Each of the prompts should be answered by at least 1 member of the blog group. Please confer amongst yourselves as to who will write which prompt. Responses should be at least 250 words and posted by 11 am the day of class. Please remember to select the appropriate Blog category before posting.
1.
Table of Contents
After 4 chapters of trapping us with Jonathan Harker at Castle Dracula, Bram Stoker suddenly shifts to very different sort of narrative: letters detailing the friendship between Lucy and Mina. Specifically, the letters in Chapter 5 discuss Lucy’s love life and her interactions with suitors.
CONNECT Lucy’s “courtship” subplot with one passage/scene from Ch. 1-4. Is there any sense in which Lucy’s and Jonathan’s internal struggles might mirror one another? In what sense Lucy’s subplot foreshadow the intrusion of Gothic themes into her story?
2.
In chapters 5-9, several events dramatize the struggle between applying a rational view of strange phenomena, and applying a religious or “enchanted” view. In several cases, characters debate (externally or internally) how best to interpret physical evidence: Mr. Swales’ cynicism about local folk legends, Seward’s observations of his patient Renfield, and Van Helsing + Seward’s examinations of Lucy.
Focus on one of these subplots, and discuss how it might provide a CLUE as to what Stoker might be saying about the limits of reason + deductive logic. Compare and contrast how characters respond to “weird” or strange phenomena (whether stories, behavior, or symptoms). Are reason and deductive logic useless in this novel? Or do they play some positive role?
3.
Chapter 7 includes the “Log of the Demeter,” which could be a short story in its own right, about the doomed fate of the ship’s men.
CREATE a fictional paragraph, written from the perspective of one of the sailors who goes missing. Narrate the sailor’s final encounter with Dracula. What does the sailor see? How would he react to Dracula? What role do the sea + natural elements play in this final encounter? Pretend you’re writing a “deleted scene” from the novel.
After the paragraph, include 2-3 lines explaining the basis for your paragraph, with reference to the text.
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