As I begin to read through Dracula I am finding - even in the beginnings of the first chapter - that there are two things the reader will find that will vastly impact the story in the later pages. These factors of setting will work against Jonathon Harker once he arrives with the Count, and work for the overall narrative work. The first important thing would be the isolation of the Count and that of Castle Dracula; the second will be the Count's far-reaching influence.
We see in the first chapter that although Jonathon starts out in good time, "the further East you go the more unpunctual the trains." We also find that Jonathon, doing some study before accepting his position, "was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula." Once Jonathon boards Dracula's coach, he finds himself falling into more hilly and rough country, without roads in good repair. This combination of mountainous terrain, late trains, unknown location, and roads in disrepair will place Dracula in solitude, and force Jonathon into that solitude with him, cutting off any chance of escape. Of course this is precisely what Dracula wants.
Meanwhile, still in the first chapter, we see portents of doom for poor Mr. Harker as he meets with the landlord, who had evidently received a letter from the Count, which paid for Jonathon's room and board. It also made the entire town uneasy, and we find that they pity Jonathon. The landlord's wife gives him a crucifix, and the town tries to ward off the evil spirits. What we are seeing is Dracula's influence and reputation spreading into the town of Bistritz. This is not only fear, but Dracula's ability to influence situations from afar. It further adds to the isolation of the Count and therefore, Jonathon, and prevents the townsfolk from taking action when they could be helping Jonathon to rid Transylvania of Dracula.
This is the setting for Bram Stoker's Dracula: isolation in a realm where you don't have any control - a contrast to Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein, where each dealt with the main characters having control and dealing with the consequences of their poor choices. In Wuthering Heights it was Heathcliff, and in Frankenstein, naturally it was Victor.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Yikes. Spivak.
Where do I go with Spivak? This is mostly over my head reading, which is not something I usually (or have ever, the truth be told) say, but I'm going to try to read into his work and try to form something useful that I can take from the piece. If my understanding of it lacks any utility, then maybe I'll at least find something coherent to write about from Spivak. The fault, I'm sure, lay upon myself and my own limited understanding of the period, the vocabulary (which I slowly rectify), and my unfamiliarity of the other works he quotes, rather than any deficiency with Spivak's writing.
Spivak begins by saying "It should not be possible to read nineteenth-century British literature without remembering that imperialism, understood as England's social mission, was a crucial part of the cultural representation of England to the English." He also says that writers played a role in that, and that these facts are ignored. If we were to only look at these facts, "we would produce a narrative, in literary history, of the 'worlding' of what is now called 'the Third World.'"
Spivak continues, later, by declaring the point of his essay, which is that "the discursive field of imperialism does not produce unquestioned ideological correlatives for the narrative structuring of the book." As he says in other words, even though a reader could certainly read Frankenstein from an Imperialist viewpoint, the book does not go without questioning the English belief that imperialism is a moral imperative.
Referencing Frankenstein's episode with the female creature that he destroys, Spivak shows a relationship between it and racism as "the dark side of imperialism understood as social mission." As I see it, Spivak shows us that Mary Shelley is relating Victor to England's overinflated sense of duty in conquest. Frankenstein refuses to create the female counterpart to his primary creation because the new creature could very well end up with a taste for children, despite having created the first creature and having nothing to do with it, causing it to thirst for vengeance. Victor's conquest was that of natural law, just as England and Europe conquered, say, Africa. England believed themselves capable of taking on the responsibilities of those people, and failed.
To use Africa as the example, we should note that after that conquest, the Europeans ravaged the landscape, forcing the people there into reliance on the care of its masters. With imperialism, the English believed that they were doing the people in favor, providing them with the means of advancement and evolution, for they believed the inhabitants of those lands to be a lesser race. This is the darks side of imperialism that Spivak relates.
In Frankenstein we see the same thing occurring. Frankenstein rushes into the creation of the beast, for he believed it could be done. When he saw what he had done, he has no more sense of responsibility for the thing, but rather runs from it. This irresponsibility causes the creature to turn on him, and furthermore it causes the creature's miserable state of being. This could easily be said of some of the places conquered in the name of imperialism. Once the English were there, the conquered places were ignored, which (after the time of Shelley's writing, of course) lead to their withdrawal and even today we see the ramifications of misplaced civic duty and the birth of racism toward the believed "lesser races."
Spivak begins by saying "It should not be possible to read nineteenth-century British literature without remembering that imperialism, understood as England's social mission, was a crucial part of the cultural representation of England to the English." He also says that writers played a role in that, and that these facts are ignored. If we were to only look at these facts, "we would produce a narrative, in literary history, of the 'worlding' of what is now called 'the Third World.'"
Spivak continues, later, by declaring the point of his essay, which is that "the discursive field of imperialism does not produce unquestioned ideological correlatives for the narrative structuring of the book." As he says in other words, even though a reader could certainly read Frankenstein from an Imperialist viewpoint, the book does not go without questioning the English belief that imperialism is a moral imperative.
Referencing Frankenstein's episode with the female creature that he destroys, Spivak shows a relationship between it and racism as "the dark side of imperialism understood as social mission." As I see it, Spivak shows us that Mary Shelley is relating Victor to England's overinflated sense of duty in conquest. Frankenstein refuses to create the female counterpart to his primary creation because the new creature could very well end up with a taste for children, despite having created the first creature and having nothing to do with it, causing it to thirst for vengeance. Victor's conquest was that of natural law, just as England and Europe conquered, say, Africa. England believed themselves capable of taking on the responsibilities of those people, and failed.
To use Africa as the example, we should note that after that conquest, the Europeans ravaged the landscape, forcing the people there into reliance on the care of its masters. With imperialism, the English believed that they were doing the people in favor, providing them with the means of advancement and evolution, for they believed the inhabitants of those lands to be a lesser race. This is the darks side of imperialism that Spivak relates.
In Frankenstein we see the same thing occurring. Frankenstein rushes into the creation of the beast, for he believed it could be done. When he saw what he had done, he has no more sense of responsibility for the thing, but rather runs from it. This irresponsibility causes the creature to turn on him, and furthermore it causes the creature's miserable state of being. This could easily be said of some of the places conquered in the name of imperialism. Once the English were there, the conquered places were ignored, which (after the time of Shelley's writing, of course) lead to their withdrawal and even today we see the ramifications of misplaced civic duty and the birth of racism toward the believed "lesser races."
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