Hamlet

Dracula & The Bloody Chamber

EASTER WORK

2

0

1

9

1

Week 1 – Securing the Knowledge Tick when

complete

Monday 8th

April

D & TBC: Secure your knowledge

- Use knowledge organisers to ensure you are secure on the

basics

- Make revision cards of any phrases that you like, knowledge

you feel is not secure (including the plot) and link to

quotations from the texts

- Watch Massolit on Dracula and TBC

Tuesday 9th

April

Hamlet: Secure your Knowledge

- Secure your knowledge of the text and order of plot. Read over

the scene notes you have.

- Group three quotations for each character

- Five words for tone for each character

- Massolit – John McCrea and the soliloquies

Wednesday

10th April

D & TBC: Re-read the introductions from both texts

- Take notes and make revision cards as appropriate

Thursday 11th

April

Hamlet: Critical Interpretations

- Revise the critical interpretations on page 3-5. If you are

unclear on these, make notes and revision cards.

- Have a well-phrased sentence you learn for each critic

- Link critical interpretation to film version and quotation from

text

- For fun extra revision – you could watch some of these

interpretations!

Friday 12th

April

D & TBC Secure Critical Interpretations

- Revise context booklets to ensure you have a sense of overview

of interpretation over time. This will be helped by your recent

read of the introductions.

CORE KNOWLEDGE IS:

Dracula – Stoker’s life, Daily Mail 1897, Punter, Frayling, Craft,

Arata, Stoker’s ‘On Censorship’ essay.

TBC – Carter’s words about her work, Helen Simpson’s

introduction, Marina Warner, Frayling, Helen Stoddart, Lorna Sage,

Patricia Duncker

- Watch/re-watch Massolit lectures to secure this knowledge

- Have a well-phrased sentence you learn for each critic: test

yourself.

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Week 2 – Essay Writing using Resources from Week 1 Tick when

complete

Monday 15th

April

Hamlet Section B: Plan

- Spend the full hour planning

- ‘It is sometimes said that chance, not Hamlet, brings the plot to a

resolution.’

- Use the essay plan on page 9 to help you revise

- Use your target from the mock exam

- Use marking essays to help you too.

Tuesday 16th

April

D & TBC Essay Planning CHOOSE one of the essays. Look at what

the examiner said and indicative exam content. Page 10 and 11

- Get started with the comparative phrases on page 13

- Use your feedback from self-assessment of essay 1 to improve.

- You must include other Gothic texts and influences and

interpretations.

Wednesday

17th April

HAMLET: Timed Writing – Section B chance brings resolution

- Use your feedback from self-assessment of essay 1 to improve.

- Write essay in 40 minutes.

- Self-assess and annotate like you would a marking essay

- Go back to marking essays if helpful

Thursday 18th

April

D & TBC Timed Essay - this is writing the essay planned on

Tuesday

- Ensure you use your target and feedback from the mock

- Ensure you make sure you link to the Gothic and

interpretations over time

Friday 19th

April

HAMLET: Timed Writing – Section A Page 7 & 8

- Use your mock target and feedback

- Ensure you use some of the key words for language, drama

and structure

- Make sure you use words for tone

It is really important to stay on top of this and do an hour each day. This WILL make you

feel better and really prepared.

If you get stuck, can’t remember your login for massolit or are unsure – do not feel

embarrassed – email lcaldwell@cherwell.oxon.sch.uk or vhathaway@cherwell.oxon.sch.uk

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Hamlet – ESSENTIAL DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS

Peter Hall, famous director: “Hamlet is one of mankind’ s great images. It turns a new face to each

century, even to each decade.” (1967 lecture)

C19th

Romantic

views

Hamlet mirrored the Romantic obsession with self-conscious musing and

introspection

Coleridge “I have a smack of Hamlet myself”

Schlegel “a tragedy of thought inspired by continual and never-satisfied

meditation”

Byron “[Hamlet is] a colossal enigma. We love Hamlet as we love ourselves”

yet he is at points “fiend-like in cruelty”

Early C20th

views

Early C20th focus was on Hamlet as a play which lent itself to psychological

discussion and psychoanalytical analysis. Critics often focused on Hamlet as a real

character (rather than a dramatic construct) and the reasons for his procrastination.

