Dracula reads as a precursor to found
footage movies: rather than videos, the narrative unfolds through fragments of
text, stitched together like that other famous monster. The format feels
awkward to today's readers, and characters' explanations for their constant note-taking
feel forced. But just as an age of YouTube, viral videos and reality television
makes characters that film everything believable, constant text-gathering made
sense to Victorian readers. This is because Stoker uses the epistolary format
to explore major themes relevant to a Victorian audience.
The abundance of documents produced by
and surrounding the characters denounce a disparity between East and West.
Harker struggles to locate Castle Dracula because "there are no maps of
this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey Maps."ª Primitive,
signage-deprived Transylvania can’t hold a candle to Great Britain’s mastery of
organization. The tools used by characters – telegram, phonograph – were recent
inventions, heralding a future of fast, efficient communication. This places
the characters' world in stark contrast with Dracula's land of crumbling
castles.
Alan Sekula describes the Victorian
enthusiasm for documentation as a desire to police criminality.º The 19th
century saw the invention of the mug-shot and the popularity of phrenology – a
(now-debunked) science whereby the measurements of a person’s skull denoted
criminal propensity. The evil nature of Count Dracula, as well as his true
intentions in England, are uncovered via written communications between
characters, particularly those who can no longer speak for themselves – Lucy
Westenra and the captain of the Demeter. The printed material thus functions
not only as a narrative device but a bona-fide Victorian weapon used to
identify the bad guy and strategize his demise.
Bram Stoker uses the
epistolary format to evince specifically British concerns. In exalting the relevance
of documentation to his contemporary audience, Stoker appoints his book, a
catalog of documents, as the ultimate emblem of his generation – as necessary as
a Bible on the bedside table.
ª B. Stoker, Dracula. 1897 (Project Gutenberg) 3.
º A. Sekula, “The Body and
the Archive.” 1992, Bolton, R. (ed.) The contest of meaning: critical histories
of photography, Cambridge: MIT Press.
I'm also writing about "british" concerns, but am concentrating on the fear of the immigrant. Yours is a very interesting take on the documentation side. I never thought of Dracula as "found-footage" but it really does make sense.
ReplyDeleteThanks Fence! I'm curious as to what angle you took.
ReplyDeleteHa! Somebody used your blog as a reference in their essay... :D
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome!! I'm guess I'm going to have to modify that famous saying to describe how I'm feeling: "Citation is the sincerest form of flattery!"
ReplyDeleteI've noticed a lot of people commenting on the flatness of the epistolary style of Dracula and Frankenstein. I didn't get to read Frankenstein, so I can't comment on it. But I didn't find the style of Dracula very grating. Perhaps that's because I was listening to the audiobook in a long car ride. It was very well read, with a full cast, which might have made the epistolary style more palatable. I'll see what I think of the written version after this course is over because I want to read The New Annotated Dracula. It simply deserved more than a week's effort so I didn't even try it out for the course. :)
ReplyDeleteRachel - I think that is the approach I should have taken. While I prefer to read a book rather than listen to the audio version (my mind wanders too much), I can't think of a more appropriate novel to be listened to than Dracula.
ReplyDelete