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Toni Morrison’s Beloved was written in 1987 – a time much more peaceful than the novel’s setting. Though centered on a culture that’s destructive, as well as polarized both racially and by gender, there are strong themes of both love and hate that run thick and through Beloved. Morrison alludes to these forces constantly throughout the novel, and uses the strong emotions to highlight different characters, plot lines, and themes.

Although love shines through many of the roles, the most evident discussion of it lies within Sethe, who has actually almost become numb to emotion and yearning. Sethe, a warrior in slavery and through the times themselves, is in a place where she nearly cannot love freely. She has lost three of her four children, and keeps the last one left, Denver, close to her heart and in her sight almost constantly. “For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love,” Paul D. believed (54). Until she encountered the darling ghost of Beloved, Sethe could not even love her other children because the memories of them stung too much.

While Denver is with her mother night and day, she has begun to resent her life at the cold 124 on Bluestone Road. She breaks and becomes vulnerable when Sethe tries to introduce her and get her to warm up to Paul D. “I can’t live here. I don’t know where to go or what to do but I can’t live here. Nobody speaks to use. Nobody comes by,” Denver vents. The community has become scared of house 124 and of the people who live inside. Resentment, over time, can lead to hate – the opposite of love.

Hatred is also shown through the novel through the theme of slavery. Sethe, Denver, Paul D., and the other men from Sweet Home are used by Toni Morrison to portray the thousands who were enslaved during the nineteenth century. The hatred poured upon them by most white people was enough to scar, and to create a barrier between freedom and love. Freedom, to Sethe and to Denver, is being able to live with the choices that they have made and to live as safely as possible. Love, however, is something that only comes along with immense trust.

The aura and history of House 124 put a dark shadow on its residents, and encouraged the folks of Cincinnati to feel the same. The darkness has not only begun to control society’s perception and hate towards Sethe and her daughter, but it has also created a void in the house. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom,” (3) Morrison opens Beloved. Until the ghost of Sethe’s murdered daughter returns in the novel, the spirits within the family haunt, and further the distance between them and love.

Beloved’s characters run for what felt like an eternity, and along the way, learned to forget love in hopes of forgetting hate. Sethe, Denver, and Paul D. make an intriguing little family that shows the elements of love during a time overrun by hate.

Science and Faith in Dracula

The novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker uses the character of Dracula to show something very important about his views on life, science, and religion. Stoker uses certain elements of Dracula’s character to show that mixing religion and science can have devastating effects if the two are not mixed in a healthy manner. Abraham Van Helsing (simply referred to as Van Helsing in the novel) is in direct contrast of Dracula on the issue and is used to show how the two can be mixed healthily.

                It is implied that Dracula became a vampire after tinkering with the “dark arts” and mixing science and religion. Dracula is said to have been a great scientist in his days of youth and to have been a leader in scientific innovation and discovery. It seems Dracula’s motivations were to mix science and religion in a way that would make the two one. However, it would seem his quest to understand God and the spiritual realm under scientific terms is exactly what separated the two of them. It is through his quest to combine the two that he delves into the “dark arts”, the sinister mixture of superstition and science. It would seem that Stoker is telling us something about the mixture of faith and science through Dracula, but it is impossible to truly tell what is being said through Dracula without looking at him in the light of Van Helsing, our novel’s hero.

                Van Helsing is used to show the proper mixture of religion and science. Van Helsing is made out to be a fairly wise, respectable, well mannered scientist of religious background who everyone in the novel can look up to. The largest portion of his character we can see of him from the novel is his wisdom. Anyone and everyone who has a problem they themselves either do not understand or do not know how to handle can come to him for sound advice. Van Helsing’s wisdom bridges the gap between superstition and science in the proper way. Van Helsing understands that each can be used individually and together, to an extent, and be used safely. Van Helsing seems to seek council from both schools of thought and uses each in its own realm, but never mixes them to make them one. This seems to be the deciding factor that helps to bridge the gap between superstition and science. It is important, Stoker seems to be saying, to use both in cooperation without combining the two. This is something Van Helsing does well that Dracula fails to do.

