Frankenstein And Dracula

Generative Monsters and Myths of Modern Age

Frankenstein and Dracula

Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula the Vampire are Created together in a rainy night by a Swiss lake in 1816 Guarding the opposite temporal gates of the Victorian Age (1818 -

1897) Dynamic totalizing monsters Living metaphors of inner fears Brilliant embodiment of middle class fears and threats Prototypes of endless clones throughout 20th and 21st century Lacking a unique and authoritative point of view on narrative events Narrated by multiple narrators through a complex narrative

technique Fought by mediocre, nationalistic , stupid, philistine antagonists Famous works by otherwise not so famous writers

Common Features

As soon as they were created Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula the Vampire split and lose track of each other

Frankenstein is a forerunner of a dreaded progress Dracula is a relic of a feared past Frankenstein is written in the past Dracula is narrated in the present Frankenstein wants to convince readers Dracula scares readers out of their wits In Frankenstein there’s a distance between action and reader s In Dracula readers have clues but see no causes and are at the

mercy of suspence Frankenstein is authored by a young, sensitive, unhappy woman Dracula is the brain child of a do-it-all theatre employee who

needed extra money

Main Differences

Though Frankenstein and Dracula rarely appear together, they are the two horrible sides of Victorian society the disfigured wretch and the ruthless proprietor -

worker and capitalFrankenstein and Dracula are totalizing monsters.

They threaten to live for ever, so they have to be killedFear arises from the terror of a split, conflicting

society and from the wish to heal it so…….monsters help to displace social conflict and horror

outside society

Horror and Fear

Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t have a name: he is a collective, artificial creature, not found in nature but built

He immediately threatens his creator who wants to kill him

He is disfigured because so were workers in the first decades of the industrial revolution

He is a good metaphor of capitalism which forms by deforming, civilizes by barbarizing, enriches by impoverishing

He shows how hard it was for the ruling class to accept the idea that all human beings are equal

Frankenstein - the scary proletarian

“How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. “

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Chapter 5

The main narrative voice in the story is that of Walton a scientist who renounces his exploration to the North Pole gets a dominant function in the narrative structure

He begins the story and ends it. His narrative contains and subordinates Frankenstein’s narrative which contains the monster’s

He has the broadest, most comprehensive viewpoint This narrative structure makes the story fable-like. it

proceeds orally: Frankenstein speaks to Walton the monster speaks to Frankenstein Frankenstein speaks to Walton Walton finally writes

The main element in the story is not the splitting of society into two opposing poles, but its symbolic reunification in the Walton family

Walton - the narrator

WALTON, _in continuation_ _August 26th, 17--._ You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror like that which even now curdles mine? His tale is connected, and told with an appearance of the simplest truth; yet I own to you that the letters of Felix and Safie, which he showed me, and the apparition of the monster seen from our ship, brought to me a greater conviction of the truth of his narrative than his asseverations, however earnest and connected. Such a monster has then really existence! I cannot doubt it; yet I am lost in surprise and admiration. Sometimes I endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature's formation: but on this point he was impenetrable.

_Septmber 12th._ It is past; I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes of utility and glory;--I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour to detail these bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted towards England, and towards you, I will not despond.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Chapter 24

Count Dracula isn’t a real aristocrat, he doesn’t have servantsdrink or make love like showy clothesgo to the theatre or huntinghold receptions or build stately homes

His aim is not to destroy the lives of others but to use them

Dracula is an ascetic follower of the Protestant ethiche has no body—or rather no shadowhe is ‘incorporeal’ like moneyHe is ‘impossible as a physical fact’ like Frankenstein’s

Monster

Dracula - the not so aristocratic aristocrat

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere.The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation. "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead than a living man.

Bram stoke, Dracula, Chapter 2

Capital like vampires lives by sucking living labour: the more labour it sucks the more it lives

Dracula like capital is forced to expand his domainHis curse compels him to make more and more

victims

just as the capitalist is compelled to accumulateHis nature forces him to struggle to submit the whole

society Dracula aims at creating a ‘new order of beings’ .

