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Bitten by the Bat
17/2/09 15:23Now that you can see I’m reading ‘Twilight’ you’re probably groaning about the possibility of yet another ‘Twilight’ review being added to the blogosphere. I apologise, I’m afraid there will be ‘Twilight’ thoughts, inevitably influenced by the massive amount of criticism I’ve read recently, and coloured by the fact that I saw the film before reading the book (I laughed a lot). I can already tell there’s going to be some glorious, critical ripping apart to be done. There may also be some misguided romantic swooning. To ease you in I thought I’d explain where I stand on the whole vampire issue, what schools of criticism shape my thoughts on the undead, while also gushing about ‘Dracula’ the daddy of all vamp-lit.
I’ve mentioned before that I took a course about ‘Dracula’ and literary theory at university. It was an introductory course on the different schools of literary theory, illustrated by looking at critical responses to two early monster novels, ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’. Personally I found the criticism of ‘Frankenstein’ illuminating, but the novel was a literal snooze, and I fell asleep twice while reading it. ‘Dracula’ however, had a fantastic story with adventurous, engaging narrators, and a critical theory element that revealed tantalising layers in the creepy, monster catching plot. Reading ‘Dracula’ has had a huge influence on the way I process novels, and is entirely responsible for my interest in everything vampiric.
When I studied ‘Dracula’ I was nearly twenty, single, female and ready to raise a loud, feminist outcry over pink razor adverts. Not much has changed, although now I’m a twenty ‘something’, and a marketer (but still against gender segmentation campaigns in marketing by the way). So it’s not surprising that when I look at novels in depth I filter them through feminist criticism first, and this is especially true when I look at vampire novels. For me ‘Dracula’ will always be a novel that primarily explores the expression and repression of female sexuality. I’ve heard lots of comments about this element in ‘Twilight’ and the later books, which is one of the reasons I’m looking forward to reading it. I’m expecting lots of brain engaging feminist issues to come up.
The exploration of repressed sexuality in general is a fascinating element of the vampire genre. Gender criticism argues that ‘Dracula’ illustrates repressed homosexuality, through the intermingling of the male character’s blood for example, and the men’s horror at the lasciviousness of women associated with the vampire. These ideas tie up nicely with the feminist theories and I love them dearly. These ideas drew me to Anne Rice’s sexually changeable vampires – slash, trash, whatever you think of them they take something from ‘Dracula’.
Finally I love the racial criticism of the book. Blood intermingling, destroying the British line, the monstrosity of imperial policy. It really livens up some of the longer travelogue pieces. I haven’t seen this element in many modern vampire novels, but I think it would be intriguing to see American and English vampire novels examining recent foreign policy. Does anyone know of any good examples?
Psychological criticism of ‘Dracula’ sounds very plausible, very thorough but doesn’t appeal to me. I suspect that’s because it creeps me out a bit, all that parental suckage gives me the heebies. However it is gripping if you can get past the odd images it puts in your head and litlove recently wrote a fascinating post on how the maternal relates to ‘Twilight’, as well as dropping in some stuff on the chaste but hungry sexuality – which I haven’t got to yet, darn.
I could talk about socialist theory but I think that gets more than enough page space generally in the monster genre – zombies are the masses, werewolves are the underclass, vampires are the overclass parasites for anyone who wants a refresher course. Instead I’ll close my computer down now, before I give in to the overwhelming urge to buy more vampire novels. Maybe I’ll squeeze in some ‘Twilight’ pages before bed, although I’d like to keep my Edward Cullen dreams to a minimum.
I’ve mentioned before that I took a course about ‘Dracula’ and literary theory at university. It was an introductory course on the different schools of literary theory, illustrated by looking at critical responses to two early monster novels, ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’. Personally I found the criticism of ‘Frankenstein’ illuminating, but the novel was a literal snooze, and I fell asleep twice while reading it. ‘Dracula’ however, had a fantastic story with adventurous, engaging narrators, and a critical theory element that revealed tantalising layers in the creepy, monster catching plot. Reading ‘Dracula’ has had a huge influence on the way I process novels, and is entirely responsible for my interest in everything vampiric.
When I studied ‘Dracula’ I was nearly twenty, single, female and ready to raise a loud, feminist outcry over pink razor adverts. Not much has changed, although now I’m a twenty ‘something’, and a marketer (but still against gender segmentation campaigns in marketing by the way). So it’s not surprising that when I look at novels in depth I filter them through feminist criticism first, and this is especially true when I look at vampire novels. For me ‘Dracula’ will always be a novel that primarily explores the expression and repression of female sexuality. I’ve heard lots of comments about this element in ‘Twilight’ and the later books, which is one of the reasons I’m looking forward to reading it. I’m expecting lots of brain engaging feminist issues to come up.
The exploration of repressed sexuality in general is a fascinating element of the vampire genre. Gender criticism argues that ‘Dracula’ illustrates repressed homosexuality, through the intermingling of the male character’s blood for example, and the men’s horror at the lasciviousness of women associated with the vampire. These ideas tie up nicely with the feminist theories and I love them dearly. These ideas drew me to Anne Rice’s sexually changeable vampires – slash, trash, whatever you think of them they take something from ‘Dracula’.
Finally I love the racial criticism of the book. Blood intermingling, destroying the British line, the monstrosity of imperial policy. It really livens up some of the longer travelogue pieces. I haven’t seen this element in many modern vampire novels, but I think it would be intriguing to see American and English vampire novels examining recent foreign policy. Does anyone know of any good examples?
Psychological criticism of ‘Dracula’ sounds very plausible, very thorough but doesn’t appeal to me. I suspect that’s because it creeps me out a bit, all that parental suckage gives me the heebies. However it is gripping if you can get past the odd images it puts in your head and litlove recently wrote a fascinating post on how the maternal relates to ‘Twilight’, as well as dropping in some stuff on the chaste but hungry sexuality – which I haven’t got to yet, darn.
I could talk about socialist theory but I think that gets more than enough page space generally in the monster genre – zombies are the masses, werewolves are the underclass, vampires are the overclass parasites for anyone who wants a refresher course. Instead I’ll close my computer down now, before I give in to the overwhelming urge to buy more vampire novels. Maybe I’ll squeeze in some ‘Twilight’ pages before bed, although I’d like to keep my Edward Cullen dreams to a minimum.