Hamlet + Dracula & the Bloody Chamber

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EASTER WORK

Tick when Week 1 – Securing the Knowledge complete

D & TBC: Secure your knowledge - Use knowledge organisers to ensure you are secure on the basics Monday 8th - Make revision cards of any phrases that you like, knowledge April you feel is not secure (including the plot) and link to quotations from the texts - Watch Massolit on Dracula and TBC

Hamlet: Secure your Knowledge - Secure your knowledge of the text and order of plot. Read over Tuesday 9th the scene notes you have.

April - Group three quotations for each character - Five words for tone for each character - Massolit – John McCrea and the soliloquies

Wednesday D & TBC: Re-read the introductions from both texts

10th April - Take notes and make revision cards as appropriate

Hamlet: Critical Interpretations - Revise the critical interpretations on page 3-5. If you are unclear on these, make notes and revision cards. Thursday 11th - Have a well-phrased sentence you learn for each critic

April - Link critical interpretation to film version and quotation from text - For fun extra revision – you could watch some of these interpretations!

D & TBC Secure Critical Interpretations - Revise context booklets to ensure you have a sense of overview of interpretation over time. This will be helped by your recent read of the introductions. CORE KNOWLEDGE IS: Dracula – Stoker’s life, Daily Mail 1897, Punter, Frayling, Craft, Friday 12th Arata, Stoker’s ‘On Censorship’ essay. April TBC – Carter’s words about her work, Helen Simpson’s introduction, Marina Warner, Frayling, Helen Stoddart, Lorna Sage, Patricia Duncker - Watch/re-watch Massolit lectures to secure this knowledge - Have a well-phrased sentence you learn for each critic: test yourself. 1

Tick when Week 2 – Essay Writing using Resources from Week 1 complete

Hamlet Section B: Plan - Spend the full hour planning - ‘It is sometimes said that chance, not Hamlet, brings the plot to a Monday 15th resolution.’ April - Use the essay plan on page 9 to help you revise - Use your target from the mock exam - Use marking essays to help you too.

D & TBC Essay Planning CHOOSE one of the essays. Look at what the examiner said and indicative exam content. Page 10 and 11 Tuesday 16th - Get started with the comparative phrases on page 13

April - Use your feedback from self-assessment of essay 1 to improve. - You must include other Gothic texts and influences and interpretations.

HAMLET: Timed Writing – Section B chance brings resolution - Use your feedback from self-assessment of essay 1 to improve. Wednesday - Write essay in 40 minutes. 17th April - Self-assess and annotate like you would a marking essay - Go back to marking essays if helpful

D & TBC Timed Essay - this is writing the essay planned on Tuesday Thursday 18th - Ensure you use your target and feedback from the mock April - Ensure you make sure you link to the Gothic and interpretations over time HAMLET: Timed Writing – Section A Page 7 & 8 - Use your mock target and feedback Friday 19th - Ensure you use some of the key words for language, drama

April and structure - Make sure you use words for tone

It is really important to stay on top of this and do an hour each day. This WILL make you feel better and really prepared.

If you get stuck, can’t remember your login for massolit or are unsure – do not feel embarrassed – email [email protected] or [email protected]

Hamlet – ESSENTIAL DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS

Peter Hall, famous director: “Hamlet is one of mankind’ s great images. It turns a new face to each century, even to each decade.” (1967 lecture)

C19th Hamlet mirrored the Romantic obsession with self-conscious musing and Romantic introspection views Coleridge “I have a smack of Hamlet myself” Schlegel “a tragedy of thought inspired by continual and never-satisfied meditation” Byron “[Hamlet is] a colossal enigma. We love Hamlet as we love ourselves” yet he is at points “fiend-like in cruelty”

