ENG200.003 -- Introduction to Literary Study

Prof. Eileen Joy

Fall 2009

SHORT PAPER #5 −- Analysis: The Gothic-Romantic Novel (20 points)

According to Ian Watt, in his book The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, one of the chief characteristics of the novel in the eighteenth century (the time period when what we now think of as "the novel" began to emerge as a popular literary genre) was its concern with individual experience, consciousness, social realism (or naturalism), and intersubjectivity (exploring, in other words, how several characters might cognitively process and interpret differently the same places, situations, other persons, and experiences). While the gothic novel (a sub-genre of the novel that also had its initial heyday in the eighteenth century) leans heavily on certain magical and fantasy elements, and also on a certain melodrama that works to provoke extreme feelings in audiences (and is often rooted in overly exaggerated characterizations and dramatic situations, leaning heavily on horror and terror and nightmare-like scenarios), it is still a genre very much interested in individual human psychology, especially as that psychology (the individual mind) is under the stress of the unknown and certain supernatural threats. And although the gothic novel also drew in certain elements of the romance genre (which is very medieval in its origins; think: chivalric literature, such as that based on the Arthur-Lancelot-Guinevere legends), meaning that it is somewhat antiquated and even a "throwback" to earlier stories of knightly adventure, heroism (including important episodes of male bonding), and damsel-in-distress rescue missions, a novel like Bram Stoker's Dracula was also very interested in representing certain aspects of modern relationships and modern culture (for example, Mina's character is very much an example of a modern woman who works equally alongside the men in hunting down and vanquishing Dracula).

Write a 4-page paper (typed and double-spaced) in which you explore ONE of the following:

1. how Bram Stoker's Dracula exemplifies what is seen as a chief characteristic of the gothic novel: combining violent emotions of terror, individual anguish, and love against the backdrop of a menacing, supernatural atmosphere (and why we might find it pleasurable, as readers, to be held in the grip of such a combination of emotions); OR

2. how Stoker's novel represents different and fragmentary individual points of view on the same unfolding of terrifying events (and what this might reveal to us about human perspective/intersubjectivity in general); OR

3. how the novel is ultimately a "romance" (and what it might reveal to us about the psychology of intimate human relationships, both between friends and also lovers); OR

4. how Stoker's novel combines elements of the fantastic/supernatural and realism (and what happens when reality and unreality slide into and confuse each other--what, utimately, might be interesting and/or revealing about that?).

Whichever prompt you choose, be sure to connect your observations and opinions to specific details of the novel itself, to include citation of specific scenes and passages, both with paraphrase--brief summary of specific episodes and/or characters in your own words--and direct quotation. Each of the four prompts above asks you to engage in DESCRIPTION of what the novel is actually doing (which includes the question of how the narrative is structured), as well as an ANALYSIS (an opinionated one, hopefully) of what you perceive to be both the novel's effects on our sensibilities as readers and its possible meanings.