MM Oct 15

We started the class with a quiz on the last few chapters and the two articles we had to read. Then Dr Mathur talked about our first draft for the paper being due on Monday. In the In class writing assignment, we compared the two essays and the critics’ argument regarding the novel and how much we agree or disagree with it.

We discussed that both the novels highlighted Dracula and his way of dealing with people. Stephen Arata compares him to English emperors because Dracula is trying to colonize the whole England. Someone pointed out that Dracula is a racist and blood is his race. He is trying to transform everyone into a vampire. Dracula is the only one who transforms the victims into a vampire. The three lady vampires are just there to seduce the victim. There isn’t enough evidence in the text about the women being able to create vampires, so men are shown as more superior, in a way. In the essay Arata talks about how Dracula is a warrior and his attack on the human body is not just political, there is also a biological reason behind it.

Carol Senf on the other hand thinks Dracula and the others are similar in characteristics. Some of our classmates said that they didn’t hate Dracula as much, after reading Senf’s essay. Dracula didn’t kill anyone, except Reinfield that also because he interfered when Dracula was with Mina. But Van Helsing and the crew kill Lucy just because she turned into a vampire. Senf considers the other characters of the novel to be two dimensional. Some people disagreed about sympathizing with Dracula because he is a monster and is stealing people’s soul, even though he knows it is wrong. The writer is thinking in a modern way but if thought in a religious context, Dracula has to be seen in a negative way. It is basically like saying a person goes and engages in sexual activity with others knowing he or she has AIDS. Later we discussed how the main point of Senf’s essay was not directed towards sympathizing with Dracula but was directed towards comparing and finding similarities between the characters and bringing them to the same level. We thought that Senf does a good job on portraying Dracula as a representation of Victorian men with unconscious desires. The novel was written around the late nineteen hundreds when Freud’s theories were gaining popularity so the novel has been juxtaposed to Freudian theories of the unconscious.

Last thing we discussed was that Arata in his essay mentions that knowledge had an impact on Dracula and he dominated England through intellectual pursuit. Dracula is an intelligent person and he attacked Lucy and Mina for personal benefits. He knew his way through England and had a planned scheme to attack his targeted people. Next we were divided into 5 groups and were given individual topics to come up with a thesis statement. We didn’t have enough time to go over them in class.