Early C20th Early C20th focus was on Hamlet as a play which lent itself to psychological views discussion and psychoanalytical analysis. Critics often focused on Hamlet as a real character (rather than a dramatic construct) and the reasons for his procrastination. Freud, reading the play from a psychoanalytical perspective, saw the cause of Hamlet’s deep-seated malaise in his repressed desire to kill father and marry his mother (called the Oedipus complex because of Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex) It is worth bearing in mind that this is one interpretation which must be seen within the context of early C20th ideas about the divided self, and it is quite a dated critical idea. (Emma Smith: “Freud read Shakespeare, but Shakespeare didn’t read Freud”, in other words, Freud was interpreting the play through a very specific lens of fin de siècle fears about the self.) Laurence Olivier’s film adaptation (1948) was based on Olivier’s 1937 role on stage as Hamlet and was greatly influenced by Freud’s interpretation. It “stripped the play of its political elements (no Fortinbras) and instead presented Hamlet as an alienated and hollow individual”. The castle of Elsinore represented as place of labyrinthine shadows and passageways, symbolising the internal thought processes of Hamlet’s mind. A.C. Bradley (an influential Shakespeare scholar) tended to see Hamlet as a real character rather than a dramatic construction and consequently, focused on Hamlet’s motivations and psychology. “[Hamlet’s melancholy makes him a mystery and] Wherever this mystery touches us, wherever we are forced to feel the wonder and awe of man’s godlike ‘apprehension’ … and at the same time are forced to see him powerless in his petty sphere of action, … Hamlet most brings home to us at once the sense of the soul’s infinity”

Post WW2 In the wake of WW2 came the sexually liberated 1960s and the Cold War. Hamlet views became associated with disaffected youth, rebelling against older systems of power and the establishment. For Jan Kott, Hamlet as the subversive voice crying out against political systems in the grip of tyranny. Jan Kott (Polish critic and director, writing under tyranny in the eastern bloc) “[Hamlet] is the youth, deeply involved in politics, rid of illusions… a born conspirator… a young rebel” Grigory Kozintsev (1964) This production is written and set in Communist Russia living in the wake of Stalinsit rule. Kozintsev is known for showing overwhelmingly the social repercussions of tragedy. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable aspect of Kozintsev’s Hamlet is the opening scene; 3

Hamlet is charging home to the funeral of his father across the country side as the black flags are unfurled down the castle walls. Capturing the sublimity of the rugged landscapes was one of the primary means through which Kozintsev was able to adhere to his self-imposed command that “the screen must be charged with the electricity of tragedy”. Kozintsev used the opportunity to alternate between the stifling claustrophobia of interior shots and the wide expanses of untrammelled landscapes in order to show the intensity of Hamlet’s whirling mind. Undeniably, a significant aspect of the tragedy is also shown through the participation of Shostakovich in composing its score – and haunting musical reflection of both Hamlet’s mind and the social chaos created through corrupt leadership. Peter Hall’s 1965 production featured David Warner’s iconic counter-cultural Hamlet. Warner was draped in a long, red scarf, a symbol of student youth drawing parallels between Hamlet and youth disillusionment with politics in the 1960s. Hall said that Hamlet was “always on the brink of actions, but … this disease of disillusionment, stops the final, committed action” Although much later, Branagh’s lavish film adaptation (1996) indirectly nodded to the wars erupting in Eastern Europe, following the collapse of communist dictatorships. Branagh’s Fortinbras is presented as cold-eyed and ruthless in his takeover coup – the ‘new order’ that he represents associated with political might and expediency. The ending features soldiers dismantling old Hamlet’s statue, signifying that one tyranny based on individual power will be replaced by another and nothing really changes.

Second 1970s feminism asked questions about the sexual politics reflected in older texts, and wave and their role in shaping cultural assumptions about gender, and led to later critics late C20th exploring how women are presented. feminist Elaine Showalter “When Ophelia is mad, Gertrude says that “her speech is nothing” views …. Ophelia’s speech therefore represents the horror of having nothing to say” For many feminist theorists, the madwoman is a heroine, a powerful figure who rebels against the family and the social order. David Leverenz “Even in her madness she has no voice of her own, only a discord of other voices …”; “Ophelia has no choice but to say ‘I shall obey, my lord’ Emma Smith “Hamlet is arguably a male orientated play, more sympathetic to male identity… Ophelia and Gertrude are often made to fit the stereotype of tragic females as either mentally frail or a ‘shop-soiled’ maiden” The play is structured to make us sympathetic to Hamlet – it is a play of “soliloquy overload”. Modern directors sometimes draw attention to the misogynistic overtones of the play by making Gertrude “more distant, more regal, not the “beast” driven by her lust. In this case, the idea that women are deceptive and lustful is more in Hamlet’s mind”

