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I bet you didnt know that
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I'm not sure how one would decide which thing is the MAIN theme, different readings identify different dimensions of the text. When I was teaching it we also discussed the tension in the novel between modernity (and science, technology, rationalism) and the archaic (the magical, the animalistic), van helsing being a clear representative of the former and Dracula in some ways the latter. That tension was an important part of Victorian society as it came to terms with Darwinism, industrialisation, etc and so on, and there was a kind of anxiety or fear of the premodern.Really, I thought the main theme of Dracula was Victorian sexual repression and Eastern European immigration.
A student of mine noted that when Harker (or whatever name is!) goes to Transylvania first, the journey is punctuated by a gradual deterioration of the specificity of time. So leaving London you have exact departure times of trains and so on, to the minute, while as he approaches his destination the times of his transports become less exact, eventually being measured in days. The idea of needing to know the exact time is itself a product of the industrial agree, in particular the train, which connected massively disparate places and required the standardisation of time to an extent never before known (and the formalisation if time zones). The novel uses descent into an informal sense of time as a way of measuring his movement away from the rational and the civilised, and into the unknown, the archaic, which is linked in various ways with fear, and anxieties of the age about things outside of "civilisation", a kind of definition that was increasingly coming to help justify the empire (see the image of van helsing drawing a circle in the snow into which no evil can come).
So, there really are a lot of things going on in the novel, none of this even scratches the surface of the issues of sexual repression you're talking about (though it's probably related to that idea if keeping libidinous uncontrollable forces outside of rational society).
There's plenty to be said about the conflict between an emergent middle class, as represented by Harker and his wife, and a declining aristocracy that is threatened by the Ascension of such people. It's really a novel that you could spend years teasing out the interpretive possibilities. It resonates in so many contexts.
For example the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes wrote a short novel, Vlad, depicting Dracula reemerging in present day Mexico City, where he is a surrogate for the drug cartels and the vampiric relationship they have with the country.
I could go on but this isn't really quite on the topic of the thread (that and nobody asked me!).0 -
Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »It's really a novel that you could spend years teasing out the interpretive possibilities. It resonates in so many contexts.
I like your students interpretation regarding time becoming less exact I have to say!
But I wonder how much of these kind of interpretations are actually intentional by the author and how many just happen to fit after the fact?0 -
Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »I could go on but this isn't really quite on the topic of the thread (that and nobody asked me!).
Good post all the same. Stephen King had some interesting things to say about Dracula in his non-fiction Danse Macabre. He picks up on the sexual theme, and regarding Harkers encounter in the castle with the female vampires, writes "...Harker seems disappointed when the Count breaks up this little tete-a-tete; presumably most of Stokers wide-eyed readers were too."
King recalls how he decided to jettison the sexual angle when he wrote Salem's Lot, reasoning that in an era of such sexual liberation, the sex angle just wouldn't cut it any more. Perhaps not the best decision he ever made, given that that Coppola put it front-and-centre in his movie version nearly twenty years later and it works pretty well. Then again, during the interim period we had AIDS...0 -
Inside a proton the quarks are held together with a bond strong enough to pull a freight train. 99% of the weight of protons and neutrons comes from this bond not the weight of the quarks. Since protons and neutrons are responsible for over 99% of the weight of atoms, it's also where the majority of your weight comes from.
In addition the bond (which is roughly tube like) has complex "weather patterns" inside it that even a supercomputer can't model.0 -
Are you a physicist Fourier?0
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"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically correct sentence in American English
The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". In order of their first use, these are:
a. the city of Buffalo, New York, United States, which is used as a noun adjunct in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
n. the noun buffalo (American bison), an animal, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid articles.
v. the verb "buffalo" meaning to outwit, confuse, deceive, intimidate, or baffle.
The sentence is syntactically ambiguous; however, one possible parse (marking each "buffalo" with its part of speech as shown above) would be as follows:
Buffaloa buffalon Buffaloa buffalon buffalov buffalov Buffaloa buffalon.
When grouped syntactically, this is equivalent to: [(Buffalonian bison) (Buffalonian bison intimidate)] intimidate (Buffalonian bison).
The sentence uses a restrictive clause, so there are no commas, nor is there the word "which," as in, "Buffalo buffalo, which Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo." This clause is also a reduced relative clause, so the word that, which could appear between the second and third words of the sentence, is omitted.
An expanded form of the sentence which preserves the original word order is: "Buffalo bison, that other Buffalo bison bully, also bully Buffalo bison."