Freud, reading the play from a psychoanalytical perspective, saw the cause of

Hamlet’s deep-seated malaise in his repressed desire to kill father and marry

his mother (called the Oedipus complex because of Sophocles’ play Oedipus

Rex) It is worth bearing in mind that this is one interpretation which must be

seen within the context of early C20th ideas about the divided self, and it is quite

a dated critical idea. (Emma Smith: “Freud read Shakespeare, but Shakespeare didn’t

read Freud”, in other words, Freud was interpreting the play through a very

specific lens of fin de siècle fears about the self.)

Laurence Olivier’s film adaptation (1948) was based on Olivier’s 1937 role on

stage as Hamlet and was greatly influenced by Freud’s interpretation. It

“stripped the play of its political elements (no Fortinbras) and instead presented Hamlet

as an alienated and hollow individual”. The castle of Elsinore represented as place

of labyrinthine shadows and passageways, symbolising the internal thought

processes of Hamlet’s mind.

A.C. Bradley (an influential Shakespeare scholar) tended to see Hamlet as a

real character rather than a dramatic construction and consequently, focused on

Hamlet’s motivations and psychology. “[Hamlet’s melancholy makes him a mystery

and] Wherever this mystery touches us, wherever we are forced to feel the wonder and

awe of man’s godlike ‘apprehension’ … and at the same time are forced to see him

powerless in his petty sphere of action, … Hamlet most brings home to us at once the

sense of the soul’s infinity”

Post WW2

views

In the wake of WW2 came the sexually liberated 1960s and the Cold War. Hamlet

became associated with disaffected youth, rebelling against older systems of power

and the establishment. For Jan Kott, Hamlet as the subversive voice crying out

against political systems in the grip of tyranny.

Jan Kott (Polish critic and director, writing under tyranny in the eastern bloc)

“[Hamlet] is the youth, deeply involved in politics, rid of illusions… a born

conspirator… a young rebel”

Grigory Kozintsev (1964) This production is written and set in Communist

Russia living in the wake of Stalinsit rule. Kozintsev is known for showing

overwhelmingly the social repercussions of tragedy. Perhaps the most

immediately noticeable aspect of Kozintsev’s Hamlet is the opening scene;

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Hamlet is charging home to the funeral of his father across the country side as

the black flags are unfurled down the castle walls.

Capturing the sublimity of the rugged landscapes was one of the primary means

through which Kozintsev was able to adhere to his self-imposed command that

“the screen must be charged with the electricity of tragedy”. Kozintsev used the

opportunity to alternate between the stifling claustrophobia of interior shots

and the wide expanses of untrammelled landscapes in order to show the

intensity of Hamlet’s whirling mind. Undeniably, a significant aspect of the

tragedy is also shown through the participation of Shostakovich in composing

its score – and haunting musical reflection of both Hamlet’s mind and the social

chaos created through corrupt leadership.

Peter Hall’s 1965 production featured David Warner’s iconic counter-cultural

Hamlet. Warner was draped in a long, red scarf, a symbol of student youth

drawing parallels between Hamlet and youth disillusionment with politics in

the 1960s. Hall said that Hamlet was “always on the brink of actions, but … this

disease of disillusionment, stops the final, committed action”

Although much later, Branagh’s lavish film adaptation (1996) indirectly nodded

to the wars erupting in Eastern Europe, following the collapse of communist

dictatorships. Branagh’s Fortinbras is presented as cold-eyed and ruthless in his

takeover coup – the ‘new order’ that he represents associated with political

might and expediency. The ending features soldiers dismantling old Hamlet’s

statue, signifying that one tyranny based on individual power will be replaced

by another and nothing really changes.

Second

wave and

late C20th

feminist

views

1970s feminism asked questions about the sexual politics reflected in older texts, and

their role in shaping cultural assumptions about gender, and led to later critics

exploring how women are presented.

Elaine Showalter “When Ophelia is mad, Gertrude says that “her speech is nothing”

…. Ophelia’s speech therefore represents the horror of having nothing to say”

For many feminist theorists, the madwoman is a heroine, a powerful figure who rebels

against the family and the social order.