Modern Later C20th criticism – the focus shifts from the earlier analysis of Hamlet’s views psychology to consider how the play fits within its context – in other words, a play which reflects cultural anxieties. These included: the Elizabethan succession crisis and fear of a foreign ruler claiming power after the queen’s death; and the spiritual crisis of doctrine and belief engendered by the Reformation. Modern critics often focus on genre: as a revenge tragedy, Hamlet compares and contrast with other ‘blockbuster’ revenge tragedies and history plays of the time (Thomas Kyd’s the Spanish Tragedy).

Graham Holderness “Hamlet is stranded between two worlds, unable to emulate the heroic values of his father, unable to engage with the modern world of modern diplomacy… he is confronted by the tension between those two great Renaissance oppositions: idealism and Machiavellianism” Stephen Greenblatt: Has a focus on the role of purgatory in Hamlet. “Now a Protestant confronting a Catholic ghost is exactly Shakespeare's way of grappling with what was not simply a general social problem but one lived out in his own life. Jonathan Bate “Hamlet is a political drama as well as a play about the journey of an individual self” Emma Smith “The early title for the play was ‘Prince Hamlet’ so it is worth noting that the character later critics have argued is like us, an Everyman figure, is not like us and has a responsibility within the political realm.” “Hamlet’s distorted, even narcissistic character, in which his view of the world is the only one, with a solipsistic sense of his significance. His final line “The rest is silence” yet there are other characters, the world goes on.” “History plays of the time featured fathers and sons, questions of good or bad governance so Hamlet may have more sense in the mind of the original audience as a history play, …less as a personal story” In contrast to the focus on the political aspects of the play, Warchus’ 1997 modern dress production concentrated on the domestic story of the play and was a “strongly personal” production. It projected footage of black and white home videos showing Hamlet playing with his father in the snow. Including what different Hamlets wore… Extra Warner’s (1965) long red student scarf (see above) details Mark Rylance (1989) became known as the “pyjama Hamlet” – wearing about how pyjamas which draw parallels with psychiatric patients in an asylum- feigned characters madness or made mad by a rotten world? and staging Tennant – (2008) after the play scene, he careers around the court sporting a in different crown at a tipsy angle – visually mocking Claudius and reminding him that his productions grip on power is unsteady Branagh – (1996) his platinum blond hair makes him look like Claudius - drawing parallels between the tragic hero and the villain, suggesting there is less of a distinction between the two as the play progresses. [great point worth having up your sleeve in the exam– Emma Smith argues that the play creates moral confusion about hero and villain because of the soliloquies; “in Shakespeare’s time, [soliloquies] tended to show the audience the villain; were associated with deceit, duplicity, moral rot”. In Hamlet, they establish that the protagonist is “not villain but tortured individual, split between private and public self”]

