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For Friday: Stoker, Dracula, Chs.10-14


No questions for Friday, but be sure to read Chapters 10-14 and consider some of the following ideas. We'll have an in-class response when you arrive on Friday.

* Just as Dracula seems like he's emerged from the distant past, how is Van Helsing also uncanny and "primitive" compared to the genteel society of London? What makes his person and his approach somewhat taboo, and certainly shocks Arthur and the others?

* Stoker enjoys employing dialect, slang, and low-class speech in the novel, most of which is incomprehensible to a modern American reader. Of course, it would have been tricky even for a well-to-do reader of the time. Why do you think he includes this, when it might alienate some of his audience? What does it add to his story?

* Who do you think is the least reliable narrator in the book so far? What makes his or her narration seem suspect? Do you detect passages where he/she seems to be hiding information or not being quite straight with the reader, even if he/she is writing a diary entry?

* How do the men gradually piece together what is wrong with Lucy? What makes it so difficult to perceive and accept this diagnosis?

* What would be uncanny and grotesque about Lucy's transformation to a late Victorian audience? Naturally, she becomes a vampire, which is bad enough, but how does Stoker describe her new appearance/character that would be particularly disturbing?

* Why does Stoker often make Van Helsing come off as a bit humorous, not only in his accent, but in his comic abruptness, such as, "Yes, and no. I want to operate, but not as you think...I want to cut off her head and take out her heart."

* How does Mina aid the investigation, and why might Van Helsing be the only one to appreciate/understand it?

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