                Dracula pushes the two schools of thought together into one single ideal while Van Helsing takes both and applies them in their own given areas of “expertise”. Each school of thought is important in its own time and place, but do poorly when combined. Van Helsing encounters great success in battling Dracula once he realizes this. He uses his logical mind to put in motion to use superstitious elements (cross, communion crackers, garlic, etc.) to defeat Dracula. Stoker deliberately lays this out so that we can understand the healthy balance of Religion and science.

                Bram Stoker uses the novel Dracula to teach us something about the way we should undertand the interactions between faith and science. It is clear he uses the contrasting characters of Dracula dn Van Helsing to depict the negatives of over combining and the positives of maintaining a healthy relationship. Dracula is displayed as a beast created by the over combination of science and faith while Van Helsing is characterized as the wise warrior who defeats Dracula through the proper mix of faith and science. 

Love and Hate in Beloved

Toni Morrison’s Beloved was written in 1987 – a time much more peaceful than the novel’s setting. Though centered on a culture that’s destructive, as well as polarized both racially and by gender, there are strong themes of both love and hate that run thick and through Beloved. Morrison alludes to these forces constantly throughout the novel, and uses the strong emotions to highlight different characters, plot lines, and themes.

Although love shines through many of the roles, the most evident discussion of it lies within Sethe, who has actually almost become numb to emotion and yearning. Sethe, a warrior in slavery and through the times themselves, is in a place where she nearly cannot love freely. She has lost three of her four children, and keeps the last one left, Denver, close to her heart and in her sight almost constantly. “For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love,” Paul D. believed (54). Until she encountered the darling ghost of Beloved, Sethe could not even love her other children because the memories of them stung too much.

While Denver is with her mother night and day, she has begun to resent her life at the cold 124 on Bluestone Road. She breaks and becomes vulnerable when Sethe tries to introduce her and get her to warm up to Paul D. “I can’t live here. I don’t know where to go or what to do but I can’t live here. Nobody speaks to use. Nobody comes by,” Denver vents. The community has become scared of house 124 and of the people who live inside. Resentment, over time, can lead to hate – the opposite of love.

Hatred is also shown through the novel through the theme of slavery. Sethe, Denver, Paul D., and the other men from Sweet Home are used by Toni Morrison to portray the thousands who were enslaved during the nineteenth century. The hatred poured upon them by most white people was enough to scar, and to create a barrier between freedom and love. Freedom, to Sethe and to Denver, is being able to live with the choices that they have made and to live as safely as possible. Love, however, is something that only comes along with immense trust.

The aura and history of House 124 put a dark shadow on its residents, and encouraged the folks of Cincinnati to feel the same. The darkness has not only begun to control society’s perception and hate towards Sethe and her daughter, but it has also created a void in the house. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom,” (3) Morrison opens Beloved. Until the ghost of Sethe’s murdered daughter returns in the novel, the spirits within the family haunt, and further the distance between them and love.

Beloved’s characters run for what felt like an eternity, and along the way, learned to forget love in hopes of forgetting hate. Sethe, Denver, and Paul D. make an intriguing little family that shows the elements of love during a time overrun by hate.

Bloodsucking Beauties and the Not-So-Sexy Bloodsucking Beast

Bloodsucking Beauties and the Not-So-Sexy Bloodsucking Beast

             In Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, the fact that Dracula is not portrayed as sexy but the women vampires are is symbolic of how men were seen as more superior than women in the late 1800’s. It is symbolizing that Dracula does not need help catching his prey because he is a man, but the women need help so they have their attractiveness to lure in their prey.

            From the beginning of the novel to the end, Dracula is portrayed as a very creepy

and strange-looking man. When Jonathon Harker, businessman, comes to visit him he

notes that Dracula is “a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which

seemed to hide his face… I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which

seemed red in the lamplight…” (pg. 15). Even though Dracula is not seen as an attractive or appealing man, he has no problem throughout the novel finding prey and surviving on his own until the very end.

            In chapter three, the women vampires make their entrance. Immediately, Jonathon is attracted to them.

“All three had brilliant white teeth, that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips” (pg. 60). Unlike Dracula, these women are dependent and have to use their attractiveness to get close to their prey. At one point, Dracula actually brings the women a baby to feed on, implying that it is easier for Dracula to hunt than for them to hunt for themselves.

