journal of Dracula Studies(6). Copyright 2004 (please consult author) Accessed from http://eprints.qut.edu.au Keeping the Faith: Catholicism in Dracula and its Adaptations D. Bruno Starrs Despite the fact that Irishman Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) is arguably replete with Catholic allegory, little critical attention has been paid to its pro-Catholic theme. Nor does any stage or screen adaptation faithfully foreground the text’s Catholicism. The novel’s religious analogy is obvious: in the most basic of his many perversions of Catholic lore, Count Dracula is the figurative anti-Christ who promises eternal life through the ingestion not of sacramental wine representing the blood of Christ, but of actual human blood. In analyzing Stoker’s characterization of his eponymous star, both Ken Gelder and Judith Halberstam argue the Count is anti-semitically modeled on stereotypical images of blood-sucking, baby-stealing Jews (Gelder 13, Halberstam 248). Clive Leatherdale comments on its Catholic allegory and rationalizes it as a response to the weakening hold of creationism in the face of Charles Darwin’s evolutionism: “The book offers an exercise in syllogistic logic: a supposedly immortal being is destroyed by the defenders of Christ, armed above all with a faith in God – the conclusion therefore follows that God exists” (177). In addition to combating semitism and evolutionism Leatherdale suggests an even more political role for the anti-Christ when he tentatively asks: “Are Harker and Seward [both Englishmen and the two most obviously Protestant of the protagonists] converted to the Catholic faith once they discover its tangible power? Perhaps it’s as well that Stoker, likewise a confirmed Protestant, chose not to confront the issue” (185).
    [Show full text]
  • Too Retro for Religion: Self-Identity and the Presence of God in the Works of L. J. Smith and Bram Stoker Jasmyn C
    Eastern Michigan University DigitalCommons@EMU Senior Honors Theses Honors College 2017 Too Retro for Religion: Self-Identity and the Presence of God in the works of L. J. Smith and Bram Stoker Jasmyn C. Barringer Follow this and additional works at: http://commons.emich.edu/honors Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Barringer, Jasmyn C., "Too Retro for Religion: Self-Identity and the Presence of God in the works of L. J. Smith and Bram Stoker" (2017). Senior Honors Theses. 514. http://commons.emich.edu/honors/514 This Open Access Senior Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College at DigitalCommons@EMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Senior Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@EMU. For more information, please contact lib- [email protected]. Too Retro for Religion: Self-Identity and the Presence of God in the works of L. J. Smith and Bram Stoker Abstract Since vampirism threatens the psychological stability of human beings, religion is utilized to combat vampires in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Jutta Schulze alludes to a dominant discourse that establishes moral binaries through religion. However, when the presence of God is limited or non-existent, individuals within L. J. Smith's Secret Vampire cannot rely on moral binaries to understand vampires. Instead, they must redefine their self-identity without Christian beliefs that would otherwise deem vampires unacceptable. "Too Retro for Religion" examines the exclusive nature presented by religious binaries in Victorian literature in comparison with the transformative human-vampire relationship in modern fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • Bram Stoker's Anxieties Concerning the Emancipation of Women
    Bram Stoker’s Anxieties Concerning the Emancipation of Women Rebecca Clippard Abstract Through Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this essay illustrates the anxieties concerning what was known as the “Woman Question.” During the Victorian Era, the more independently-minded New Woman arose as a figure representing a rebellion from social norms, and the question of women’s place in society, whether in the domestic or the business spheres, was debated. By examining the male protagonists’ reactions to Mina Harker as well as Lucy Westenra’s vampiric transformations, the works and theories of Stoker critics, as well as Dracula’s relevant historical background combined with a feminist reading of the book, can broaden our understanding of the emancipation of women in the Victorian Era. Ultimately, two reactions to the New Woman will be analyzed based on the two female protagonists. By examining reactions to Lucy, as well as the theories of other critics, vampirism becomes not just a transformation of the body but a representation of the fears of Victorian men. With Lucy, who embraced her independence, the male characters focus on her destruction. Through her death, Stoker offers one solution to the problem of the New Woman. Upon analyzing Mina Harker, Stoker reveals his other, more likely, solution. Rather than revulsion and violence, Mina’s transformation emphasizes how Victorian women should also contribute in upholding the patriarchal values. Dracula is Stoker’s answer to the “Women Question.” Middle Tennessee State University 67 Bram Stoker’s Anxieties Concerning the Emancipation of Women n Dracula, Bram Stoker clearly illustrates his and Victorian society’s anxieties Iabout the role of women as the dissimilar fates of Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker reveal.
    [Show full text]
  • Plague, Shadows, and Antisemitism: Re-Thinking the Place of Nosferatu in the Classroom
    Director: F.W. Murnau. Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. Germany: Prana-Film, 1922, re-release DVD Kino-International 2007. Film/DVD. Not Rated. B/W. Silent with German Intertitles with English subtitles or English Intertitles. Runtime: 94 min. Reviewed by Amanda Hobson Published on H-German (October, 2009) Commissioned by Benita Blessing (Oregon State University) One image from Nosferatu, eine Symphonie Dracula, but they could not receive the rights to des Grauens is so fercely prevalent in today's hor‐ make the flm. This problem did not prevent them ror and Halloween repertoire that most people from pursuing the project. First, they changed all know the scene even if they have never seen the of the characters' names--Count Dracula becomes film: Count Orlok (played by Max Shreck) rises, Count Orlok, Jonathan Harker becomes Thomas with the help of only his mind, like a plank from Hutter, Mina Harker becomes Ellen Hutter, and the foor of the cargo-hold of the ship that has fer‐ Professor Abraham Van Helsing becomes Profes‐ ried him from Transylvania to Wisborg, Germany. sor Bulwer. The action in the flm takes place in Yet few modern audiences who watch the flm in Germany, instead of in England (the destination of movie halls or at home recognize that moment as Stoker's Dracula). Even the ending changed in a warning, repeated throughout the flm, about Nosferatu. Nonetheless, the novelist's widow Flo‐ the dangers that foreigners and especially Jews rence Stoker successfully sued in a German court posed to civilization, that is, Christendom. This of law to destroy all copies of the flm after its re‐ sign of Orlok's ability to suspend the laws of sci‐ lease, a key legal decision in both German eco‐ ence establishes him as an unnatural creature to nomic and cinematic history.
    [Show full text]