To the idea of one’s limit towards “reason and deductive logic.” Dr. Seward’s observations of his patient Renfield is an example of how maybe both reason and deductive logic might be somewhat useless. We see that in chapter 5 he begins his research on him and learns that he has a “desire” for consumption and how it strengthens him. Of course, Dr. Seward sees this in a logical sense and classifies him as a “zoophagous.” But later we see that this changes when all of a sudden Renfield is trying to escape because something is calling for him. He becomes aggressive and is in a hurry to leave. He escapes and runs to Carfax to where Dracula’s new home is currently. This sort of behavior is quite interesting because these signs could only mean some sort of madness. Finally, we see that in Chapter 9 when Lucy is in fact in trouble of her health. Dr. Seward turns his attention to this situation and postpones his research on Renfield. Not understanding Renfield with his reasoning, it becomes infuriating on why his methods won’t be as useful to him. This is why I believe Stoker is trying to say in the world of Supernatural, there is a limit on what one can possibly try to understand with logic and reasoning. His studies on Renfield, in the beginning, he knew he might become dangerous because he’s careless, he understood that he wanted to become stronger by taking the life out of a living creature. And finally, when he started to follow what was calling him I think he kind of lost hope of understanding Renfield because he was just a crazy power-hungry individual. So in a sense, there isn’t enough understanding with logic and reasoning in the world of supernatural.
Category: Blog: Dracula, 5-9
Blog posts for Dracula, ch. 5-9.
Dracula, ch 5-9, Prompt #3- Ayshe
After the paragraph, include 2-3 lines explaining the basis for your paragraph, with reference to the text.
When news had gone out between the captain and the crew that yet another two of our members have gone missing, I have been unable to sleep at night. Looking over at the noted logs from one of the members, mentioning a “tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come [came] up the the companion-way. and go along the deck forward, and disappear” (Stoker 71), I instantly grew cold. I too, have seen such a being lurking the dark corners of my cabin late at night. At first I thought it was a figment of my imagination. Â Here and there, I have frightful dreams, but I do not think much of them, for they are only dreams. However, I knew that this was a true event and that the ship must be searched at once. After finding no such being on the cruiser, the crew and captain were in good spirits again. A few days had pass and I began to grow uneasy again. The weather at sea was horrendous. It was if the only weather possible was heavy storms and hectic waves. Returning back from my watch late night, I felt something creeping the corridors. As the ship rocked back and forth with the rhythm of the waves, Â I have finally seen the face of my stalker. It was the tall thin man! With blazing red eyes, full red lips with sharp white teeth, I was paralyzed in fear. I see the strange being charging at me with great speed. Although I could see him approaching me, I could not hear the sound of his feet on the floor. It was as if he was floating. Too busy focusing on the the speed at which he was approaching, I failed to realize that the man has his strong grip on my throat and pierced his mouth on it. His sharp teeth is was what brought me back into reality. It was a sensation I had never experienced before. Sucking the life and blood out of me, I began to think panic more and more, which grew more interest and excite to my attacker. The world around .e grew darker and darker. I truly wished I had never embarked on this journey. The crew and I were wrong, we were not alone on this ship at all… *Darkness*
After the first few crew mates have suddenly gone missing, the sailor is truly frightened. He knows that there is a unidentify being on the boat with him and his mates and after encountering him late at night, he knows that his fate has come to an end. He tries not to struggle because he knows there will be no way out of this, seeing the results of the missing mates and the logs they’ve been keeping.
connect group 2 dracula , Fahima Hossain
“I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.
But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further; doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit.
The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!”
Here I would like to relate Lucy’s and Jonathan’s struggles or the connection they might have in different but similar situations. We know that in the early times girls were expected to marry a suitor early and they had duties to take care of which mostly included them looking after their husband and children. We see Lucy struggling to find a way out of the three proposals and she felt like a “prisoner” like Jonathan did in chapter 2. Lucy was not really a prisoner but the fact that she had to choose a man to marry and to have to reject and move on to the next is like a closed feeling trying to make a way out of it “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? … I know I would if I were free. ” chapter 5. Though Jonathan was not a prisoner either he was said to be a guest but seeing Dracula and his doors mostly locked and him being in a closed area made him feel so. These two events can be connected as per my understandings.
