Thursday, July 18, 2019
To what extent is Dracula a conventional Gothic protagonist?
in spite of appearance the Gothic genre, features of the Gothic booster shot include sharply contrasting point of reference traits, somewhat degree of sad stature, a hit somatogenetic aim, an element of the familiar, and an association with the bestial. reliever presents genus genus genus Dracula with greatly contrasting traits, from the impeccably polite and all overnice host who greets Harker at the door, to a raging psychopathic monster.The docile and noble nature of Draculas heritage gives him casel magnetism and credibility, on first encounter he seems strange but eccentric, however this lulls Harker, and evidently his female victims, into a false sentience of security The light and warmth of the figurings courteous welcome seemed to need dissipated alone my doubts and frights. Stoker reveals Draculas true self easily and subtly, so as to build tension, such as when Dracula touches Harker and he feels a horrible feeling of nausea.This imaginativeness hint s at the horror of Draculas true piece, which is finally revealed when he encounters the Brides But the count Never did I imagine such wraths of fury, unconstipated in the demons of the pit Stoker presents the count as being lapped in a assail of fury, foreshadowing the terrible storm at Whitby when Dracula arrives on English soil. Stokers uses the imagery of hell to describe Draculas rage, writing his look were positively blazing as if the flames of hell-fire blazed in them. This imagery of a fiery furnace is standardised to Miltons description of Satan in paradise Lost as the infernal serpent, dwelling in a penal fire. however in spite of Satans high status and charisma, he does not cook the extreme contrast in personality, and the genteel more(prenominal) or less awkward persona that Dracula has. Stoker presents Dracula as having tragic stature done his bleakness and sadness that his at a time noble family have been destroyed. Dracula tells Harker that he longs to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.But alas This rely demonstrates how isolated Dracula feels, as he has been left behind, an unwanted remnant of the quaint world. His immortality means he cannot relate to modernity, and the riotous pace of life, and he is stuck in an perpetual cycle, a pseudo-purgatory for the Un-dead. Stoker presents Dracula as talking with great pride of his heritage, which he is determined to reinstate in England We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought for lordship. Milton in like manner presents Satan as a tragic character, because of his doomed destiny to live eer in the fiery pits of Hell, but too that he has an overwhelming hubris that ultimately makes his crepuscle so much more onerous to accept for this infernal spirit shall neer hold celestial spirits in bondage. When Dracula is finally kill ed, Mina writes that even in that moment of final disintegration there was in the face a look of peace. Reflecting Draculas release from his eternal suffering, display that despite vampires intrinsic evil, they did not love their life of pain and death.Another brass of the conventional protagonist is their striking physical front man, and Stoker presents Dracula as conform strongly to this, with his strong jaw, aquiline weave and extreme paleness. He has thick eyebrows, daft hair, a heavy moustache and unco ruddy lips. Almost immediately Harker notices reflexions of Draculas character which are not quite normal, describing Dracula as brutal-looking, with his moustache hiding his cruel mouth. This underlying unease demonstrates how Draculas physicality reflects and warns of his versed evil.Stoker presents Draculas specific appearance as precise typical of the genre, as in The Monk, Matthew Lewis describes Ambrosia in an almost monovular way to Dracula He was a man of noble port and imperative presence. His stature was lofty, and his features uncommonly handsome. His nose was aquiline, his eyeball large black and sparkling, and his dark brows almost joined together. His complexion was of a turbid but clear brown subject and watching had entirely deprived his font of colour. This similarity shows how conventional Draculas physical presence is, his stature reflecting his high status and aristocracy like Ambrosias.Stoker presents Dracula as having an element of the sexual, through his attacking of women, and his uncorrectable desire to overpower and control others. Harkers interaction with the Brides of Dracula demonstrate the confusing alliance between pleasure and pain that the Vampire embodies that we somehow desire what we know may or will hurt us. This liaison is seen in one of Draculas weaknesses that he cannot introduce a house without being invited first, which could be a metaphor for his role as a sexual predator, as a woman ha s to somehow desire or want Dracula to feed from them in order for him to suck their blood.When Mina discovers Lucy after(prenominal) Draculas attack, Stoker describes her using post-coital imagery her lips were parted, and she was breathing- not softly, but in, long heavy gasps demonstrating how Lucy possibly enjoyed her attack by the handsome stranger. In The Monk Ambrosia is undone by his carnal lust for Matilda, and then his bumble of Antonia, as he is transformed from a pious monk into a sexual predator With every moment of the Friars craze became more ardent, and Antonias terror more intense. However Lewis presents Ambrosia as being sound of self-loathing and disgust once he had dishonoured Antonia The very excess of his former eagerness to cause Antonia now contributed to inspire him with disgust. Stoker presents no such sense of repentance from Dracula, whose uses his sex activity primarily to further his control over England. Finally, Stoker presents Dracula as asso ciating with the bestial, through his control over animals and nature, his connection with the other, and his animalistic consciousness.When Harker arrives at the castle, Stoker immediately connects animals with the Count through the images of wolves All at once the wolves began to howl as though the work had some peculiar effect on them. Draculas control over animals is one aspect of his foreign and unknown nature, reflecting Victorian fear of the barbarianism of the supposedly unrefined central Europeans. Dracula can transform himself into a fiend bat, which appears as a menacing presence throughout the novel there was a sort of scratching or to-do at the window. Draculas strange social demeanor and physical presence demonstrates how he is not quite human, and it seems that he certainly relates to animals more than he does to other people Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter. Ultimately it is Stokers portraiture of Dracula as a chara cter completely driven by aboriginal desires that associates him with the animal, and any feelings he represses ultimately reverse apparent. This characteristic along with the others demonstrate how Dracula is primarily a conventional protagonist in his looks and character traits, his doom and his desires.
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