David Leverenz “Even in her madness she has no voice of her own, only a discord of

other voices …”; “Ophelia has no choice but to say ‘I shall obey, my lord’

Emma Smith “Hamlet is arguably a male orientated play, more sympathetic to male

identity… Ophelia and Gertrude are often made to fit the stereotype of tragic females as

either mentally frail or a ‘shop-soiled’ maiden”

The play is structured to make us sympathetic to Hamlet – it is a play of “soliloquy

overload”. Modern directors sometimes draw attention to the misogynistic overtones

of the play by making Gertrude “more distant, more regal, not the “beast” driven by her lust.

In this case, the idea that women are deceptive and lustful is more in Hamlet’s mind”

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Modern

views

Later C20th criticism – the focus shifts from the earlier analysis of Hamlet’s

psychology to consider how the play fits within its context – in other words, a play

which reflects cultural anxieties. These included: the Elizabethan succession crisis

and fear of a foreign ruler claiming power after the queen’s death; and the spiritual

crisis of doctrine and belief engendered by the Reformation.

Modern critics often focus on genre: as a revenge tragedy, Hamlet compares and

contrast with other ‘blockbuster’ revenge tragedies and history plays of the time

(Thomas Kyd’s the Spanish Tragedy).

Graham Holderness “Hamlet is stranded between two worlds, unable to emulate the

heroic values of his father, unable to engage with the modern world of modern

diplomacy… he is confronted by the tension between those two great Renaissance

oppositions: idealism and Machiavellianism”

Stephen Greenblatt: Has a focus on the role of purgatory in Hamlet. “Now a

Protestant confronting a Catholic ghost is exactly Shakespeare's way of grappling with

what was not simply a general social problem but one lived out in his own life.

Jonathan Bate “Hamlet is a political drama as well as a play about the journey of an

individual self”

Emma Smith “The early title for the play was ‘Prince Hamlet’ so it is worth noting

that the character later critics have argued is like us, an Everyman figure, is not like us

and has a responsibility within the political realm.”

“Hamlet’s distorted, even narcissistic character, in which his view of the world is the

only one, with a solipsistic sense of his significance. His final line “The rest is silence”

yet there are other characters, the world goes on.”

“History plays of the time featured fathers and sons, questions of good or bad governance

so Hamlet may have more sense in the mind of the original audience as a history play,

…less as a personal story”

In contrast to the focus on the political aspects of the play, Warchus’ 1997

modern dress production concentrated on the domestic story of the play and

was a “strongly personal” production. It projected footage of black and white

home videos showing Hamlet playing with his father in the snow.

Extra

details

about how

characters

and staging

in different

productions

Including what different Hamlets wore…

Warner’s (1965) long red student scarf (see above)

Mark Rylance (1989) became known as the “pyjama Hamlet” – wearing

pyjamas which draw parallels with psychiatric patients in an asylum- feigned

madness or made mad by a rotten world?

Tennant – (2008) after the play scene, he careers around the court sporting a

crown at a tipsy angle – visually mocking Claudius and reminding him that his

grip on power is unsteady

Branagh – (1996) his platinum blond hair makes him look like Claudius -

drawing parallels between the tragic hero and the villain, suggesting there is

less of a distinction between the two as the play progresses. [great point worth

having up your sleeve in the exam– Emma Smith argues that the play creates

moral confusion about hero and villain because of the soliloquies; “in

Shakespeare’s time, [soliloquies] tended to show the audience the villain; were

associated with deceit, duplicity, moral rot”. In Hamlet, they establish that the

protagonist is “not villain but tortured individual, split between private and

public self”]

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Lyndsey Turner’s production (2015 - starring Cumberbatch), Ophelia plays

light music on a piano. Later her madness is suggested by snatches of tunes and

discordant notes – as if she no longer remembers what she has been taught,

cannot play as she is expected to.

At the end of the first act, the stage is also covered in dirt and rubble serving as

a visual metaphor or representation of the society falling apart.

Simon Godwin’s Hamlet (2016) with Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet. Called “the

graffiti prince” by critic Michael Billinton who stated that “ to convey his “antic

disposition” [Essiedu] dons a paint-daubed suit and goes around doing

subversive graffiti and big, splashy canvases like a mixture of Banksy and

Jackson Pollock”. Against Claudius’ military tyranny (there are echoes of

Ghana’s first president) Hamlet as graffiti artist is a up to date rebel against the

establishment.