Lyndsey Turner’s production (2015 - starring Cumberbatch), Ophelia plays light music on a piano. Later her madness is suggested by snatches of tunes and discordant notes – as if she no longer remembers what she has been taught, cannot play as she is expected to. At the end of the first act, the stage is also covered in dirt and rubble serving as a visual metaphor or representation of the society falling apart. Simon Godwin’s Hamlet (2016) with Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet. Called “the graffiti prince” by critic Michael Billinton who stated that “ to convey his “antic disposition” [Essiedu] dons a paint-daubed suit and goes around doing subversive graffiti and big, splashy canvases like a mixture of Banksy and Jackson Pollock”. Against Claudius’ military tyranny (there are echoes of Ghana’s first president) Hamlet as graffiti artist is a up to date rebel against the establishment. This play is said to show the ‘cultural dislocation’ of Hamlet. LINK TO - Graham Holderness who said Hamlet is ‘stranded between the two worlds, unable to emulate the heroic values of his father, unable to engage with the modern world of political diplomacy.’ Staging details Simon Goodwin’s recent RSC production (2016) transported Elsinore to Africa, and was striking for its use of vibrant, even lurid colour and black magic to conjure the ghost. Doran’s production – use of the mirror in Gertrude’s closet to reflect reality; after Polonius’ death it is cracked, and Doran suggests Hamlet reflection of himself is cracked as a result of his murderous actions (he looks into this mirror again at the start of 5.2) This production cuts out Fortinbras and is more focused on how Hamlet tears destroys himself. CCTV cameras in Doran’s production – a visually powerful reminder that Elsinore is a paranoid, surveillance state, in which everyone is spying on each other. In Doran’s production, the same character plays Claudius and old Hamlet. The visual similarities between brothers add to the complicated nature of Hamlet’s revenge.

(a) Discuss the following passage from Act 4, Scene 4, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and its dramatic effects. Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following. LAERTES Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without. Danes No, let's come in. LAERTES I pray you, give me leave. Danes We will, we will. They retire without the door. LAERTES I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king, Give me my father! QUEEN GERTRUDE Calmly, good Laertes. LAERTES That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard, 100 Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow Of my true mother. KING CLAUDIUS What is the cause, Laertes, That thy rebellion looks so giant-like? Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person: There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude. Speak, man. LAERTES Where is my father? KING CLAUDIUS Dead. QUEEN GERTRUDE But not by him. KING CLAUDIUS Let him demand his fill. 110 LAERTES How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with: To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand, That both the worlds I give to negligence, Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged Most thoroughly for my father. KING CLAUDIUS Who shall stay you? LAERTES My will, not all the world: And for my means, I'll husband them so well, They shall go far with little. KING CLAUDIUS Good Laertes, If you desire to know the certainty 121 7

Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge, That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser? LAERTES None but his enemies. KING CLAUDIUS Will you know them then? LAERTES To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms; And like the kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood. KING CLAUDIUS Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman. That I am guiltless of your father's death, 130 And am most sensible in grief for it, It shall as level to your judgment pierce As day does to your eye. Danes Within. Let her come in. LAERTES How now! what noise is that? Re-enter OPHELIA.

(a) It is sometimes said that chance, not Hamlet, brings the plot to a resolution.’ Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of the play. You should refer to different interpretations of the play.

ESSAY NOTES: the ending is a matter of chance rather than Hamlet’s actions?

Define this question – be clear about what it is asking you to consider  Hamlet’s revenge is a matter of chance and luck, rather than decisive action – how far can you consider this to be true?  Read Act 5.2 / key notes again and look at how Claudius is killed - not really Hamlet acting like a “painted tyrant”, bent in revenge.  Hamlet’s death and the resolution of the play brought about by Laertes’s quest revenge, which Hamlet inadvertently put into action?  Hamlet is characterised more by his thought than action – evidence of where - obviously the soliloquies but where else in the play/ think about key moments in which Hamlet overthinks?

 Is this really the case – is does Hamlet lack dramatic agency the power to shape events)? He does bring about the tragic climax, even if the manner of killing Claudius is arguably anti-climatic. Eg:  How – stages the play within the play (is he successful here?)  his “antic disposition” becomes a real threat to Claudius’s governance – how and where?  he indirectly brings about the final conflict with Laertes – does he know that this will end in death for Claudius or not?