Where better than England, the birth-place of modern capitalism?

For this reason the vampire has to be killed

Dracula the capitalist

LETTER, SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON, SOLICITORS WHITBY, TO MESSRS. CARTER, PATERSON & CO., LONDON. 17 August "Dear Sirs,--Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great Northern Railway. Same are to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet, immediately on receipt at goods station King's Cross. The house is at present empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of which are labelled. "You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the house and marked 'A' on rough diagrams enclosed. Your agent will easily recognize the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion. The goods leave by the train at 9:30 tonight, and will be due at King's Cross at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon. As our client wishes the delivery made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by your having teams ready at King's Cross at the time named and forthwith conveying the goods to destination. […]“We are, dear Sirs, Faithfully yours, SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON


There is no omniscient narrator, only individual points of view through letters, diaries, notes, telegrams, notices, phonograph recordings and articles

Stoker integrates different points of view achieving a Victorian compromise in the field of narrative technique

He unifies the interests and paradigms of the ruling class (law, commerce, the land, science) under the common good

The description and ordering of events is reserved for the British who give them form and meaning

The Victorian culture threatened by the vampire triumphs in the end

Convention wins over exception, present over future, standard British English over linguistic transgression

Dracula – narrative technique

THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE, 25 SEPTEMBER EXTRA SPECIAL THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR

ANOTHER CHILD INJURED THE "BLOOFER LADY" We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the "bloofer lady".


Dracula can be seen as the great submerged force of Victorian libido breaking out to punish the repressive society imprisoning it

He liberates and exalts sexual desire that attracts and frightens at the same time

Vampirism is an excellent example of the identity of desire and fear

Fear coincides with the return of the repressed libido, the perturbing element within people’s minds

People produce the monsters they fear but horror stories teach them they need not fear their repressions

They should be afraid of the monster instead

Dracula is the nineteenth-century mind not to recognize itself.

Repressed Victorian libido

When Lucy, I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape, saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares, then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form and colour, but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing. […] When she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands. She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said, "Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" There was something diabolically sweet in her tones, something of the tinkling of glass when struck, which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another.


The monster-vampire makes unacceptable, repressed desires and fears bearable to the readers’ conscious mind

It has a double functionexpressing the unconscious content hiding it so that it is unrecognizable

In horror stories metaphors are live characters who originate endless clones, thus terror literature itself

Living Metaphors

Frankenstein wants to convince readers they are threatened by hidden forces

Readers are encouraged to reflect upon key ethic issuesDevelopment of science Family tiesRespect for Tradition

Fear does not reach readers, It is confined within the storyby narrating events in the past, so that chance is replaced by

order, and shock by reflectionby avoiding suspense and mystery; readers know everything

about the monster; they see Frankenstein assemble himThe monster is threatening because he is alive and big, not

because he is beyond rational comprehension, like Dracula

Different kinds oFear - Frankestein

The story is always in the present Narration does not establish causal connectionsReaders have only clues: they see the effects

without know ing their causes This generates suspense Between text and readers there is no distance

They are dragged into the text;The characters’ fear becomes theirs

Dracula does not want thinking readers but a frightened ones who consent to conservative ideological values

Different kinds oFear - Dracula

Fear is not an end in itself: it is a means to obtain consensus

The bond between terror stories and reader s is a paradoxical oneThe more a story frightens, the more it edifiesThe more it humiliates, the more it upliftsThe more it hides, the more it gives the illusion of

revealingWe need this sort of fear: it’s the price we pay to

come to terms with an irrational, threatening social order

Function of fear

References The presentation is loosely based upon the

following:

Franco Moretti, The Dialectic of Fear, New Left Review I/136, November-December 1982

Ken Gelder, The Horror Reader, Routledge , 2000 John G. Cawelti, Adventure, mystery, and romance:

formula stories as art and popular culture, The University of Chicago Press, 1977

Education

Frankenstein And Dracula