This play is said to show the ‘cultural dislocation’ of Hamlet.

LINK TO - Graham Holderness who said Hamlet is ‘stranded between the two

worlds, unable to emulate the heroic values of his father, unable to engage with the

modern world of political diplomacy.’

Staging details

Simon Goodwin’s recent RSC production (2016) transported Elsinore to Africa,

and was striking for its use of vibrant, even lurid colour and black magic to

conjure the ghost.

Doran’s production – use of the mirror in Gertrude’s closet to reflect reality;

after Polonius’ death it is cracked, and Doran suggests Hamlet reflection of

himself is cracked as a result of his murderous actions (he looks into this mirror

again at the start of 5.2) This production cuts out Fortinbras and is more focused

on how Hamlet tears destroys himself.

CCTV cameras in Doran’s production – a visually powerful reminder that

Elsinore is a paranoid, surveillance state, in which everyone is spying on each

other.

In Doran’s production, the same character plays Claudius and old Hamlet. The

visual similarities between brothers add to the complicated nature of Hamlet’s

revenge.

7

(a) Discuss the following passage from Act 4, Scene 4, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and its

dramatic effects.

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following.

LAERTES Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes No, let's come in.

LAERTES I pray you, give me leave.

Danes We will, we will.

They retire without the door.

LAERTES I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,

Give me my father!

QUEEN GERTRUDE Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard, 100

Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot

Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow

Of my true mother.

KING CLAUDIUS What is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:

There's such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would,

Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,

Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.

Speak, man.

LAERTES Where is my father?

KING CLAUDIUS Dead.

QUEEN GERTRUDE But not by him.

KING CLAUDIUS Let him demand his fill. 110

LAERTES How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:

To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation. To this point I stand,

That both the worlds I give to negligence,

Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged

Most thoroughly for my father.

KING CLAUDIUS Who shall stay you?

LAERTES My will, not all the world:

And for my means, I'll husband them so well,

They shall go far with little.

KING CLAUDIUS Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty 121

8

Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,

That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,

Winner and loser?

LAERTES None but his enemies.

KING CLAUDIUS Will you know them then?

LAERTES To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;

And like the kind life-rendering pelican,

Repast them with my blood.

KING CLAUDIUS Why, now you speak

Like a good child and a true gentleman.

That I am guiltless of your father's death, 130

And am most sensible in grief for it,

It shall as level to your judgment pierce

As day does to your eye.

Danes Within. Let her come in.

LAERTES How now! what noise is that?

Re-enter OPHELIA.

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(a) It is sometimes said that chance, not Hamlet, brings the plot to a resolution.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this

view of the play. You should refer to different interpretations of the play.

ESSAY NOTES: the ending is a matter of chance rather than Hamlet’s actions?

Define this question – be clear about what it is asking you to consider

Hamlet’s revenge is a matter of chance and luck, rather than decisive action – how far can you

consider this to be true?

Read Act 5.2 / key notes again and look at how Claudius is killed - not really Hamlet

acting like a “painted tyrant”, bent in revenge.

Hamlet’s death and the resolution of the play brought about by Laertes’s quest revenge,

which Hamlet inadvertently put into action?

Hamlet is characterised more by his thought than action – evidence of where - obviously

the soliloquies but where else in the play/ think about key moments in which Hamlet

overthinks?

Is this really the case – is does Hamlet lack dramatic agency the power to shape events)? He does

bring about the tragic climax, even if the manner of killing Claudius is arguably anti-climatic. Eg:

How – stages the play within the play (is he successful here?)

his “antic disposition” becomes a real threat to Claudius’s governance – how and where?

he indirectly brings about the final conflict with Laertes – does he know that this will

end in death for Claudius or not?

More challenging or extension point

Why ask this question about the play? eg:

Hamlet is an intellectual hero, not a model of a hero from revenge tragedy. He differs

from Elizabethan revengers such as Hieronimo in Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy because he

does not simply use his “antic disposition” to threaten the king, and is not purposeful in

his revenge . Look at examples of where Hamlet is aware that he not a typical revenge

hero (you have lots of quotes on this in your Acts 3+4 quotes handout)

Hamlet’s sense of malaise, or of an existential crisis is complicated by the code of revenge

of earlier tragedies and in effect, dominates the play.