Lucy’s letter mentions:
“I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness—a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.” chapter 5.Â
We can see the use of Gothic terms Lucy is using. She uses the words “hallucination” we have learned in class that that the Gothic ideas came by imaginations and hallucination is can be like feeling something that is really not reality. This happens mostly in the Gothic related books like Dracula. Is Dracula a true story? No it really is not it’s more coming from imagination and not reality.
She uses the word “cruelty” which can be related to like evil can also be related to Gothic terms.
Lucy felt restless and started to sleep walk as Mina mentioned in her journal. It seems like Lucy’s father had the same problem but I think this was something more. The restlessness and the sleep walking suddenly shows that the author has more to the story. The point of view was hidden. This seems like Lucy is going to intrude into more of the Gothic themes. “At first she did not respond; but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally.” We see how Lucy was struggling in her sleep like she saw a ghost. This was like opening doors into a more Gothic theme like how the horror movies show us the first ideas of a change. ““His red eyes again! They are just the same.” She was definitely seeing something that was not a human.Â
Group 2 chapt 5-9 response 3
The Sailor and Dracula
This storm…it was like nothing I had ever seen. The waves were like mad men foaming at the mouth and the skies were like darkened eyes rolling back from some demonic enchanting. I curse this wretched ship. I knew this was a horrid idea, a voyage doomed from the start. Yet for the sake of my family, I press on. Curse the day poverty was created! And let heaven above protect me. It was my night to keep the ship in order as we sailed on. Walking about on this deck, like a balance beam, at least was a fun thing to keep the storm from ravaging my mind. All things are as they should be, tied and secured…but somehow I feel as if I’m being watched. “Who could be out here?” I wondered. Not a soul, and quickly dashed the thought from my mind. However from the corner of my eye I had seen a shadow that moved ever so quickly. “Maybe I truly am going mad…curse this storm, and the night’s watch. I pray the morning and her blossoms of sun come quickly.” Suddenly I heard a small hiss…and as I turned, to my horror, there was a tall, slender, serpent of a man bending over me. All of me, had frozen, and if I had strength to die of a fright I would. My eyes beheld long sharp canine teeth as of a viper. And as he held me with iron arms, he quickly bent down and bit me. “He bit me. He bit me. What devil, THE DEVIL bit me…” my mind thought. I could do nothing but cry as he drained my life from my veins. In my last heaving breath I prayed “Lord if you can hear me, take my soul.”
Brian Chan Group 1 — Connect
In the story, we see that Stoker shifts to very different sort of narrative letters about the friendship between Lucy and Mina. First we learn that the women are best friends. Lucy is married to Arthur and Mina is married to Johnathon. We see in the story that the Mina likes Lucy with “all the moods and tenses of the verb”. This means she loves Lucy in the lovey dovey way. I think this means Mina is bisexual, since she loves Lucy and is married to Johnathon. As for Lucy, she has a thing going on with men. There are about 3 men who want Lucy as their partner. She wants to marry them all, even though that is messed up in today’s world. In terms of internal struggles, I feel that Johnathon’s doesn’t mirror those of Lucy’s. Lucy faces a problem of lovers and lust while Johnathon is straight up dealing with a vampire who wants to take over the world with his own race of undead. Lucy’s subplot foreshadows the intrusion of Gothic themes into her story by giving away hints that are obvious to us. Hints such as being ill, having 2 bite marks on the neck, and glowing red eyes is a dead giveaway. (Pun intended) People don’t have glowing red eyes, even if they’re sick so we know something is up. Since Lucy has 2 bite marks on her neck and is up at night, does that mean she got rabies from an animal bite? We don’t know yet and that gives us an idea that maybe, just maybe some Gothic themes are going to occur.
Critical Response Prompts: Dracula, ch. 5-9
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.
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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