Thus, the parsed sentence reads as a claim that bison who are intimidated or bullied by bison are themselves intimidating or bullying bison (at least in the city of Buffalo – implicitly, Buffalo, New York):
Buffalo buffalo (the animals called "buffalo" from the city of Buffalo) [that] Buffalo buffalo buffalo (that the animals from the city bully) buffalo Buffalo buffalo (are bullying these animals from that city).
[Those] buffalo(es) from Buffalo [that are intimidated by] buffalo(es) from Buffalo intimidate buffalo(es) from Buffalo.
Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community, also happen to intimidate other bison in their community.
The buffalo from Buffalo who are buffaloed by buffalo from Buffalo, buffalo (verb) other buffalo from Buffalo.
Buffalo buffalo (main clause subject) [that] Buffalo buffalo (subordinate clause subject) buffalo (subordinate clause verb) buffalo (main clause verb) Buffalo buffalo (main clause direct object).
[Buffalo from Buffalo] that [buffalo from Buffalo] buffalo, also buffalo [buffalo from Buffalo].0 -
fortwilliam wrote: »"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically correct sentence in American English
The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". In order of their first use, these are:
a. the city of Buffalo, New York, United States, which is used as a noun adjunct in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
n. the noun buffalo (American bison), an animal, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid articles.
v. the verb "buffalo" meaning to outwit, confuse, deceive, intimidate, or baffle.
The sentence is syntactically ambiguous; however, one possible parse (marking each "buffalo" with its part of speech as shown above) would be as follows:
Buffaloa buffalon Buffaloa buffalon buffalov buffalov Buffaloa buffalon.
When grouped syntactically, this is equivalent to: [(Buffalonian bison) (Buffalonian bison intimidate)] intimidate (Buffalonian bison).
The sentence uses a restrictive clause, so there are no commas, nor is there the word "which," as in, "Buffalo buffalo, which Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo." This clause is also a reduced relative clause, so the word that, which could appear between the second and third words of the sentence, is omitted.
An expanded form of the sentence which preserves the original word order is: "Buffalo bison, that other Buffalo bison bully, also bully Buffalo bison."
Thus, the parsed sentence reads as a claim that bison who are intimidated or bullied by bison are themselves intimidating or bullying bison (at least in the city of Buffalo – implicitly, Buffalo, New York):
Buffalo buffalo (the animals called "buffalo" from the city of Buffalo) [that] Buffalo buffalo buffalo (that the animals from the city bully) buffalo Buffalo buffalo (are bullying these animals from that city).
[Those] buffalo(es) from Buffalo [that are intimidated by] buffalo(es) from Buffalo intimidate buffalo(es) from Buffalo.
Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community, also happen to intimidate other bison in their community.
The buffalo from Buffalo who are buffaloed by buffalo from Buffalo, buffalo (verb) other buffalo from Buffalo.
Buffalo buffalo (main clause subject) [that] Buffalo buffalo (subordinate clause subject) buffalo (subordinate clause verb) buffalo (main clause verb) Buffalo buffalo (main clause direct object).
[Buffalo from Buffalo] that [buffalo from Buffalo] buffalo, also buffalo [buffalo from Buffalo].
My head hurts.0 -
The voices of the ruling Kim family are rarely, if ever, broadcast on TV or the radio in North Korea. Many North Koreans first heard their voices while illegally watching South Korean TV.0
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fortwilliam wrote: »"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically correct sentence in American English
We had all this starting with post #2833. Not again please! It's just too fabricated.0 -
sbsquarepants wrote: »I like your students interpretation regarding time becoming less exact I have to say!
But I wonder how much of these kind of interpretations are actually intentional by the author and how many just happen to fit after the fact?
OK I'm going to do another long post so ignore if you like...
There's a strain of thought in literary theory that argues that the author's intention is somewhat incidental. At its most extreme this is put forward by postmodernist theorists like Roland Barthes in his essay The Death of the Author. But it isn't really that crazy a notion when we consider how we respond to writing (or any art). We often conceive of great literature as emerging from the mind of a genius (the word genius itself implies origination). But obviously any piece of writing is going to be affected by the values, the events, the spirit of the time and place that it's written in, and any historical analysis of a text is likely to note how it either embodies or challenges those values, that spirit, and there's no particular reason why a writer will always be conscious of that.
To give an obvious example, there is a clear pattern of dehumanisation of black people in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It isn't necessarily that he was a racist (though Chinua Achebe believes he was) but rather that his novel embodies and reflects a set of racial assumptions of the era so deeply embedded in Western culture that it was absolutely unavoidable that it would emerge in the text, intentionally or otherwise.
