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Original poster

Bram Stoker's Dracula

68 replies

suzywong · 01/04/2006 15:10

Anyone care to join me and spacedonkey for a reading?
That's a reading in private without lips moving and a discussion online?

Hmmm?

Any takers?

OP posts:
spacedonkey · 09/04/2006 19:46

hurrah! Grin

FastasleepInABunnySuit · 09/04/2006 19:50

I got just into Mina's Journal bit last night... it's not as fun the second time around, as I remember it all, but still compelling, I like the first chapters and the way he makes it seem utterly mundane but still interesting and then it suddenly becomes shocking...

I think I prefer Mina's bit, as it gets more steamy in a chapter or two I think Grin lol

I really enjoyed the film! Am I the only one? I liked the camera angles, the way the shadows moved, it was brilliantly shot (I'm a sucker for good camera angles though!)

FastasleepInABunnySuit · 09/04/2006 19:51

I don't know what was so Victorian about his restraint and shock at the three sisters though - he's flipping engaged for goodness sake Wink

ItalianJob · 13/04/2006 10:54

right, catching up on the discussion now and Suzy's intellectual questions!!

what really strikes me reading it for the second time is how carefully structured the book is, re:the different strands of plot - asylums, Mina, Jonathan, wolf escapes from the zoo etc.

Re:suzy's question about erotic/terrifying - I guess the whole vampire habit is pretty sexual - Dracula seems to have a preference for attractive young ladies, after all!

Original poster
suzywong · 13/04/2006 10:58

yes the structure is what sticks in my mind most, especially for the final action.

I just wondered if dracula is omnisexual as he tells the three blood whores that Harker belongs to him.

I 'm lagging behind a bit tbh, will try and catch up

OP posts:
spacedonkey · 13/04/2006 11:05

Lagging behind here too

spacedonkey · 14/04/2006 09:39

Righto, I've just got to the bit where we find out Jonathan Harker is with the nuns ...

spacedonkey · 18/04/2006 10:05

Suzy, can we have some more of your erudite questions to get our fangs into (arf arf)?

Original poster
suzywong · 19/04/2006 10:58

Ok then speedyready

Is Lucy chosen as Dracula's English Bride because she has been courted by three men (and has rejected 2) and is therefore sexualised and must be punished in some way, as opposed to the chaste and purer Mina, and if so what other examples of this theme, the Madonna/Whore dichotomy that female characters so often are functions of, do we find in other literature.

good enough for you? My head hurts a little now

OP posts:
spacedonkey · 19/04/2006 11:50

Well from the point of view of a 21st century reader the novel is riddled with sexist attitudes innit.

Lucy is pure and sweet but desired by multiple suitors, and she does seem to somewhat revel in it at the beginning, so yes her conquest by the count and her subsequent transformation into a sexually voracious vampire would seem to be a punishment for her power over men.

Mina is different from Lucy in that she has the intelligence "of a man", whereas Lucy isn't the sharpest stick in the bundle i.e. she lacks the masculine quality of "reason" which maybe makes her vulnerable to the count in a way that Mina is not?

The accounts of the "bloofer lady" also seem to touch on the issue of infantile sexuality - the children play out fantasies of the bloofer lady and those that are abducted by her do not want to return.

Were female and infantile sexuality seen as an evil threat to masculine reason and power?

spacedonkey · 19/04/2006 11:55

PS I'm just up to the bit where the Van Helsing gang enter Carfax for the first time and Mina is being left out (much to my indignation)

spacedonkey · 19/04/2006 11:59

PPS sorry if my remarks are banal

Original poster
suzywong · 19/04/2006 13:26
OP posts:
spacedonkey · 19/04/2006 17:10

I feel like a right berk posting my banal comments all by myself < embarrassed emoticon >

ItalianJob · 19/04/2006 22:53

I didn't see the three suitors in that way at all - as implying that Lucy was a bit of a goer, therefore more Dracula's type. I did wonder if the number 3 was meant to be significant - 3 suitors for Lucy, 3 predatory undead women after Jonathan Harker near the beginning.

spacedonkey · 20/04/2006 00:28

Lucy's not a goer, but she does wield a power over men in a way that Mina does not, no?

CarolinaMooncup · 21/04/2006 18:04

Lucy is an utter flirt though isn't she? she's only not a "goer" because that wouldn't be compatible with her social position (if she shagged around, her family would prob disown her or at the least send her away to stay with some remote spinster aunt).

I reckon it's just easier to believe someone like Lucy sliding towards vampirism (or whatever it's called Blush) than the coolly analytical Mina. Sorry, that's not v lit crit is it? But no doubt there's also an element of her getting her just desserts.

I thought your points about the "bloofer lady" children were v illuminating SD Smile

spacedonkey · 22/04/2006 12:46

Where are we all up to?

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