Sorry to take so long responding.
... I am not sure that science needs to be overcome. There are the traditional religious artefacts that you observe are used to confound Dracula, but equivalent is the use of a telegram, steamship, and a telephone to steal a march on him. The use of psychology and criminology is sufficiently reminiscant of Sherlock Holmes that I can’t agree that it is anti-science...
Fair point. Although I think that there is a huge – and growing – reference to religion as the novel progresses. Faith in the Christian god is viewed as hugely important to their quest.
... I can see the point here, but I thought the significance of the brides was that they were slaves or possessions of Dracula rather than as a direct threat. I am tempted towards the position that the female sexuality isn’t so much a theme, as a reflection that the book is a bit of PG smut – but this could be a case of effect and cause as my reading is, of course, influenced by all the Hammer House stuff...
When Dracula leaves the castle for England, he leaves Harker a prisoner and says that the brides can have him for themselves. Regardless of their relationship to Dracula, they are the immediate physical danger to Harker – not the count. The whole idea of who 'owns' them, though, raises a different question. If vampiric ownership is based on who converts one to the vampire state, then someone must also 'own' Dracula.
... Well, I would suggest immigration, revolution and invasion myself. I am surprised you read immigration as a theme in “Midwich Cuckoos” rather than here...
Because I think it's there – they are being 'invaded', after all, in more ways than one. Rape is a well-known weapon of war too. But the 'invaders' settle and start the process of changing the society and culture around them.
As I think I noted in the review, the Empire Windrush had landed in England in June 1948 with the first large group of West Indian immigrants.
The Midwich Cuckoos was first published nine years later. Indeed, just a year after publication, London saw some of the worst racial violence Britain has ever seen when trouble flared in the Notting Hill area between whites and West Indian blacks. So tensions were already present when Wyndham was writing.
For me, the book is partly a warning against changes in society coming from the arrival of outsiders.
In
Dracula, the threat comes from outside too – as I said earlier, this is the corruption of respectable English womanhood by a foreigner: a sexual corruption – a seduction from outside. The novel might partly have been intended as titillation – but that doesn't stop it also allowing for a judgment to be made on its subject; see the
Daily Mail in the UK today: a supposedly respectable, conservative paper that titillates before then condemning.
... Dracula is a dirty, (working class?), foreigner (Jew?) who invades England with the intent of propagating his kind and corrupting the virtuous folk of middle class England. That he is assisted by the working classes might be significant (by the way how does one expect the working classes to speak?
).
Look at how Stoker describes Dracula's past – drawing a great deal on the real-life Vlad the Impaler (also known as Drăculea). He's aristocratic (hardly working class), with an heroic background as a warrior. He is assisted by gypsies – that might be significant. But I can see absolutely nothing to suggest that Dracula is Jewish – and the whole Vlad the Impaler link also suggests otherwise.
... I have never been a fan of this analogy. Yes, obviously, Vampirism in the Dracula tradition is an STD. But isn’t that a convention of the genre/folk tradition which Stoker borrowed? Would either the author or his readers really recover some folk tale warning about promiscuous sex from the story?
I suspect it's more a question of an author feeling that a known genre/folk tale allows him the opportunity to explore modern-day issues. Take Angela Carter as an example – her reworkings of fairy tales still clearly reveal the well-known sources, but also act as a template for looking at issues in a way that was reflective of her own times and experiences.
As I explained, the historic background against which the book was written was one where syphilis was a major threat – the HIV/Aids of its day. It was also, at the time, described in many countries as a disease from another nation. Those are facts. It's also the case that Victorian hypocrisy over sex – and female sexuality in particular – led to London being the child prostitution capital of the world at the time. The whole idea, which is almost that of a Protestant/secular Madonna – is of the respectable woman on a pedestal, completely non-sexual. Look at Pre-Raphaelite portrayals of women: victims, dead – almost religious. Non-sexual – and non-threatening. In essence, 'respectable' women didn't like or want sex. They had sex only to breed. So the men, not getting much in the way of conjugal fun, had to look elsewhere. Given the fear over syphilis, virgins were rather popular – and how do you know if she's a virgin? Younger and younger. Emile Zola notes in a diary that, on one visit to London, he was propositioned by a girl he estimated as being as young as six. He was horrified, but tried to give the child a coin. He got a mouthful of abuse in return – the child knew not to take something for nothing.
It's entirely in keeping with the historic context to see the issue of female sexuality in the novel.
Just to note: my edition had no notes. I've read a number of pieces since reading it (out of interest), but had 'seen' the issues mentioned above in the book on my own, before reading some essays etc (including an abridged version of John Banville's new introduction for the Folio Society edition).
Dogmatix – many thanks.