To continue with colonialism, if you read a lot of English 19th century realists, we tend to think of their work as providing a depiction of English society at the time that is, as the name suggests, true to life, realistic. So you have someone like Jane Austen depicting aristocratic sexual politics, or Dickens depicting the rise of the London slums and industrialisation, or Charlotte Bronte depicting the life of a governess who falls in love with a degenerate old aristocrat. These novels invariably also have a narrative arc in which a poor character gains wealth and success, and an aristocratic character falls from grace. It's easy to see that, consciously or not, these writers are telling the story of England's transition from an aristocratic society in which privilege is bestowed by birth, to a bourgeois culture in which social mobility is possible, people can gain success through their hard work, and aristocrats are no longer secure in their position.
Thus you have Great Expectations, where Pip emerges from obscurity into fortune while the widow, the very image of aristocracy, living in a huge house that is crumbling and falling asunder, dies alone. Or in Jane Eyre, Jane rises from obscurity falls in love with the aristocrat but ends up taking care of him in his frail failing health at the end. They are telling the story of English society.
But what's amazing is how often there is a detail in the story relating to England's colonies, which we never see in the flesh, which isn't explored in the novel, but without which the whole action of the novel is completely nonsensical. In Great Expectations Pip's fortune is come by through Magwitch, who has been in Australia and gained his fortune nobody knows how. He just arrives out of nowhere at the end and all the problems are solved. In Jane Eyre Rochester has a woman in his attic, who the novel portrays as a crazy person that he has had to mind and who is driving him crazy. That woman is from the Caribbean, she is not really voiced or paid any attention to, but she embodies the economic underpinnings of Rochester's position in society, which has been gained through brutalisation of her people. In Mansfield Park the "aristocratic" head of the household whose name I forget at one point goes to tend to his sugar cane plantation in Antigua.
All of these examples can't really be a coincidence and in no case does the importance of the colonies receive any prolonged consideration by the authors. But the story of English society cannot be told without a deus ex machina from the tropics, a space where a lot of the action and economic underpinnings of English society take place out of the view of the characters, and the readers (Jean Rhys wrote a novel in 1966 called Wide Sargasso Sea depicting the action in Jamaica before the beginning of Jane Eyre, to draw attention to this vital but barely visible element of the novel).
My point is that we can read the text and see that this stuff is there, that it's vital to the dynamic of the novel as a whole, but if I was to guess I would say that in none of these cases was the author doing it intentionally. But it's still a valid reading. A great novel is always going to be doing more things than the writer intended it to do, and most of the great writers tend to recognise this also. I've written several essays on contemporary Irish novelists and they frequently remark that they learned something from my analysis, that it made them think differently about their own work and its implications. I don't think that's too remarkable a thing really in itself. We do it all the time when we argue: we take note of how someone has phrased something or a throwaway word they used to draw their attention to unconscious assumptions informing their way of thinking about an issue. I think something similar (maybe more complicated) is going on in literature, film, etc.0 -
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Good post all the same. Stephen King had some interesting things to say about Dracula in his non-fiction Danse Macabre. He picks up on the sexual theme, and regarding Harkers encounter in the castle with the female vampires, writes "...Harker seems disappointed when the Count breaks up this little tete-a-tete; presumably most of Stokers wide-eyed readers were too."
King recalls how he decided to jettison the sexual angle when he wrote Salem's Lot, reasoning that in an era of such sexual liberation, the sex angle just wouldn't cut it any more. Perhaps not the best decision he ever made, given that that Coppola put it front-and-centre in his movie version nearly twenty years later and it works pretty well. Then again, during the interim period we had AIDS...
King is a great example of what I was saying in my last post. He tends to be very clear about his own intentions in writing (eg the Shining is a sort of parable of white privilege/supremacy, which spirals into madness when threatened by the memory of the suffering of the Indians on which it's built (the hotel is built on an Indian burial ground, and that's also the reason the cliche exists) and the legacy of slavery (embodied in the black character whose name escapes me now). But he also recognises how his books seem to have acted as forewarnings of later calamity: after Columbine he basically said that his first novel Carrie had already foretold that this kind of thing might happen. He doesn't mean in a magical prophetic sense, but that it identified social issues, like systematised bullying and sexual represssion, and the potential for horrific violence that entailed.0 -
I agree that we can interpret something into a work of literature that was not necessarily the intention of the auther.Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »King is a great example of what I was saying in my last post. He tends to be very clear about his own intentions in writing (eg the Shining is a sort of parable of white privilege/supremacy, which spirals into madness when threatened by the memory of the suffering of the Indians on which it's built (the hotel is built on an Indian burial ground, and that's also the reason the cliche exists) and the legacy of slavery (embodied in the black character whose name escapes me now). But he also recognises how his books seem to have acted as forewarnings of later calamity: after Columbine he basically said that his first novel Carrie had already foretold that this kind of thing might happen. He doesn't mean in a magical prophetic sense, but that it identified social issues, like systematised bullying and sexual represssion, and the potential for horrific violence that entailed.
