The Victorian Imagination
Dr. Ramirez
Stoker. Dracula

1. Discuss the strange and uncanny sleeping and waking; dream state
circling of the caleche
strange night-existence (Dracula and Harker staying up late together: homoerotic)
idea that people sense Dracula before seeing him
Dracula is not reflected in the mirror
Crew knows there is a presence on The Demeter, but they cannot identify it
Mina sees the red eyes (sunset reflection)
misleading honesty of Dracula (our ways in Transylvania are not your ways)
Castle situated on a precipice, image of of hell

Nocturnal ventures, the crawling of the Count on the walls
Hairs on the palm (associated with masturbation)
Strange weather; tempest that arises and then falls, enveloping the land in fog
Dog's nervousness about the grave
Lucy's sleepwalking (suggests a subconscious state)

2. Scientific threads in the text
Renfield's outward behavior; madness inward
unconscious cerebration: dreams, revelations of the self (69).
two levels of existence: what is obvious and verifiable, and what is
hidden, invisible, but palpable or the object of sensibility
Renfield is a double (in miniature) for Dracula; consumer of life
Challenges the order of life--interesting study for Seward

3. Write on the Victorian sensibility, as expressed in Dracula
Use the Oxford English Dictionary definition of Sensibility:

a. Quickness and acuteness of apprehension or feeling; the quality of
being easily and strongly affected by emotional influences;
sensitiveness. Also sensitiveness to, keen sense of something.

b. In the 18th and early 19th c. (afterwards somewhat rarely): Capacity
for refined emotion; delicate sensitiveness of taste; also, readiness to
feel compassion for suffering, and to be moved by the pathetic in
literature or art.

Sensibility manifests itself with Mina as a fear; part of that fear
resides in the fact that she cannot contain Lucy.

Quickness with which men respond to Lucy; feel compassion for her and for another.
Softer side of the Victorian male .

Mina rushes to Jonathan's side, feels his pain (although does not know the cause of it)
Mina's keenness about Lucy, and her gravitation to the cemetery
Mina is an "empath" feels for everyone, for Lucy, for Mrs. Westenra
Van Helsing's sensibility is moral, just, knowing the difference between good and evil; but it is also scientific (and quantifiable) and it
allows for lore, legend, myth

class sensitivity; Mina works while Lucy does not work


4. Study questions for Dracula

How do characters sense Dracula's presence?
How does Stoker employ gothic imagery in his rendering of Dracula's castle?
How are Lucy and Mina representative of Victorian culture?
In what way does Stoker set up Dracula as Other?
Discuss sleeping and waking in the text