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Gothic context
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
Her mother was a feminist and died after giving birth to Mary
She was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, who remarried
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She eloped with Percy Shelley who was still married so it was a scandal!
Mary gave birth but the child died within two weeks
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Social ideas
Lots of discovery in science and industry
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Religion was very prominent in
society at the time
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Percy Shelley
Writes of their deceased child: ‘By the skill of the physician he was once reanimated after the
process of death has actually commenced, and he lived 4 days after that time’
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Defining life
John Abernethy- there was an external factor on life (a soul, not just a body)
William Lawrence- life was just a ‘sum’ of body parts
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Lord Byron suggested a ghost story challenge
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Summer 1816 was dismal- volcanic eruption (Krakatoa) resulted in temps falling
Shelley’s Landscapes
On a journey, she travelled through many wintry landscapes that inspired her
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He tested on
hanged criminals
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It led to research into
the states between life and death- defining what death was
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She
saw her life being saved as ‘inhumane’ as she wanted to die
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Melodrama and sensationalism
Melodrama plays took off in the 18th century
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Gothic literature
moulds together 2 distinctive elements- melodrama from theatre, and sensationalism from
contemporary novels
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Ann Radcliffe was more psychoanalytical and offered explanations
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Also the use of the sublime- using the supernatural or nature to reach an emotional pinnacleindescribable feelings of terror or joy
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Bronte’s Heathcliff, C
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Isolation
Damsel in distress- lonely
Antihero is misunderstood
Why does gothic like isolation? It grew from romanticism which focused on oneself
(introspective)
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England’s history is many different faiths including pagan traditions which allowed for an intense
belief of the supernatural
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The often vilified faiths entirely in the gothiceg the villainous monk
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Walpole found a profound
sense of feeling in these ruins
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Art critic Vasari in the renaissance, hated these buildings and called them ‘gothic’ (goth meaning
uncivilised, unsettled’)
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Frankenstein
Knowledge
Rousseau- Education plus knowledge= corruption
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Coleridge- regretted that he didn’t grow up with nature so moved to lake district so his children
could, away from knowledge into innocence
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Women had roles- stay at home, look after kids
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Shelley
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The woman doesn’t care about convention,
she tries to gain independence which results in major issues
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The theory of evolution led to major
issues with belief in God
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Rev
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The whole nation began playacting medieval- looking back to the past
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Modern science was ‘mapping’ god out of the equation
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It’s asif he took opium to turn his own mind into a gothic fantasy producing
machine
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The locomotive epitomised progress-very fast travel
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Rural- industrial economy was fast transition into britain
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What do British people fear?
Absence of God, abandonment of religion
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Fear of ‘other’- immigration
A fear of women having more independence
Dickens reinvented urban gothic- using the city as his haunted house
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Nature
Humans are a threat to nature
Industrial rev
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Led to fears about humans getting out of touch
with nature
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Society
Before change
Women treated as possessions
Justice system male dominated
Clear gender roles
Cusp of scientific discovery and fears therefore
Frank is set in Geneva, not England, though it may be possible that Shelley is just saying the
‘unsayable’ about English society
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Dracula is very contextually
grounded
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Industrial revolution had madly changed how
society worked
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The men had strong jaws, a good face structure etc
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rev)
New woman developing
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Less connected to nature
Alienation has come about by urbanisation- the absence of nature- man has concreted over
nature
Technology often used against dracula, so redeeming science
80 YEAR DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FRANK AND DRAC
Lots of promiscuity in Victorian England- men were promiscuous- brothels
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Is there a problem with male sexuality in victorian period?
Colonialist reading
Foreign person coming in (immigration) presented negatively as it weakens society (women,
killing people)- Dracula represents the fears of immigration
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Religion and science
● Darwin’s theory of evolution- led to questions about god’s existence
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Seward and VH using a lot of scientific ideas in Dracula- some theories
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Start to question everything else
about God
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Rev led to lack of relationship with nature- could see god as nature
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● Ind
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● Galvanism- animation of dead body parts using electricity
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● Society- muscular christianity- idea that men should be chivalrous, women should be
virtuous
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People didn’t want technology to get in the way
of connection with god, with nature
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Reason and emotion
Madness and sickness
● Fear around sickness because victorians had large fear of being sick
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● Madness can be associated with dreaming
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Lucy sleepwalking is her oppressed self coming out
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Status and outwards appearance
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● Treatment of hysteria- using mad people as entertainment (freak shows), using them for
experiments, treating them using obscene shock therapy
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● Psychee of both Frank and Drac- Both are interested in the interior workings of the mind
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● In Vic
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● The yellow wallpaper-​ more towards Dracula than Frank
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Sexuality- fear of
● By the time Dracula was written, the emergence of the new woman had happenedcontextually, attitudes had partially progressed over the century, though not properly
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● Lucy’s version of the new woman is punished/feared
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● Timeline from 1818-1890s from frank to drac
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She obviously wasn’t worried about reputation
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● Afraid of losing reputation from being sexually free (especially for women)
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(AIDS, Herpes etc)
● There probably wasn’t much of a society progression regarding sexuality over these
years
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Harker writes about all this but
can’t share it with anyone so he’s isolated
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● City- isolation in the city- alienating effect of the city- people living close together but not
knowing each other
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Tuning out due to civilisation
● Ind
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Frankenstein had more of a fear of it, whilst dracula has
started to experience some of the benefits of it, so less condemning here
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in Frank, Nature associated with females, Victor is male and
deviates from nature
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● Rousseau- Society as corrupting influence to humanity
● The idea of nature being sublime, perhaps representing god, or god’s work, and
therefore Science intruting nature could be seen as science replacing God, leading to a
more secular society
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himself and manipulated by him, presenting nature as weak or degrading it
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Differences between the two texts’ contexts
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Frank= pre-victorian period​ so very much in dread of what could happen to society, as
pre-ind
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End of romantic era, beginning of mass industrial changes that affect a lot of
nature, so looking on science more negatively
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Enthusiasm for the French revolution died down because it didn’t work at all- these fears
replaced by dictatorshisp
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English were very horrified by this cruelty and violence, and therefore scared about
what could happen if England had a revolution
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Shelley’s father was a significant politician so had lots of inside knowledge, perhaps this led
shelley to represent the country’s fears in her novel through science vs religion
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Gothic literature more romantic, more literal
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Drac= during ind
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​ ​A lot more developments in technology being
used for good purposes, science presented as being very beneficial (blood transfusions) but
also having its limitations
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genetics) which led to this idea being presented in Drac
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The novel portrays lots of ideas about our
oppressed sexuality, but in a very negative and dangerous light
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London in Dickens
replaces the traditional ‘haunted house’
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A revelation of the reality of our society?



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