Like Tolkien always said Lord of tHe Rings was not a commentary on war (in particular the rise of Hitler). But we can certainly see the influence of his experiences in WW1 in it.0 -
On the army clock we have 2359 and 0001 but 0000 does not exist. Don't ask me what 12 midnight is and I was in signals in the army! We were never allowed to log it as such 0000 either, so it was always put in as 2359 or 0001.0
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Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »What did Eamonn O Cuiv call himself before the v was introduced to Irish?
New Home was right, it was Ó Caoimh. His grandfather changed it - he went from Seán Ó Caoimh to Shán Ó Cuív. <shudder>0 -
Inside a proton the quarks are held together with a bond strong enough to pull a freight train. 99% of the weight of protons and neutrons comes from this bond not the weight of the quarks. Since protons and neutrons are responsible for over 99% of the weight of atoms, it's also where the majority of your weight comes from.
In addition the bond (which is roughly tube like) has complex "weather patterns" inside it that even a supercomputer can't model.
I feel like I'm reading 'The Third Policeman' again. (THAT is not an insult or criticism)0 -
On the army clock we have 2359 and 0001 but 0000 does not exist. Don't ask me what 12 midnight is and I was in signals in the army! We were never allowed to log it as such 0000 either, so it was always put in as 2359 or 0001.
I could have sworn that I've heard the term "Zero - Hundred Hours" before.
Or is that in some war film? I worked with a lot of army people in Africa and I thought they used that phrase to denote midnight.0 -
I'm pretty sure the pies are where most of my weight comes from, but I prefer this explanation
Your weight is just a measure of how 'hard' gravity is pulling on it.
Mass is a constant measured in kg i.e. more mass = more capacity to withstand acceleration. (inertia)
Stand on a scale at home and it will read 100 kg for example.
Stand on the same scale in orbit and the scale will show 0kg.
Stand on the scale on the moon and the scale will read 16.6kg.
We can say that our weight is measured in kg, but that's a misnomer.
Weight is a force so is measured in newtons.
Gravity exerts a force of 9.8 newtons per kg when standing on earth.
So you really weigh 980 newtons on earth.
That can be confusing so scales display kg which we grasp easily.
You can fool the scales and put on 'weight' very fast.
Stand on a scale at home. The downwards force is estimated at 9.8 newtons, it will read 100kg.
Now jump up and down repeatedly.
Your 'weight' will be all over the place due to the change in force but your mass (100kg) will stay the same i.e. when you jump the acceleration will increase the force of gravity when you fall back down and hit the scale upon landing making the kg measurement increase.0 -
You can fool the scales and put on 'weight' very fast.
Stand on a scale at home. The downwards force is estimated at 9.8 newtons, it will read 100kg.
Now jump up and down repeatedly.
Your 'weight' will be all over the place due to the change in force but your mass (100kg) will stay the same i.e. when you jump the acceleration will increase the force of gravity when you fall back down and hit the scale upon landing making the kg measurement increase.
is this some gag to get people to break their scales?0 -
ohnonotgmail wrote: »is this some gag to get people to break their scales?
Mine lives on the edge just by doing it's job:D0 -
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Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »King is a great example of what I was saying in my last post. He tends to be very clear about his own intentions in writing (eg the Shining is a sort of parable of white privilege/supremacy, which spirals into madness when threatened by the memory of the suffering of the Indians on which it's built (the hotel is built on an Indian burial ground, and that's also the reason the cliche exists) and the legacy of slavery (embodied in the black character whose name escapes me now)
Did he really say all that? If so he's changed his tune since Danse Macabre (granted it was written some time ago). The Shining stands tall enough on the basis of this-is-what-happened-to-the-Torrances. I'm borrowing here from his comment that some people would prefer that Moby Dick was a doctoral thesis on cetology rather than simply an account of the experiences of Ishmael.But he also recognises how his books seem to have acted as forewarnings of later calamity: after Columbine he basically said that his first novel Carrie had already foretold that this kind of thing might happen. He doesn't mean in a magical prophetic sense, but that it identified social issues, like systematised bullying and sexual represssion, and the potential for horrific violence that entailed.
