By using these features of the times to create a new substantial text aspects from others. The setting of Shadow is very similar to Nosferatu, but uses strong gothic imagery from Dracula. The director attempts to combine two genres: the gothic and the docu-drama. By doing this, it takes elements of both Dracula and
And dreams, according to Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams, are merely a reflection of a person's sub consciousness (9-12). Therefore, Dracula is merely a story that reflects Bram Stoker's subconscious view of his society as well as his internal battle regarding guilt, sex, judgment, perfection, and self-identity. I Bram Stoker was born on November 8, 1847 as the third out of seven children in Dublin, Ireland. As a young child, Stoker was very interested in story telling. In 1863, Stoker attended Trinity College at the University of Dublin.
By the gothic revival of 1850-1880, with the exception of Castle Dracula, the setting had moved from grand, mysterious structures of foreign lands to the urban dwellings and labyrinthine streets of Victorian cities such as Edinburgh and London, the setting for Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde respectively. This displayed the fears harboured by Victorian Britain concerning urban crime and local dangers. It is in American gothic fiction that the ‘Haunted House’ became a common setting. Dale Bailey writes on Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher; ‘The tale of the Haunted House, while rooted in the European Gothic tradition, has developed a distinctly American resonance; since Poe first described the House of Usher in 1839, the motif of the Haunted House has assumed an enduring role in the American tradition’ this theory is supported when, in Stephen King’s The Shining, Danny notices the similarities between The Overlook Hotel and the Castle owned
What values and attitudes are explored within Stoker’s Dracula? How might context have influenced Stoker’s vision? Bram Stoker’s Dracula is, if nothing else, an extraordinary exploration of the values and attitudes at turn-of-the 20th Century London. Stoker portrays the collision of two disparate worlds - the Count’s ancient Transylvania and the protagonist’s rapidly modernising London - along with a variety of other symbols in order to highlight the primary anxieties that characterised his age: the dangers of female sexuality, the ramifications of scientific and technological advancement and the impacts of abandoning religion. Stoker makes continued use of symbols and objects throughout the novel in order to further strengthen on this idea.
The (Now) Obvious Themes of Reverse Colonization Within Stoker's Dracula Stephen D. Arata's article The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization, was written to highlight the no longer subtle and hidden themes of imperialism, race and culture found within Bram Stoker's Dracula. Arata categorizes Dracula with other written works of the Victorian era such as The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling and The Time Machine and War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. In each of these tales, the reader finds a story of reversal of roles: the colonized becomes the colonizer, the victim becomes the villain, the exploiter becomes the exploited. These stories were written in “response to cultural guilt and to atone for imperial sins”.
Comparison of Frankenstein and Blade Runner While Blade Runner is a collaborative work of the twentieth century using technological mediums, Frankenstein is a more traditional novel written as part of a competition to see who could create the most Gothic (horror) story using language. The two are separated by two hundred years and yet share many of the same concerns. BLADE RUNNER | FRANKENSTEIN | Blade Runner1 is a Ridley Scott adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?As a dystopia (dark future) it uses the glazed cinematic techniques of film noir that tends to distance us from the characters and actions. More @ Cinematic Techniques: | This is a Gothic Novel. Mary claims the inspiration for her story came from a vision she had during a dream.
In order to analyze Frankenstein, one must recall some elements of people's imaginary, as well as old scholars' concepts regarding this famous and ingenious work of Romantic literature. The background in which the author Mary Shelley was inserted to, as well as its importance in introducing readers to a certain type of moral dilemma that was dealt with by several authors of that era, aside from stamping a whole new genre in itself, which was science-fiction. This article briefly discusses the main thematic elements of the novel, inserted in a certain context, under a revenge and betrayal bias, which are ultimately the main triggers of the dramatic action. To start with, it is interesting to mention one of the richest elements of the story. The duality of Victor Frankenstein and its creation is obvious.
For centuries now legends have been told about creatures beyond the ordinary. When someone says vampire these days, people think of a brooding good looking sparkly Edward Cullen, but when I think of one I think of the classic original, Dracula. As, my personal favorite book and one of the most famous classic novels people often wonder how Bram Stoker created his title character. Some think that he created the vampire legend, but that's not true. Dracula was created by the myths of ancient worlds, with some influence from the Romanian Prince Vlad and quite possibly the Countess Elizabeth Bathory.
The uses of excessive description and hyperbole in Catherine’s language (especially during chapters 23, 24 and 25) can show in some ways that Northanger Abbey is very much celebratory of the gothic genre. Catherine’s strange change of tone occurs from chapter 23, whereby she is given a grand tour of the Abbey and becomes fascinated and engrossed with the General, extrapolating that he may have something direct to do with his wife’s death. It’s interesting to note the shift in descriptive dialogue in this chapter, akin to gothic novels such as “The Castle of Otranto” for its fanciful and shadowy narration of the castle and of the other protagonists and their actions. She describes the general as having “solitary rambles” which, at least to Catherine, “did not speak a mind at ease, or a conscience void of reproach”, seemingly using fanciful descriptions to infer something which simply isn’t there; “void of reproach” sounds very menacing and malevolent, something Austen has done deliberately to highlight the melodrama a gothic tale and description can cause. Catherine furthers her claim of the general,
Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” was written following the Age of Enlightenment and during the Romantic period, one factor of this period in time was Gothic themed novels. The “Gothic” genre includes the idea of loneliness and isolation, which could explain why Shelley’s novel contains characters who could be considered “outsiders”. Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel “Brave New World” first published in 1932 which was written way ahead of its time; scientifically and when referring to social problems, the novel has an almost prophetic awareness of the ‘nightmarish’ future the Nazis and Soviet Communism were yet to inflict. In both texts there are several characters perceived as “outsiders” those being; Frankenstein, the creature, the De Lacys, Safie, Walton, Justine, John, Bernard and Linda, but for various reasons. These include; those who purposely refrain from outer society and those who are prejudiced by others, this is mostly due to their physical appearance.