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Summary A* Dracula analysis sheet
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A* level quotations, langauge analysis and arguments for the prose section of English Literature Edexcel A-level - DRACULA by Bram Stoker
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DraculaEastern Mysticism vs. Western rationality + science
Chap 1
- Jonathan Harker’s journal (kept in shorthand) – professional modern man, establishes
western emotion to be educated
- British Museum – importance of knowledge
- ‘compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps’ – cultural superiority
- ‘descended from Attila and the Huns.’ – situates people descended from violence
- It was all very ridiculous
- ‘and the crucifix is still round my neck’ – superstitious
- ‘I dined on what they call “rubber steak”’ – exotic and unfamiliar
Focus on uncanny appearance – Shklovsky
Chap 2
- ‘I am Dracula. And I bid you welcome, Mr Harker, to my house.’ – repertoire of anxieties
focused upon one scapegoat figure – the degenerate
- ‘sharp white teeth.’ – resembles primitive predator
Christan Male body reflects rationale Britishness – deviation is othered and degenerate
Chap 3
- ‘I took pleasure in disobeying it.’ – westernism decaying – defiance
- Dracula’s position as feudal overlord has been challenged by modernity; he needs
alternative sources of nourishment – his formal powers disappear, adopting supernatural
abilities which he enacts at night, rather than in the day of legendary feudal conflict.
Chap 5
- Seward’s narrative is precise, short, declarative sentences , scientific vocab
Chap 11
- ‘Van Helsing, as usual, up to time.’ – order and control juxtaposes chaos of Dracula and the
east
- ‘I saw Van Helsing break down.’ – opposes Western rationality. Hysterical reversal of gender
roles, exemplifying how the vampire is a threat to gender norms.
- ‘Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must
be, and in such way?’ – occult, GBR views it to be primitive, degenerate the idea of
worshipping idols links to Dorian Gray worshiping his portrait and external appearance
Chap 12
- ‘The first gain is ours! Check to the King!’ – metaphor for the logic game of chess against the
eastern mysticism
Chap 13
, - ‘Van Helsing did not go to bed at all.’ – slight parallel to Dracula’s supernatural qualities
- QUINCEY MORRIS – parallels Dracula – both foreign ‘others’ – Drac (physiognomy) and
Quincey (cultural difference). Morris represents the emerging threat of America’s global
dominance… ‘If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world
indeed.’
- - Unlike the rest of the Crew of Light, we never hear Morris’ voice in telegrams/letters/diary
entries
- - His mysticism is enhanced by his Lacuna (gap/commision in Quincey’s whereabouts)
Chap 14
- ‘I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those
terrible things; or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know.’ – Mina’s
western rationality prevents her from believing in supernatural
Chap 15
- ‘Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this.’ – Seward associates madness
with supernatural (showing his western rationality)
- ‘It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved.’ –
Seward realises the supernatural reality, death of western rationalism
Chap 16
- ‘far down the avenue of yews’ – symbolic of doom
Chap 17
- ‘You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary.’ – technology can fail
Lots of recording/tech compared to DG, in which the only evidence of a triumphant west is
the portrait
Chap 18
- ‘some of us have evidence that they [vampires] exist’ – science and supernatural’s boundary
is blurred
Subnormal/Uncanny
Chap 1
- ‘goitre was painfully prevalent.’ – subnormal signifies vampire attack
- ‘ghost-like clouds’, ‘Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly’ – gothic, discordant landscape
Chap 2
- ‘excellent English, but with a strange intonation.’ – uncanny something is not as it seems
- ‘but stood like a stature.’ – similarities reflected ab-human
Chap 3
- ‘move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.’ – defies laws
of physics – reflection in mirror
- ‘the moonlight was behind the, they threw no shadow on the floor.’ – sub humanity
- ‘sapphires…pearls…ruby’ – beautiful transformation
- ‘made me uneasy.’ – uncanny
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