An essay plan formulated based on my study notes for the A-level Comparative and contextual section of the course, studying specifically Stoker’s Dracula and Carter’s The Bloody Chamber featuring analysis, context and critics surrounding the theme of religion which could potentially come up in...
Gothic genre is concerned about
sleep and the subconscious
1-Sleep is a medium of entrapment and suppression
2- Hypnotism under mediums of occult hypnotism
3- The subconscious reveals innermost fears and desires
Carter Stoker
1-The Lady of the house of love 2- Erl King 1-Lucy and sleepwalking 2-Renfield and Mina
Vertigo 3-Snow Child hypnotised 3-Harker and the 3 vampires
Other things to include:
The bed as a symbol in bloody chamber
Day vs night in dracula
Idea of time and the past; dracula inheritance+ LOTHOL+ Wolf alice
Insomnia
Dracula as Nocturnal
Sleep and death
hypnagogia
The liminal
Dracula smoke and phantasmagoria chapter 19
Context
Stoker
Homeless in Victorian era would sleep in four or five penny coffins, not actual offing, but
small wooden boxes that bore a resemblance to.
biphasic sleep pattern- Victorian sleep pattern Sleep for 5 hours, get up, then sleep a second
round.
Gothic genre is concerned about sleep and the subconscious 1
, Spring Heeled Jack- Devil-like figure who leaped from roof-top to roof-top; the Duke of
Wellington, although aged nearly 70 went out armed on horseback to hunt and kill the
monster! The Army in 1870 set traps to catch him after scared sentries reported being
terrified by a man who sprang on to the roof of their sentry box.
Whitechapel murders; Jack the Ripper and 11 murders of women. Mary Jane Kelly- mutilated
beyond recognition
Dracula yellow cover- Warning of reader that the book is promiscuous. Publishers aligning
novel with experimental forms of literature
Mesmerism; Mesmer practiced hypnotism in clients in Paris seances in 1770Stoker wrote
about how Mesmer was an imposter, presenting science in mystical way.
Social; hypnotism- Freud explored that mesmerism can be proved in science
occult: Telepathy, haunting, spiritualism, communication with dead, hypnosis- believed in
The society for psychical research; common in universities, exploration of psychology.
Freud- two minds, upper of civilised, lower of degenerations and atavism.
Victorian spiritualists believed that women held predominance within the spiritual
mediumship and that their contribution to the movement exceeded that of men.
Madonna whore complex (contemporary term)- new woman vs angel of the house.
Phantasmagoria- an exhibition of optical effects and illusions
Carter
Feminism; writing Wrote for spare rib Smutty and erotic short stories for soft porn
magazines Didn't want to be defined by anything
Appearance; feminism- Let her hair turn grey in her 40s, growing to her shouldersAs a
mother she looked like cartoon image of a grandmother
she was often described as a ‘white witch’
Britain; womens liberation- 1970 miss world, Contraception and abortion 1961 and
1967 Equal pay and sex discrimination act.
Feminism; the maze gaze; Laura mulvey argues that patriarchy regard the audience as men
and women therefore are obliged to adopt a male perspective.
The bloody chamber; tarot cards; La Papesse- the female pope, symbol of superior intellect
of feminists attributed to women.
Gothic genre is concerned about sleep and the subconscious 2
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