 More challenging or extension point Why ask this question about the play? eg:  Hamlet is an intellectual hero, not a model of a hero from revenge tragedy. He differs from Elizabethan revengers such as Hieronimo in Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy because he does not simply use his “antic disposition” to threaten the king, and is not purposeful in his revenge . Look at examples of where Hamlet is aware that he not a typical revenge hero (you have lots of quotes on this in your Acts 3+4 quotes handout)  Hamlet’s sense of malaise, or of an existential crisis is complicated by the code of revenge of earlier tragedies and in effect, dominates the play. Explain what crisis – 1-2 of these…  spiritual or religious (use your notes from Emma Smith’s lecture)  personal (a family in crisis)  belief in what kings should be (Claudius’ new model of kingship breeds sycophants and poisons the body politic, yet Hamlet struggles with the model of a prince embodied by Fortinbras – look at the ‘missing’ soliloquy (missing in your Folio edition), p. 147-8.  How does he make his peace or from a tragedy perspective, find anagnorisis, at the end? The speech to Horatio in Act 5.2 2there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow” – is this a heroic acceptance of fate or Hamlet’s decision that thinking does him no good ?

Revision Questions: Choose one of these exam questions. Plan it and write in timed conditions. If you would like to do the other questions, feel free!

Assessment objective in order of weighting. AO3: Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received. AO4: Explore connections across literary texts. AO1: Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression; AO5: Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations.

1. Bram Stoker and Dracula: Gothic Writing is characterised by a fascination with death. Consider this statement in relation to Dracula by comparing to one other text you have studied. Candidates are likely to suggest that much of the attraction of Dracula for the Victorian reading public came from its exploitation of the unknown in a world which felt itself increasingly modern and in control of the forces of nature; they may argue that death and the world of the Undead provide a rich resource in relation to the unknown. They may suggest that the arcane knowledge supplied by Van Helsing is a key to the novel’s sensational appeal, possibly quoting from his insights on the Undead: ‘They cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world. For all that die from the preying of the Undead become themselves Undead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water...’. Answers may include contextual discussion concerning the Victorian preoccupation with death, suggesting that Dracula feeds into this national obsession. Discussion of Dracula as a novel of sensation is likely to include its qualities as a thriller, where suspense is driven by the risk of death, or – worse – of vampirism. Links are likely to be made to other novels which feature figures who, like Count Dracula, combine the states of living and dying, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, where the Creature is fashioned from re-animated corpses. What the examiner said: ‘This question on death in Gothic was the least popular of the comparative questions for this topic, and was answered less confidently than many others on the paper, almost certainly because candidates preferred to offer prepared material, which did not fit, rather than to approach the importance of the theme freshly. Many spoke of the ‘liminal’ space between life and death, but very few argued about ways in which Gothic is bound up with the fear and fascination with death, the possibility of immortality, even the limited immortality of the vampire. Instead much of the writing on this topic concerned primarily other themes than death, such as the role of women, homosexual practices or science. It was surprising to read answers based on Dracula and Frankenstein which overlooked Dracula’s status as ‘undead’, or the Creature’s creation from parts of dead bodies.’ 2. Angel Carter and The Bloody Chamber and other Stories: Gothic writing must always have the power to shock. Consider this statement by comparing The Bloody Chamber to another text you have studied. Candidates are likely to suggest that the stories in The Bloody Chamber subvert the reader’s expectations in a number of ways, leading to an element of shock. They may argue that in a story based on a fairy tale there is an expectation of male dominance and heroism which is often challenged by Angela Carter: for example, in the collection’s title-story, ‘The Bloody Chamber’, the heroine is rescued not as might be expected by a male hero but by her mother. Answers are likely to point out the stories are at times shocking in terms of context which is both violent and sexually explicit, such as the Count’s violation of the body of the dead Snow Child. They may also suggest that some of the stories, such as ‘The Werewolf’ and ‘Wolf Alice’, shock the reader by showing heartless treatment of the elderly by the young, in order to make way for their own more successful future. Links are likely to be made to other texts which provide shocking material, and are possibly more conventionally Gothic: for 10

