Skip to main content

For Wednesday: "Monos and Daimonos," "The Victim," "Life in Death," or "The Curse"

A 2010 comedy based on the Burke and Hare murders--commemorated in the story, "The Victim"

 For Wednesday: From Polidori’s The Vampire and Other Tales of the Macabre: Bulwer, “Monos and Daimonos” (53-61), Anonymous, “The Victim” (87-98), “Life in Death” (130-137). Note—you can read “The Curse” instead of “Life in Death” if you wish, or if you already read it.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: In “The Victim,” the doctor examines the young woman’s corpse and claims the sight “afforded me a pleasure, so mixed up with all that was horrid, that I sincerely hope it will never fall to my lot to have a second experience of that same feeling” (92). Nevertheless, he feels impelled to kiss the corpse as well. Why do so many of these stories linger of the vision of a female corpse (we saw this in The Vampyre, too)? Why show this to the reader?

Q2: How does one or more of these stories create the Gothic device of “based upon a true story” in its narrative? What elements strike a reader (esp. of this time) as too specific to be made up? Also, how might the author exploit sensibility (strong emotion) to confuse the fictional nature of the story?

Q3: The story, “Monos and Daimonos” is a classic story of a doppleganger, or double. The word “monos” means “single” and “daimonos” means demon/spirit, though both words are curiously similar (“Daimonos” contains “monos”). How might the two characters in the story be linked, and how does the author suggest that there is only one person throughout?

Q4: Two of these stories are by anonymous writers, which is curious, since authorship wasn’t especially taboo and many writers made their fame through publishing in fashionable Gothic journals such as Blackwood’s or New Monthly Magazine. Why might an author have decided to suppress his or her identity with these particular stories? What might they have been hiding…and why might there have been more anonymous stories in the 19th century than in the 20th?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For Monday: Short Lecture on Colonialism and Mansfield

As a way to introduce you to some of the themes we'll be exploring with our last two books, I've recorded a short lecture (about 18 min.) that I would have discussed with you in class if we were still meeting. I know 18 minutes is a lot to watch in a single stretch, so feel free to start and stop, or simply leave it playing in the background. However, I think it will help you see and understand some of the larger ideas going on behind the scenes in Mansfield's stories.  AFTER you watch the video, answer the following question as a COMMENT below: "Since many women in the early 19th century tried to hide their identity as a woman by adopting a male name, or writing more 'male' stories, how do you think colonial writers did the same? That is, how did they hide their colonial identity in writing to sound more 'English'? What might they have had to hide, or ignore, or not reveal as a writer? (This will count toward your participation grade, since I can...
40 comments
Read more

Short Lecture on Being "Weak" in Mansfield's Stories

Before we race to the end of Mansfield's stories, I wanted to discuss some of the major themes we've encountered in several of them, particularly "Daughters of the Late Colonel," "The Life of Ma Parker," "Mr. and Mrs. Dove," and "Marriage a la Mode." Watch the video to hear some of my thoughts on these stories, most of which are drawn from your responses to the reading questions. It's a little longer than the last one, but still only about 25 minutes (sorry)!  After you finish, answer the following question as a COMMENT on the blog.  Q: Talking about emotions, love, death, or otherwise being "weak" was very taboo in British society at this time. What subjects or relationships do you feel are taboo in our own society? And I don't just mean awkward subjects (abortion, politics, etc.), but what emotions or experiences would you have trouble discussing with your parents, your siblings, your friends, and even your sig...
32 comments
Read more

For Friday: Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

“Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections in Early Childhood” (pp.51-57): read the entire poem, but the questions will only focus on Stanzas 1-7 NOTE: This is a longer poem, though it’s broken up into short stanza chapters.  Read it slowly, and focus on each stanza as an individual poem.  Then consider how each one develops a general ‘story’ or narrative about Wordsworth’s life.  Consider this, too, as a kind of mid-life crisis poem: Wordsworth feels himself pulling away from the innocent joys he used to experience in life, and the poem is an attempt to find himself—and to convince other readers to find themselves in the thickets of adulthood.  Answer TWO of the following... Q1: According to Stanzas 1-4, what causes the poet to feel distanced from the natural world?   What has come between him and his imagination/emotions?   In Stanza 2 he writes that “But yet I know, where’er I go,/That there hath past away a glory from the earth...
25 comments
Read more