....... Because Dracula is a man (be it a vampire man), he is seen as superior to women. The vampire women take orders from Dracula, showing that even though they are vampires, they see themselves below Dracula and not as his equal.

Even today, men are still seen as more superior than women. Bram Stoker makes it clear in Dracula how women were seen as inferior to men in the late 1800’s. Making Dracula unappealing yet a successful hunter and the women vampires purposefully sexy to help attract their prey is just one more way that Stoker subtly restates this.

 

 

What do you guys think? I would really appreciate any constructive criticism from you. I’m not sure if this is the topic I’m going to stick with for my final paper, but I’m playing around with it in my head. I also realize that maybe the real reason the women vampires are sexy and Dracula is not might be simply because Dracula is a shallow bastard that only changes beautiful women to join him, but hey, that makes my thesis arguable then, right? I’m just not sure how much information I could get out of it to make it 5 pages long. Any help on my thesis statement? I think it’s kind of wordy, as is the title. I’m very open to suggestions! Please be honest!!!

The Dangers of Combining Religion and Science

            Superstitions evolved from centuries ago. “To find a horseshoe brings you good luck”, “if you walk under a ladder you will have bad luck”, or “a broken mirror will bring seven years bad luck”; these are all common modern superstitions. One superstition that has seemed to have stuck around since the Victorian Age is vampires. Bram Stoker’s Dracula imitates the Victorian-istic culture’s rebirth of superstition from the past through the vampire king, Dracula, and the wisdom of the famous vampire slayer, Van Helsing, who manages to live in peace with science and religion, leaving wiggle-room for the two characters to have similarities.

            Stoker reincarnates the history of the Victorian Age through Dracula, who is a symbolization of superstition. The Victorian period is also known as the “ago of science”, an era of comprehension that the world is dictated by the “natural laws”, instead of the divine supernatural, leaving supernatural beliefs to be rejected as superstitions (Noakes 23). Van Helsing promotes superstitious tactics frequently throughout the story, one when Van Helsing put a necklace of garlic around Mina’s neck after being bitten. Van Helsing also uses religious tactics like placing a cross on the body of Lucy, blocking evil spirits, and praying while placing a cross on Mina’s forehead burning her, a sign of evil invading her body. The “superstition”, Dracula, associates many of his actions with biblical scriptures to expo his degree of power to that of Jesus Christ; “And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for while” (Stoker 328). A biblical phrase, similar of the sort, is also specified in the Bible, “Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you”, “This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11: 24-25). Drinking the cup of wine representing the blood of Jesus, “the blood of the lamb”, compares to that of the drinking of human blood as an illustration of a demonic communion. Even though Dracula puts himself on a pedestal by using biblical phrases comparing himself to Jesus, and his demonic nature connecting to the spiritual communion, Stoker also involves the use of science.

Stoker displays the use of technology to document events through the type-writer, phonograph, telegraph, and Kodak; all used to Van Helsing’s advantage. Van Helsing’s obsession of the Count is a scientific characteristic, aggregating knowledge over time. Van Helsing states that Dracula was a “soldier, statesman, and alchemist-which latter was the highest development of the science-knowledge of all time”, also explaining how Dracula’s child-like brain matured into that of a man (Stoker 342-343). Both Dracula and Van Helsing, both scientists, have developing intellectual power, like the constant metamorphose of science.  However, only the Count provokes the rebirth of the Victorian ideal bringing authority to science.

Spiritualism in the Victorian Age had to be caste out because it intimidates the betterment of science, according to the opinions of Victorian scientists (Noakes 24). This assumption, along with Stoker’s rebirth of the Victorian culture, is a violation of Stephen J. Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria, aka NOMA. Gould states religion and science have boundaries and are “non-authoritian”, meaning one magisteria cannot be cognizant in its entirety but both “hold equal worth” (Gould 58). Combining the two can cause controversial conflict, literal in Dracula’s case, but balance between science and religion can equal wisdom.

             Stoker demonstrates the danger in combining science and religion by using Dracula as an example and the balance between them that amplifies Van Helsing’s wisdom. Dracula’s nature violates the rules of NOMA by resurrecting the Victorian past, a time where religion fuses into superstitions giving science the upper hand. Stoker's rebirth of the Victorian past allows questions to arise as to whether Stoker supports Christianity or Scientology, the knowledge of life.