Explain what crisis – 1-2 of these…

spiritual or religious (use your notes from Emma Smith’s lecture)

personal (a family in crisis)

belief in what kings should be (Claudius’ new model of kingship breeds sycophants and

poisons the body politic, yet Hamlet struggles with the model of a prince embodied by

Fortinbras – look at the ‘missing’ soliloquy (missing in your Folio edition), p. 147-8.

How does he make his peace or from a tragedy perspective, find anagnorisis, at the end?

The speech to Horatio in Act 5.2 2there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow” – is

this a heroic acceptance of fate or Hamlet’s decision that thinking does him no good ?

10

Revision Questions: Choose one of these exam questions. Plan it and write in

timed conditions. If you would like to do the other questions, feel free!

Assessment objective in order of weighting.

AO3: Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are

written and received.

AO4: Explore connections across literary texts.

AO1: Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated concepts and

terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression;

AO5: Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations.

1. Bram Stoker and Dracula:

Gothic Writing is characterised by a fascination with death.

Consider this statement in relation to Dracula by comparing to one other text you have studied.

Candidates are likely to suggest that much of the attraction of Dracula for the Victorian reading public came from

its exploitation of the unknown in a world which felt itself increasingly modern and in control of the forces of

nature; they may argue that death and the world of the Undead provide a rich resource in relation to the unknown.

They may suggest that the arcane knowledge supplied by Van Helsing is a key to the novel’s sensational appeal,

possibly quoting from his insights on the Undead: ‘They cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new

victims and multiplying the evils of the world. For all that die from the preying of the Undead become themselves

Undead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown

in the water...’. Answers may include contextual discussion concerning the Victorian preoccupation with death,

suggesting that Dracula feeds into this national obsession. Discussion of Dracula as a novel of sensation is likely to

include its qualities as a thriller, where suspense is driven by the risk of death, or – worse – of vampirism. Links are

likely to be made to other novels which feature figures who, like Count Dracula, combine the states of living and

dying, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, where the Creature is fashioned from re-animated corpses.

What the examiner said:

‘This question on death in Gothic was the least popular of the comparative questions for this topic, and was

answered less confidently than many others on the paper, almost certainly because candidates preferred to offer

prepared material, which did not fit, rather than to approach the importance of the theme freshly. Many spoke of

the ‘liminal’ space between life and death, but very few argued about ways in which Gothic is bound up with the

fear and fascination with death, the possibility of immortality, even the limited immortality of the vampire. Instead

much of the writing on this topic concerned primarily other themes than death, such as the role of women,

homosexual practices or science. It was surprising to read answers based on Dracula and Frankenstein which

overlooked Dracula’s status as ‘undead’, or the Creature’s creation from parts of dead bodies.’

2. Angel Carter and The Bloody Chamber and other Stories:

Gothic writing must always have the power to shock.

Consider this statement by comparing The Bloody Chamber to another text you have studied.

Candidates are likely to suggest that the stories in The Bloody Chamber subvert the reader’s expectations in a

number of ways, leading to an element of shock. They may argue that in a story based on a fairy tale there is an

expectation of male dominance and heroism which is often challenged by Angela Carter: for example, in the

collection’s title-story, ‘The Bloody Chamber’, the heroine is rescued not as might be expected by a male hero but

by her mother. Answers are likely to point out the stories are at times shocking in terms of context which is both

violent and sexually explicit, such as the Count’s violation of the body of the dead Snow Child. They may also

suggest that some of the stories, such as ‘The Werewolf’ and ‘Wolf Alice’, shock the reader by showing heartless

treatment of the elderly by the young, in order to make way for their own more successful future. Links are likely

to be made to other texts which provide shocking material, and are possibly more conventionally Gothic: for

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example, candidates may draw on the transgressive behaviour of figures such as Dracula. They may also discuss

the treatment of more conventionally drawn female figures in Gothic texts such as Frankenstein or The Italian,

suggesting that the shock here comes from the mistreatment of the vulnerable and innocent, whereas in The

Bloody Chamber and Other Stories the shock is more likely to be found in discovering that youthful female figures

can also be self-seeking and brutal.

