For Tuesday: Stoker, Dracula, Chapters 20-24

Burne-Jones, The Baleful Head (as seen in class on Thursday) 

Keep reading for next week, and get at least somewhere around Chapter 24. No questions, but we'll have an in-class writing focused around one of the issue below most likely...

Things to Consider:

* Stoker suggests a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde relationship between Seward and Renfield in the early chapters of the book. How do these chapters complicate this relationship, and make us wonder who the real "Hyde" (madman) truly is? 

* What makes the scene in Chapter 21 where Dracula is assaulting Mina so disturbing? How might this compare with the famous 'Thor' scene of Arthur killing Lucy? 

* Why does Mina lament that she is now "unclean" after the attack? Do other people seem to agree with her? Especially Seward?

* How does Seward's narration become increasingly unrelaible in these chapters? How does Stoker reveal this to the reader (as if he we didn't already know)?

* Note how the vampire hunter keep making distinctions between adults/men and women/children in the book. Lucy and Mina are "little girls," and even Dracula, for all his might, is said to have a "child brain," and is initially described somewhat effiminately. How does this play into the sexist and racist ideals of Victorian England? 

* Many critics have pointed out that Dracula is also a critique of capitalism itself. How does Dracula employ the engines of capital and commerce the same was he commands the wolves and the rats? You might also look at the curious passage where Dracula is attacked with Harker's kukri knife...