Work Cited:

Gould, Stephen Jay. Noma defined and defended. New York, NY: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1999. Print.

Noakes, Richard. The Victorian Supernatural. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Glennis Bryon, 1998. Print.

Dracula as anti-Christ

Bare with me fellas...I started writing and just couldn't stop!

 

Count Dracula, Bram’s Stoker’s famed blood-drinking villain, is a creature of menacing wickedness, an evil figure of mastery over both body and spirit. What makes this vampire terrifying is not his domination of one’s physical self, but rather his craving of authority over the human soul by virtue of his nearly indestructible malice and brilliant personal appeal. While his character is chillingly parallel to Jesus Christ, the miracle-working savior of God’s sinful children, Dracula is perhaps Stoker’s representative of another biblical figure: the anti-Christ.

The first sign of Dracula’s anti-Christ figure is found in the omens indicating his coming, an allusion to the biblical arrival of the Messiah. Mina writes in chapter 19 that the mist in her room, Dracula, becomes a “pillar of cloud…through the top of which I could see…the light of the gas shining like a red eye” (Stoker 420), running parallel to the Old Testament concept of the Lord’s visitation through human figures. In Exodus, “Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshipped…the Lord would speak…as one speaks to a friend (New International Version, Exodus 33:10). Mina wonders to herself if this visitation is “some spiritual guidance” (Stoker). Ironically, while God as a “pillar of cloud” led Moses and the Hebrew slaves to freedom in the Old Testament, Count Dracula as a “pillar of cloud” enslaves and tyrannizes souls. This concept of the Messiah’s coming through clouds is also found in the New Testament, as Jesus ascends into heaven on a cloud in Acts of the Apostles; his amazed disciples write that “he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight…(and) this same Jesus…will come back in the same way (they saw) him go to heaven” (Acts 1:9) Bram Stoker thus makes analogous the coming of Dracula’s evil Messianic persona through perverse biblical references, as the anti-Christ – per Christian beliefs – is presumed to appear so much like the Son of God that it will be nearly impossible to distinguish the two.

Second, Dracula’s Christ-like dominion over nature is an eerie correspondence to biblical references. The reader’s initial sample of the Count buttresses the concept that he is in fact a supernatural bad guy. When wolves overwhelm Jonathon Harker’s carriage as he winds through the Transylvanian wilderness to meet Dracula, he frighteningly observes the Count’s authority over the animals. “I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command,” Harker writes, and “he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle” (Stoker 21) as the wolves fell back and “began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them” (21). Of course, Jesus’ authority over nature is highlighted throughout the New Testament in multiple parables. This mastery over the natural world is a similarity between Dracula and Christ – and likewise, between the anti-Christ and Christ. Nonetheless, Jesus uses his authority to preserve and save, while Dracula uses his to ruin and feed: the same wolves the Count keeps from killing Harker later gruesomely devour a peasant woman. In fact, Count Dracula’s wolves could be yet another allusion to the Bible: Jesus Christ explicitly warns to “watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). It seems Stoker included the wolves to equate Dracula’s ultimate command of the beasts with the anti-Christ’s title of the ultimate false prophet. In this sense, while Dracula’s supernatural powers seem similar to Jesus’, his evil use of them is what separates the figures.

Dracula’s supernatural powers are additionally manifested in his Christ-like miracles, while the products of those miracles undeniably point to his anti-Christ-like guise. Dracula is apparently capable of the act of resurrection: he brings Lucy Westenra back to ‘life’ three days after her death, much like Jesus resurrected Lazarus in the Gospel of John. “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus said to Lazarus’ sister Martha, “(because) I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:22-26). However, Dracula’s resurrected Lucy is the antithesis of Lazaurus, who was welcomed back into the community. Lucy is a ferocious vampire, something which Stoker’s protagonists see as someone who must be destroyed. When Dr. Seward records their discovery of the re-born woman, he notes “how changed” she is, as the “sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness” (Stoker 342). In fact, he only refers to her as Lucy because “the thing…(merely) bore her shape” (342). Dracula’s new project is exactly like him, “callous as a devil,” “blazed with unholy light” (343), and “unclean and full of hell-fire” (342). Though Lucy was raised from the dead like Lazarus – equating Dracula with Christ – the product of that resurrection was far more sinister – equating Dracula with the anti-Christ. This evil miracle is preempted by the Bible: “The coming of the lawless one (the anti-Christ) will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10).

