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More Dracula (Chpt Viii-XIII) - Coggle Diagram
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Dracula
(Chpt Viii-XIII)
keying back on themes of organization and ordering "found" texts
Lucy Westenra
the politics of BLOOD
Using one of the blood transfusion scenes, in your group, revists the passage. Collect key words/phrases/images. How does Stoker narrate the transfer of blood? How do these narrative choices ask us to consider the politics of sharing blood?
Arthur
Chloe in chat: During the transfusion from Arthur, I noticed that there’s a lot of emphasis on a man’s courage and how they’re the only way women can be saved. There’s also some infantiilzing language towards Lucy: “little miss” & “drink it off like a good child” (148 -collins classics edition)
Paloma: "And he praises Arthur by saying he’s brave and strong, so Lucy will love him even more"
She’s unaware of what actually goes on in the procedure, and blindly trusts because she loves Arthur, more romanticizing blood transfusions -- Paloma in chat
infantilizing Lucy
"she wants the blood, or else" -- she needs it like medically, but also about agency and desire
"full veins of one to the empty veins of one who pines for him" --future fiance, sharing blood, images of married coupled becoming "one" flesh
“Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me.” (Pg. 162, Byron edit); subordinates Lucy through romantic sentiment
Jack Seward
first choice, then one-upped by
having Arthur first (and creating a weird hierachy between men), "have kisses" again,
"" It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves." (pg.130)
"Already? You took a great deal more from Art." "he is her lover and her *fiance"" (164)--the idea of blood and ownership; svaing her for marriage; reinforces that it's more about relationships between men than her HEALTH
Van Helsing
reminds us of the ABSENCE of agency; recenters man feelings: "a great man's blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble" (yikes on bikes)
Quincey
Joi' : "It's definitely interesting how with each transfusion, the man giving it is described differently. There's the emphasis on being a man that Van Helsing uses each time. Like with Quincey, he calls him brave, and says that's just what they need when a woman is in trouble."
ironic that his experience with vampire bats gives him more knowledge than Seward; specific language of Medical men"(188)
so what happens to Lucy's personhood in the transfusions? oops no person; removing agency
"polyandrist" (213)--like where's the consent?
it marks the anxiety about the threat you are facing and becoming that thing
Jonathan's memory loss: a way to reconstruct a sense of gendered self?
lingering trauma and having to mediate/remediate the trauma