example, candidates may draw on the transgressive behaviour of figures such as Dracula. They may also discuss the treatment of more conventionally drawn female figures in Gothic texts such as Frankenstein or The Italian, suggesting that the shock here comes from the mistreatment of the vulnerable and innocent, whereas in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories the shock is more likely to be found in discovering that youthful female figures can also be self-seeking and brutal. What the examiner said: ‘Many more candidates chose to write on ‘the power to shock’, often focusing much of their attention on the treatment of female characters and the portrayal of sexual experiences. Not all the issues brought up here were particularly shocking, and many were plainly academic, such as the view that Victorian texts under-represented women. There was generally sound material on Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, usually with a fair sense of second- wave feminism and what it stood for, and also with appropriate insights into the literary fairy-tales and folk-stories on which Carter based her text. Of the authors of second-wave feminism, Germaine Greer was named most frequently, followed by Simone De Beauvoir and Kate Millett. Thoughtful responses often considered the significance of the context in which the texts were originally received, one arguing that ‘Stoker’s audiences may be shocked by the nonchalance with which more modern audiences react to such depictions of the supernatural, however one must recognise that the threats embodied by the vampire are no longer representative of today’s anxieties and fears.’’ 3. A common character in gothic stories is the isolated figure or outsider. Compare this statement in relation Dracula and The Bloody Chamber. Answers on Dracula are likely to argue that Count Dracula himself fills the role of the isolated figure or outsider in this text, suggesting that his foreign pedigree as well as his mysterious credentials provide a threat for the hearty English heroes and heroines of the novel. They may quote from Jonathan Harker’s early encounter with him, showing how Dracula’s charm and gracious manners do not hide his sinister purposes for long. Candidates may discuss the ambivalent presence of Dracula as a kind of anti-hero. In The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories answers are likely to identify a number of figures as isolated or outsiders, such as the French Marquis in ‘The Bloody Chamber’ (based on the story of Bluebeard), and the Beast in ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ and ‘The Tiger’s Bride’ (both based on Beauty and the Beast). They may show how the Marquis is an irredeemable villain who receives his punishment at the hands of the heroine’s mother, but that the isolation of the Beast is resolved by love in the traditional fairy tale manner. Answers may also identify figures who are isolated by choice in their independence, such as the girl in ‘The Werewolf’. Links may be made to other texts featuring conventional villains such as Schedoni in The Italian, or more complex figures such as Victor Frankenstein. Candidates who choose to discuss The Picture of Dorian Gray may find a number of characters who can be described as outsiders, but are likely to focus chiefly on Lord Henry and on Dorian himself, who becomes increasingly isolated as the story progresses. What the examiner said: ‘Dracula’s status as an outside threat to Empire (‘reverse colonisation’) was frequently referred to, suggesting that, as an outsider, Dracula represents a threat to the complacent – or fearful – civilisation of the West. These answers often saw Dracula as symbolic of a remote medieval aristocracy. Less successful answers once again were inclined to state that certain characters (usually female) can obviously be seen as ‘isolated figures’ or ‘outsiders’, often without constructing an argument which supported the assertion, and instead off-loading prepared material about the characters. As suggested above, the best responses are those which privilege literary matters, and some excellent answers showed how the novel’s uncertain means of presentation, in letters and journals, tends to marginalise everyone, and make nearly every character vulnerable. The Creature from Frankenstein was a useful contributor to many essays, and there was excellent use here and elsewhere of Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark, a text which seemed to help candidates to focus on the Gothic imagination.’

Further Revision Materials

Dracula & The Bloody Chamber

EXTENSION: EASY REVISION BUT HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88edGlW3DT4

Documentary on Dracula presented by Christopher Frayling.

Watch and write down 5 critical quotations and use at least one of these in your Dracula/TBC essays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81uU7TXH3YE

Short clip (5 mins approx.) discussing TBC and some of Carter’s other texts – carter reading bits of ‘The Snow Child’ and Marina Warner commenting on Carter – great for quotes to explain how Carter fits into the context of 1970s feminism.