I think he referred to this effect in his discussion of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In McCarthy-era America it seemed like a metaphor for reds-under-the-bed despite the writers assurance that this was not the intention. King's view that was that horror can accidentally seem like intentional metaphor if it touches the right nerves.0 -
You sound like you know way more about this than me so I'll definitely defer to you but I definitely remember him holding forth about the shining somewhere or other. Could well be that I'm totally wrong in that, in which case it remains a good illustration of the idea that a book can have meanings far beyond authorial intention, since all the stuff I mentioned is a perfectly coherent reading of the novel. (Isn't that nice for me, right either way!)Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »King is a great example of what I was saying in my last post. He tends to be very clear about his own intentions in writing (eg the Shining is a sort of parable of white privilege/supremacy, which spirals into madness when threatened by the memory of the suffering of the Indians on which it's built (the hotel is built on an Indian burial ground, and that's also the reason the cliche exists) and the legacy of slavery (embodied in the black character whose name escapes me now)
Did he really say all that? If so he's changed his tune since Danse Macabre (granted it was written some time ago). The Shining stands tall enough on the basis of this-is-what-happened-to-the-Torrances. I'm borrowing here from his comment that some people would prefer that Moby Dick was a doctoral thesis on cetology rather than simply an account of the experiences of Ishmael.But he also recognises how his books seem to have acted as forewarnings of later calamity: after Columbine he basically said that his first novel Carrie had already foretold that this kind of thing might happen. He doesn't mean in a magical prophetic sense, but that it identified social issues, like systematised bullying and sexual represssion, and the potential for horrific violence that entailed.
I think he referred to this effect in his discussion of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In McCarthy-era America it seemed like a metaphor for reds-under-the-bed despite the writers assurance that this was not the intention. King's view that was that horror can accidentally seem like intentional metaphor if it touches the right nerves.
But with Carrie he gave a lecture at I think the University of Maine that could basically be summed up as "I told you so".0 -
maudgonner wrote: »New Home was right, it was Ó Caoimh. His grandfather changed it - he went from Seán Ó Caoimh to Shán Ó Cuív. <shudder>
He has subsequently changed it again himself by making the "Ó" a Christian name for electioneering purposes.
Therefore he appears on the ballot papers as "Cuív - Eamon Ó" as opposed to "Ó Cúiv - Eamon" putting his name higher up the list.0 -
A man ran as a 'Literal Democrat' in the 1994 EU election. He didn't campaign but still got 10'000 votes and almost certainly cost the Lib Dems a seat.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/letter-of-the-law-backs-literal-democrat-1439807.html0 -
Wind farms don’t actually produce wind.0
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Do you have these published on-line anywhere? Loved your analysis of Dracula and would enjoy reading more!Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »I've written several essays on contemporary Irish novelists and they frequently remark that they learned something from my analysis, that it made them think differently about their own work and its implications. I don't think that's too remarkable a thing really in itself. We do it all the time when we argue: we take note of how someone has phrased something or a throwaway word they used to draw their attention to unconscious assumptions informing their way of thinking about an issue. I think something similar (maybe more complicated) is going on in literature, film, etc.0 -
This post has been deleted.0
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John Paul Richter, on being asked the meaning of a passage he wrote, is said to have replied “My good friend, when I wrote that passage, God and I knew what it meant. It is possible that God knows it still; but as for me, I have totally forgotten.” I feel at times we look for too much in literature that was not intended by the author and loose the actual point of the piece as a result.0
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I remember writing an essay just before my Leaving cert on the importance and significance of open and closed windows as symbols of something or other for a particular character in Wuthering Heights and I kept asking myself if the author really wrote windows into the plot to signify something?Anders Shy Aircraft wrote: »John Paul Richter, on being asked the meaning of a passage he wrote, is said to have replied “My good friend, when I wrote that passage, God and I knew what it meant. It is possible that God knows it still; but as for me, I have totally forgotten.” I feel at times we look for too much in literature that was not intended by the author and loose the actual point of the piece as a result.
Maybe such symbols were common place and well known by the reading population at the time or maybe it was implanting significance where none exists, I still haven't discovered which.
I came to the conclusion that life was just too short to worry about that level of analysis:o0
This discussion has been closed.
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