What the examiner said:

‘Many more candidates chose to write on ‘the power to shock’, often focusing much of their attention on the

treatment of female characters and the portrayal of sexual experiences. Not all the issues brought up here were

particularly shocking, and many were plainly academic, such as the view that Victorian texts under-represented

women. There was generally sound material on Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, usually with a fair sense of second-

wave feminism and what it stood for, and also with appropriate insights into the literary fairy-tales and folk-stories

on which Carter based her text. Of the authors of second-wave feminism, Germaine Greer was named most

frequently, followed by Simone De Beauvoir and Kate Millett. Thoughtful responses often considered the

significance of the context in which the texts were originally received, one arguing that ‘Stoker’s audiences may be

shocked by the nonchalance with which more modern audiences react to such depictions of the supernatural,

however one must recognise that the threats embodied by the vampire are no longer representative of today’s

anxieties and fears.’’

3. A common character in gothic stories is the isolated figure or outsider.

Compare this statement in relation Dracula and The Bloody Chamber.

Answers on Dracula are likely to argue that Count Dracula himself fills the role of the isolated figure or outsider in

this text, suggesting that his foreign pedigree as well as his mysterious credentials provide a threat for the hearty

English heroes and heroines of the novel. They may quote from Jonathan Harker’s early encounter with him,

showing how Dracula’s charm and gracious manners do not hide his sinister purposes for long. Candidates may

discuss the ambivalent presence of Dracula as a kind of anti-hero. In The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

answers are likely to identify a number of figures as isolated or outsiders, such as the French Marquis in ‘The

Bloody Chamber’ (based on the story of Bluebeard), and the Beast in ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ and ‘The Tiger’s

Bride’ (both based on Beauty and the Beast). They may show how the Marquis is an irredeemable villain who

receives his punishment at the hands of the heroine’s mother, but that the isolation of the Beast is resolved by

love in the traditional fairy tale manner. Answers may also identify figures who are isolated by choice in their

independence, such as the girl in ‘The Werewolf’. Links may be made to other texts featuring conventional villains

such as Schedoni in The Italian, or more complex figures such as Victor Frankenstein. Candidates who choose to

discuss The Picture of Dorian Gray may find a number of characters who can be described as outsiders, but are

likely to focus chiefly on Lord Henry and on Dorian himself, who becomes increasingly isolated as the story

progresses.

What the examiner said:

‘Dracula’s status as an outside threat to Empire (‘reverse colonisation’) was frequently referred to,

suggesting that, as an outsider, Dracula represents a threat to the complacent – or fearful – civilisation of

the West. These answers often saw Dracula as symbolic of a remote medieval aristocracy. Less

successful answers once again were inclined to state that certain characters (usually female) can

obviously be seen as ‘isolated figures’ or ‘outsiders’, often without constructing an argument which

supported the assertion, and instead off-loading prepared material about the characters. As suggested

above, the best responses are those which privilege literary matters, and some excellent answers

showed how the novel’s uncertain means of presentation, in letters and journals, tends to marginalise

everyone, and make nearly every character vulnerable. The Creature from Frankenstein was a useful

contributor to many essays, and there was excellent use here and elsewhere of Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark, a

text which seemed to help candidates to focus on the Gothic imagination.’

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Further Revision Materials

Dracula & The Bloody Chamber

EXTENSION: EASY REVISION BUT HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88edGlW3DT4

Documentary on Dracula presented by Christopher Frayling.

Watch and write down 5 critical quotations and use at least one of these in your

Dracula/TBC essays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81uU7TXH3YE

Short clip (5 mins approx.) discussing TBC and some of Carter’s other texts – carter

reading bits of ‘The Snow Child’ and Marina Warner commenting on Carter – great for

quotes to explain how Carter fits into the context of 1970s feminism.

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Broad comparative overview...Dracula

• Fear of change

• Fear of loss of control (on personal, societal and global levels)

• Typical of gothic texts of this period – fin de siecle.

• Complex because balanced at the end of the 19th C, therefore there is an embracing of modernity / science / technology / reason as well as a fear of change and loss of morality.