Broad comparative overview... Dracula The Bloody Chamber • Fear of change • A conscious exploration and • Fear of loss of control (on subversion of traditional fear of personal, societal and global change and loss of control, levels) especially relating to women. • Typical of gothic texts of this • Explores physical, sexual and period – fin de siecle. psychological change as • Complex because balanced at the opportunities for growth. end of the 19th C, therefore there • Questions and subverts tradition is an embracing of modernity / gothic roles, allowing both genders science / technology / reason as to fulfil their potential more fully. well as a fear of change and loss of • More awareness and insight – morality. author very conscious of their • Authorial conservatism – possible message and of bringing out unawareness of the ‘latent ‘latent content’. content’ – e.g. sexual undertones. Get started with comparison:

1. Turn the comparative ideas above into comparative sentences.

For example:

Despite the illicit thrills offered by the plot, Dracula is a deeply conservative novel by the end, advocating traditional Victorian virtues of self-sacrifice and duty, unlike Carter’s conscious exploration of transformation and the need for change.

Essay title no. 1

Bram Stoker: Dracula

Gothic writing explores the fear of forces beyond human understanding.

Consider the validity of this statement by comparing Dracula with at least one other text prescribed for this topic.

Ideas to start with  Fear of supernatural  The Unknown ‘Other’  Sublime forces – god and the devil/ diabolical forces  Taps into our fear of the irrational  The past which haunts the present – an ancient curse which lurks  Ourselves! Human psyche Dracula – • vampirism as an ancient curse which overshadows modernity – the ‘Other’; our own sexual desires, latent selves which can be transformed – Harker, Lucy, even Mina and Van Helsing; • fear of unknown menace that is not named – lunatic asylum, London as a “teeming millions” – what monster it holds • story that cannot be properly told – beyond human understanding? TBC – • fear of unfamiliar – for innocent female protagonists – venturing, led by curiosity into unchartered territory of sexual experience and violent, murderous desires. • To females, males are beyond human understanding and likewise – each gender divided into binary opposites – predator versus prey etc. • curiosity about our fears themselves – exploring the way fear encoded in stories controls

Exemplar introduction

Encouraging the reader to explore forces beyond human understanding is central to the gothic genre. Originating as a reaction to the rationalism which characterised the Enlightenment, early gothic novels by Walpole and Radcliffe explored the ghosts in the machinery of ancestral bloodlines, but what constitutes an unknown force, beyond our rational understanding has shifted to reflect the cultural anxieties of the period in which texts are produced. In Dracula, Stoker uses the figure of the vampire to represent an ancient curse threatening modernity. Stoker’s novel also plays upon fin de siècle fears about sexual fluidity within gender roles and the fear of the foreign ‘Other’ which can infect London with its “teeming millions”. By contrast, Carter’s 1979 collection of stories, fuses radically different versions of old fairytales with the gothic in order to dispel the fear about the violence, and in particular, sexual violence which Carter claimed was “latent” within them – a force that old tales implicitly suggested was beyond rational understanding. The Bloody Chamber therefore conjures up readers’ fears but as the collection progresses, it is clear that Carter uses the fairytale form to question and destabilise the binary division between predator and prey, aggressor and passive victim which is encoded in the form and content of older fairytales.

Point 1 – fear of the ‘Other’ – usually foreign, unfamiliar which represents the binary opposite of us (Us / them)and reaffirms the cultural norm

Dracula

• Opening section calculated to play upon the conventional fear of the ‘Other’ – explain what this is. Dracula and Transylvania – seeped in barbarous superstition, feudal power structures, as if forever overshadowed by the past - the reverse of modern, technologically advanced England. • Harker – the emblematic of the Victorian ‘man on the make’ – middle class, educated, a product of social progress gradually loses his sanity in Transylvania- where and how? • This fear amplified / intensified when Dracula transfers himself to London – his arrival at Whitby and his movements in London are purposefully narrated in piecemeal ways – to mimic Mina’s arrangements of the documentary evidence but with the effect of generated real fear and mystery about Dracula’s intentions and who he will ‘infect’. Specific example.