Finally, the theme of blood in Stoker’s Dracula is perhaps the most glaring proof of the Count’s role as anti-Christ. The vampire’s drinking of blood is clearly prohibited in the Bible: in Leviticus, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off” (Leviticus 17:14), and in Deuteronomy, “You must not eat the blood” (Deuteronomy 12:16). The focus on blood in the Bible is as a gift by Jesus’ Atonement of sin, while the focus on blood in Dracula is the literal taking of it as an act of sin. In this sense, Dracula is more than a sinner, but rather an illustration of the anti-Christ – one whose use of blood to achieve eternal life and re-birth is a sharp perversion of Jesus’ gift of blood to sinners so that they would achieve eternal life. “Whoever…drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:54) said Jesus to his followers. In contrast, Dracula drinks the blood of his victims so that he will achieve immortality, a mockery of the sacrament of the Eucharist and what Van Helsing refers to as a “baptism of blood” (Stoker 523). By engaging in an anti-sacrifice and anti-Eucharist, Dracula is a clear representative of the anti-Christ.

Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula is undeniably illustrative of the anti-Christ. As evidenced from his Messiah-like appearances, his domination over the natural world, his ability to perform resurrections and his symbolic use of blood, Dracula’s character is so disturbingly comparable to Jesus Christ that it is easy to equate him as such. Nonetheless, the motivations behind these parallels – an evil use of nature, the resurrection of people into demon-like vampires, and the reversal of Christ’s sacrifice – prove that the Count is in fact the opposite.

Female Sexuality in Dracula

Female sexuality in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is a strong topic throughout the book. It enhances the Victorian male imagination to believe that woman are a certain way and should only act a certain way. In England, women’s sexual behavior is dictated by society which sets high expectations for their actions. In Dracula, Lucy and Mina are threatened by Dracula himself.

Although they have their differences, Lucy and Mina are woman that are true to their men, innocent, and have a strong Christian faith known as “God’s women” much like Victorian women. They aren’t like real people though. Victorian women were expected to be very faithful to their husbands, be a good wife/mother, and are set on such a high standard to act a certain way. In Chapter XVII Mina states that, “We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked.” The women are innocent from their evil’s and walking around being a “whore” is not acceptable in their society. After the transformation, Lucy takes the mother instinct to a whole new level. She turns on the children and attacks them by attacking them instead of nourishing them and feeding them like a Victorian woman should do. Also, Stoker uses interesting vocabulary to describe Lucy. She is described more of in terms by her sexuality than of the proper ways.

Dracula transforms Lucy into a vampire and the men are left to destroy her in order to keep her at an acceptable state. After the transformation, Van Helsing and the other men keep a close eye on Mina to make sure that she does not become a victim of Dracula. The transformation of Lucy can be seen as the dark side of female sexuality. She becomes openly sexual and struggles to find a balance of good and evil. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the book because the men are struggling to find a balance with Dracula and themselves with Lucy. Dracula is determined to turn the women into the individuals that they are not meant to be. He wants to open their sexual desires and influence them to become impure while Van Helsing and his men want Lucy to remain true to herself.  Ironically, the attack on Lucy turns her into an openly sexual predator which supports Stoker’s way of showing female sexuality.

Lucy’s final actions show resemblances with sexuality are strong. Even though it was an act to restore Lucy and help her to become pure again, when Holmwood pierces Lucy with the stake it can be seen as an act of intercourse. Holmwood was doing his best to keep Dracula from consuming Lucy into his sexual relationship. Also, the blood transfusion also shows some kind of resemblance through sexuality and intercourse. They see the transfusion of the blood similar to intercourse because they are making a direct connection between the male and female.

Throughout Dracula we are introduced to sexuality and female sexuality in different ways. Although the women are supposed to act a certain way their behavior is tested throughout the book through Dracula’s motives. Their behavior is dictated by society but Dracula’s actions causes them to turn into improper Victorian women.

Tell me what you guys think. Any ideas that you may have would be greatly appreciated!