Augustin's Notes on Dracula, Chapter 3: Horror

 Chapter 3 Dracula

Horror: graphic depictions of violence + supernatural intervention / death + degradation
Terror (which gothic writers Ann Radcliff considered superior): sense of dread unknown. Obscurity is necessary.
Dread: fear of what will happen next “Dread of this place” (p41) and “a dread_ loneliness” (the use of the noun dread as an adjective emphasizes the importance of these two words).
Madness: “May I not go mad, if I am not already mad” (p43) 

In the 19th century gothic, the body itself is the site of haunting and transgressed. 

Ch. 3 brings a weird contact with the idea of terror and horror (see difference in the definitions above). 

Task: find quotes supporting those thesis

Jonathan: Helpless
“behaved like a rat in a trap” (p.34) -> animal imagery, and a trapped rat is dead
“I was a prisoner” (p.34)
“I am in prison” (p.34)
“I am deceived like a baby” (p. 34) -> being a baby is not a good thing in that novel
“My helplessness overpowered all other feelings” (p.34)

Dracula: in control

There is no one else in the castle.
Dracula was the driver. (p. 35) -> control wolves
Uncanny – Doubling (Gothic literature is often interested of that idea of a double-sided character, like Dorian Gray for example).
Dracula talks as if he was present in past events. He uses “we” and “this Dracula”. -> There are multiple Draculas around history (perhaps he was those Draculas). 

Jonathan’s mental state:

“I felt that I should protect myself in every way I could” (p. 40)
“my only doubt was to whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around me” (p. 40)
“I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the night” (p. 41)
“I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me; I am in fear – in awful fear – and there is no escape for me” (p. 41-42)
“God preserve my sanity” (p. 43)
It does not write for 4 days, (7th to 12th of May).

Jonathan’s secret power? Writes in shorthand, thus Dracula cannot read his diary. “My tablets quick, my tablets ‘Tis meet that I put it down” (misquote of Hamlet, Shakespeare). p.43
“I turn to my diary for repose. […]” p. 44

Jonathan’s physical experience:

“I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve.” p. 41
Jonathan fell asleep, also Dracula told him he was going to have awful dreams.
“There are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned” p.40


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