• Authorial conservatism – possible unawareness of the ‘latent content’ – e.g. sexual undertones.

The Bloody Chamber

• A conscious exploration and subversion of traditional fear of change and loss of control, especially relating to women.

• Explores physical, sexual and psychological change as opportunities for growth.

• Questions and subverts tradition gothic roles, allowing both genders to fulfil their potential more fully.

• More awareness and insight –author very conscious of their message and of bringing out ‘latent content’.

Get started with comparison:

1. Turn the comparative ideas above into comparative sentences.

For example:

Despite the illicit thrills offered by the plot, Dracula is a deeply conservative novel by the

end, advocating traditional Victorian virtues of self-sacrifice and duty, unlike Carter’s

conscious exploration of transformation and the need for change.

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Essay title no. 1

Bram Stoker: Dracula

Gothic writing explores the fear of forces beyond human understanding.

Consider the validity of this statement by comparing Dracula with at least one other text prescribed for this

topic.

Ideas to start with

Fear of supernatural

The Unknown ‘Other’

Sublime forces – god and the devil/ diabolical forces

Taps into our fear of the irrational

The past which haunts the present – an ancient curse which lurks

Ourselves! Human psyche

Dracula –

• vampirism as an ancient curse which overshadows modernity – the ‘Other’; our own sexual desires,

latent selves which can be transformed – Harker, Lucy, even Mina and Van Helsing;

• fear of unknown menace that is not named – lunatic asylum, London as a “teeming millions” – what

monster it holds

• story that cannot be properly told – beyond human understanding?

TBC –

• fear of unfamiliar – for innocent female protagonists – venturing, led by curiosity into unchartered

territory of sexual experience and violent, murderous desires.

• To females, males are beyond human understanding and likewise – each gender divided into binary

opposites – predator versus prey etc.

• curiosity about our fears themselves – exploring the way fear encoded in stories controls

Exemplar introduction

Encouraging the reader to explore forces beyond human understanding is central to the gothic genre. Originating

as a reaction to the rationalism which characterised the Enlightenment, early gothic novels by Walpole and

Radcliffe explored the ghosts in the machinery of ancestral bloodlines, but what constitutes an unknown force,

beyond our rational understanding has shifted to reflect the cultural anxieties of the period in which texts are

produced. In Dracula, Stoker uses the figure of the vampire to represent an ancient curse threatening modernity.

Stoker’s novel also plays upon fin de siècle fears about sexual fluidity within gender roles and the fear of the

foreign ‘Other’ which can infect London with its “teeming millions”. By contrast, Carter’s 1979 collection of

stories, fuses radically different versions of old fairytales with the gothic in order to dispel the fear about the

violence, and in particular, sexual violence which Carter claimed was “latent” within them – a force that old tales

implicitly suggested was beyond rational understanding. The Bloody Chamber therefore conjures up readers’

fears but as the collection progresses, it is clear that Carter uses the fairytale form to question and destabilise the

binary division between predator and prey, aggressor and passive victim which is encoded in the form and

content of older fairytales.

Point 1 – fear of the ‘Other’ –

usually foreign, unfamiliar which represents the binary opposite of us (Us / them)and

reaffirms the cultural norm

Dracula

15

• Opening section calculated to play upon the conventional fear of the ‘Other’ – explain what this is.

Dracula and Transylvania – seeped in barbarous superstition, feudal power structures, as if forever

overshadowed by the past - the reverse of modern, technologically advanced England.

• Harker – the emblematic of the Victorian ‘man on the make’ – middle class, educated, a product of social

progress gradually loses his sanity in Transylvania- where and how?

• This fear amplified / intensified when Dracula transfers himself to London – his arrival at Whitby and

his movements in London are purposefully narrated in piecemeal ways – to mimic Mina’s arrangements

of the documentary evidence but with the effect of generated real fear and mystery about Dracula’s

intentions and who he will ‘infect’. Specific example.

• Turn of the century (1897) the novel stoked cultural anxieties about / fed into fears about … use KO /

quotes

• TBC and linking sentence

• Many of Carter’s stories also locate the protagonist in an unfamiliar place, or confront them with a

creature who defies understanding.

