Well I'm gonna do Dracula instead

At the moment I'm playing catch up with work because of being ill and that means I've not really covered the same amount of The Bloody Chamber as the rest of you (not aided by the book going missing over Easter). So whilst I was off I started taking notes on Dracula, using the text, York Notes and some of my own ideas.
I will do the Bloody Chamber Blog post when I'm happy I'm caught up so don't fear sir, I haven't forgotten

This post is my notes for Chapter one and I'll upload some of the rest when I'm next under pressure for a blog post/ if people request them...

So here it is:

Key Quotes

• ‘papers’- found in the memoranda at the start.
• ‘3 May. Bistritz’- diary entry form.
• ‘a noble of that country’- awareness of status
• ‘one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe’- ignorance yet also threatening, links to context of worries about the future
• ‘imaginative whirlpool’- hints of supernatural, being sucked into it…
• ‘every known superstition in the world’-contempt yet also excitement
• ‘pictuesque’- word used a lot by Jonathan, highlighting the beauty in danger?
• ‘almost too tight for modesty’- awareness of the female form. Male judgement about female, no comment on the fact that he is looking. Hints at Stoker’s patriarchal views.
• ‘Sleep well tonight’-(Count’s instruction) ironic Jonathan slept badly night before (suggests Count’s insight) and will sleep badly thereon in.
• ‘all the evil things in the world will have full sway’- Very Gothic, power tables turned
• ‘an English Churchman’- Protestant. Complete rejection of superstition in religion.
• ‘Satan’, ‘hell’, ‘witch’, ‘were-wolf or vampire’- semantic field of gothic monsters/ religious demons combines pagan and religious fears- hinting at D being anti Christ.
• ‘old missals’- form of prayer book associated with the Catholic church. Interesting that Jonathan associates the towns with these as an ‘English Churchman’
• ‘little towns or castles on the top of steep hills’-High up, realistic imagery, closer to God- escape the evil? FREUD.
• ‘the evil eye’- superstition. Link between eye and soul therefore corruption of soul.
• ‘odd and varied gifts’- things that Harker’s fellow passengers on the Coach give him
• ‘If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye’- shows just how far Jonathan’s uneasiness has come.
• ‘There were dark, rolling clouds ahead’- Pathetic fallacy. Sets mood for danger.
• ‘Czechs and Slovaks all in picturesque attire… that goitre was painfully prevalent”- a lot of the locals are carrying injured necks but Jonathan doesn’t make the connection. Not helped by his inability to make a distinction between were-wolf and vampire.
• ‘The women looked pretty, except when you got near them’- again a form of voyeurism /awareness of femininity. Women just like the setting- appear nice but actually dangerous?
• ‘sort of awful nightmare.’-  exactly what it is.
• ‘he did not obstruct it, for I could see it’s ghostly flicker all the same’- irony here- he’s the ghostly one.
• ‘As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back’.- super human. One does not simply tame beasts as if they are a mere nuisance.

Memoranda at Start

Note before the tale of Dracula, presented through diary entries begins. Reassures reader that the ‘papers’ are reliable and of historical truth (Verisimilitude).

• Starts with question of who wrote the note?- unsettling and undermines the authoritative assurances of the memoranda.
• Tone of the note is understated- hinting at the horror to come yet also has a kind of secretarial feel about it.

Summary of Events

1. Harker begins his diary entry concerned with ordinary ailments.
2. We discover he has done some research into the lands he is preparing to travel to at the British museum.
3. Enjoys some ‘picturesque’ scenery and stops at an inn.
4. People start getting iffy the closer he gets to the Count’s castle, especially with it being St George’s Day.
5. Woman gives Harker the rosary beads.
6. People pity Jonathan en route. Ward against the evil eye and he can hear murmurs about Gothic monsters.
7. People urge coach driver to speed. Journey becomes increasingly frantic.
8. Coach driver arrives an hour early and tells JH he’ll have to return tomorrow when the Count’s carriage arrives.
9. JH has a frightening and startling journey to the castle with nightmarish imagery and loss of time.
10. Coach stops at the castle.

General Analysis

• Chapter 1 sets the tone and form of the book. The memoranda combined with JH’s diary entry/ words to Mina make the novel an epistolary novel – one where the story is told through messages from one character to another and the reader has to play detective and work out from the subtext the story.
• Starts with the incredibly mundane- late running trains, “train was an hour late” and unusual food “it may have been the paprika”. Can attribute therefore the first diary entry as being part diary and part memoir. The incompetence of the railways/ strangeness of the food emphasises the difference in culture and Jonathan’s lack of familiarity with it. In Victorian times the West was considered civilised, the East uncivilised and places like Transylvania as a kind of halfway-house between the two. Therefore this is all ironic preparation into Jonathan’s real journey into the realms of the unknown.
• Eastern setting and train delays also signify how time is not important in the regions that Jonathan has been sent to work in. These areas operate on rules that are alien to Jonathan and so he can’t look to objective standards to make his experience seem reliable.
• Harker’s background knowledge into the troubled pasts of the regions that he is travelling in brings excitement to the narrative, both in the imagination of Harker and the reader as the lands seem somewhat unknown and dangerous.
• Theme of female sexuality introduced early on in the novel through Jonathan’s judgement about the innkeeper’s wife’s apron.
• People become more and more uncommunicative the closer Jonathan gets to the Count’s Castle. They also become more and more superstitious talking about the power of evil on St George’s day. There is a clash of superstitions when a woman offers Jonathan some rosary beads to protect him as this would be considered idolatrous by an ‘English Churchman’. Links religion to superstition and perhaps even hints at corruption of religion by superstition. Nonetheless Jonathan accepts symbolising religious faith of all kinds must be used against the forces of evil Dracula represents.
• Jonathan’s mixed feeling about the people using a range of religious and superstitious practices to try and protect him shows start of uncertainty in book. Jonathan asserts he is an ‘English Churchman’ but has already accepted rosary beads and feels touched by the people’s concern. Suggests he’s starting to question the protection his faith can offer him in the near future.
• Nightmare imagery from the moment that Jonathan steps into the Count’s carriage. Blue flames are strange and startling and Harker even thinks that under their light he can see through the driver’s body. Houling of wolves and the point where the carriage is surrounded by wolves is also v. scary. Loses track of time- suddenly it is midnight. Loss of source of objectivity into the confusing, distorted dream realm that Dracula dominates.
• Chapter finishes at the Castle. Stereotypical gothic setting, links to Freudian imagery.
• Note at the start of the Chapter says that the diary has been kept in short hand. Suggests that Harker has something to hide and only wants it to be shown to someone who knows how to write shorthand and can understand it to transcribe it.
• Journey represents move away from domestic bliss (Mina) to danger. Transition highlighted from Harker admiring the picturesque beauty of the region to fearing the startling dangers of the region and him becoming increasingly uneasy.