• Turn of the century (1897) the novel stoked cultural anxieties about / fed into fears about … use KO / quotes • TBC and linking sentence • Many of Carter’s stories also locate the protagonist in an unfamiliar place, or confront them with a creature who defies understanding. • Example 1 The soldier/ cyclist in TLOTHOL – a figure like Harker – innocently wandering into the lair of the female vampire – examples of how setting and other details suggest that the female predator’s deadly lure is something he cannot understand. • Example 2 The heroine in ‘TBC’ – the Marquis’ castle and “enfer”/ bloody chamber – room of desecration. How this scene is used to explore her fears. Back to question and evaluate – similarities and/ or differences – why? • In Carter’s text, most characters learn to understand the foreign ‘Other’ and conquer their fear – the protagonist of the title story has glimpses of the “atrocious loneliness” of the monster her husband is; Beauty in ‘The Tiger’s Bride’ is horrified to be locked in marriage to the beast but conquers her fear and is reborn. The wolf stories – using laughter to dispel the deadly myth of the wolf as “carnivore incarnate”? However, in Dracula …

Two more points

ONE IDEA Fear of who we might be or could become – of transformation ? Fear of our latent selves (unconscious, hidden from society) which lies beyond our understanding (i.e. the demon self within) and where our curiosity and susceptibility to temptation will lead. This point works for both texts but you also need well- judged, neatly embedded context (don’t overdo stuff about the ‘id’ and Freud). ANOTHER IDEA Our fears themselves - an example of a force which lies beyond our rational understanding. Carter explores our human fears of beasts and “aborted transformations” –tigers, wolves, werewolves, vampires – and to an extent diminishes their threat through knowing irony and laughter (the prologue to and ending of ‘The Company of Wolves’). More than laughter, she humanises the objects we have been taught to fear – ‘Wolf Alice’s’ tenderness towards the fearful werewolf; the cyclist’s maternal affection for the vampire – and to an extent rationalises the creatures we have been taught to fear. Is this the case with Dracula – Dracula is destroyed at the end and Van Helsing’s crusade (with its Christian associations). Is the fear of the vampires curse lifted? (use the notes on the final chapter – and Maurice Hindle’s quote.) Rather than dispelling fear, does Harker not fear that their story will not be believed, and that you cannot therefore rationally explain the events of the novel (looking back, they seem like a story and defy belief? )

Hamlet Critical Statements – turn these into exam questions adding the how far do you agree?

The Play –

 ‘the Mona Lisa of literature’ – TS Eliot How far is Hamlet an enigmatic play?  ‘obsessed with doubles’ – Kermode  ‘although ‘Hamlet’ is an extremely active, indeed feverishly energetic play, it does move forward slowly.’ – Kermode  ‘a vulgar and barbarous tragedy’ – Voltaire  ‘it is not only Hamlet but his play that delays’ – Kermode

Characterisation –

 ‘before Shakespeare there was characterisation, after Shakespeare there were characters.’ – Bloom  ‘no-one in this play knows or understands anyone else.’ – Linda Charnes

Hamlet –

 ‘the hero-villain’ – Bloom  ‘many different explanations for his procrastination’ – Kenneth Muir  ‘sterile concentration on death and evil’ – LC Knights  ‘pure, noble and most moral nature’ – Goethe  ‘the man who couldn’t make up his mind’ – Olivier film  ‘not an individual but everyman’ – CS Lewis  full of ‘meditative excess’ – Coleridge

Claudius –

 ‘the cunning and lecherousness of Claudius’ evil has corrupted the whole kingdom of Denmark’ – Richard D Altick  ‘clearly the antagonist’ – Carla Stockton  ‘good and gentle king’ – G Wilson Knight

Polonius –

 ‘made palatable by the fact that he is funny’ – Michael Pennington  ‘between knave and fool, most performances fall to one side or the other’ – Pennington

Gertrude –

 ‘a character of ambiguous morality whom we can never fully know’ – GF Bradby  ‘negative and insignificant’ – TS Eliot

Ophelia –

 ‘Ophelia is one of the least self-critical beings imaginable’ – Eli Siegel  ‘suffers a series of patriarchal oppressions’ – Emi Hamana  ‘only concern is pleasing others’ – Rebecca Smith

Theatre –

 ‘Shakespeare himself is speaking when Hamlet instructs the players’ – Albert Tolman  ‘Shakespeare’s most lucid and metatheatical tragedy’ – Phyllis Gorfain