• Example 1 The soldier/ cyclist in TLOTHOL – a figure like Harker – innocently wandering into the lair of

the female vampire – examples of how setting and other details suggest that the female predator’s

deadly lure is something he cannot understand.

• Example 2 The heroine in ‘TBC’ – the Marquis’ castle and “enfer”/ bloody chamber – room of

desecration. How this scene is used to explore her fears.

Back to question and evaluate – similarities and/ or differences – why?

• In Carter’s text, most characters learn to understand the foreign ‘Other’ and conquer their fear – the

protagonist of the title story has glimpses of the “atrocious loneliness” of the monster her husband is;

Beauty in ‘The Tiger’s Bride’ is horrified to be locked in marriage to the beast but conquers her fear and

is reborn. The wolf stories – using laughter to dispel the deadly myth of the wolf as “carnivore

incarnate”? However, in Dracula …

Two more points

ONE IDEA

Fear of who we might be or could become – of transformation ? Fear of our latent selves (unconscious,

hidden from society) which lies beyond our understanding (i.e. the demon self within) and where our

curiosity and susceptibility to temptation will lead. This point works for both texts but you also need well-

judged, neatly embedded context (don’t overdo stuff about the ‘id’ and Freud).

ANOTHER IDEA

Our fears themselves - an example of a force which lies beyond our rational understanding. Carter explores

our human fears of beasts and “aborted transformations” –tigers, wolves, werewolves, vampires – and to

an extent diminishes their threat through knowing irony and laughter (the prologue to and ending of ‘The

Company of Wolves’). More than laughter, she humanises the objects we have been taught to fear – ‘Wolf

Alice’s’ tenderness towards the fearful werewolf; the cyclist’s maternal affection for the vampire – and to an

extent rationalises the creatures we have been taught to fear.

Is this the case with Dracula – Dracula is destroyed at the end and Van Helsing’s crusade (with its Christian

associations). Is the fear of the vampires curse lifted? (use the notes on the final chapter – and Maurice

Hindle’s quote.) Rather than dispelling fear, does Harker not fear that their story will not be believed, and

that you cannot therefore rationally explain the events of the novel (looking back, they seem like a story

and defy belief? )

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Hamlet Critical Statements – turn these into exam questions adding the how far do you agree?

The Play –

‘the Mona Lisa of literature’ – TS Eliot How far is Hamlet an enigmatic play?

‘obsessed with doubles’ – Kermode

‘although ‘Hamlet’ is an extremely active, indeed feverishly energetic play, it does move forward slowly.’ – Kermode

‘a vulgar and barbarous tragedy’ – Voltaire

‘it is not only Hamlet but his play that delays’ – Kermode

Characterisation –

‘before Shakespeare there was characterisation, after Shakespeare there were characters.’ – Bloom

‘no-one in this play knows or understands anyone else.’ – Linda Charnes

Hamlet –

‘the hero-villain’ – Bloom

‘many different explanations for his procrastination’ – Kenneth Muir

‘sterile concentration on death and evil’ – LC Knights

‘pure, noble and most moral nature’ – Goethe

‘the man who couldn’t make up his mind’ – Olivier film

‘not an individual but everyman’ – CS Lewis

full of ‘meditative excess’ – Coleridge

Claudius –

‘the cunning and lecherousness of Claudius’ evil has corrupted the whole kingdom of Denmark’ – Richard D Altick

‘clearly the antagonist’ – Carla Stockton

‘good and gentle king’ – G Wilson Knight

Polonius –

‘made palatable by the fact that he is funny’ – Michael Pennington

‘between knave and fool, most performances fall to one side or the other’ – Pennington

Gertrude –

‘a character of ambiguous morality whom we can never fully know’ – GF Bradby

‘negative and insignificant’ – TS Eliot

Ophelia –

‘Ophelia is one of the least self-critical beings imaginable’ – Eli Siegel

‘suffers a series of patriarchal oppressions’ – Emi Hamana

‘only concern is pleasing others’ – Rebecca Smith

Theatre –

‘Shakespeare himself is speaking when Hamlet instructs the players’ – Albert Tolman

‘Shakespeare’s most lucid and metatheatical tragedy’ – Phyllis Gorfain