>Dracula, and specifically the Count's migration to Victorian England, is frequently read as emblematic of invasion literature,[154] and a projection of fears about racial pollution.[155] In an influential postcolonialist analysis,[156] Stephen Arata describes the novel's cultural context of mounting anxiety in Britain over the decline of the British Empire, the rise of other world powers, and a "growing domestic unease" over the morality of imperial colonisation.[157] Arata regards the novel as representing "reverse colonisation": fear of other races invading England and weakening its racial purity.[158] Patricia McKee writes that Dracula represents a negation of white culture while Mina represents "pure whiteness".[159] Dracula can be said to both kill white bodies and turn them into the racial Other in death.[160] Some critics connect the racialisation of Dracula to his depiction as a degenerate criminal.[161][162]>Critics frequently identify antisemitic themes and imagery in the novel. Between 1891 and 1900, the number of Jews living in England increased sixfold, mainly due to antisemitic legislation and pogroms in eastern Europe.[163] Examples cited by Halberstam of antisemitic connections include Dracula's appearance, wealth, parasitic bloodlust, and "lack of allegiance" to one country.[164][u] Dracula's appearance resembles some other cultural depictions of Jews, such as Fagin in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (1838), and Svengali of George du Maurier's Trilby (1895).[166] Jewish people were frequently described as parasites in Victorian literature; Halberstam highlights fears that Jews would spread diseases of the blood, and one journalist's description of Jews as "Yiddish bloodsuckers".[167] Daniel Renshaw writes that any antisemitism in the text is "semi-subliminal"; he writes that Dracula is not Jewish but does reflect the 19th-century conception of Jewish people. Renshaw frames the novel more broadly as a general suspicion of all foreigners.[168]Is it worth reading?
>>25387039read the first part where Keanu Reeves is in the castle
>>25387039Your will won't be worth reading.
>>25387039The first four chapters (Harker's journal) are pretty good, but the book then spends a couple chapters developing set-up, and nothing really happens until the Demeter arrives and Lucy get sicks. Because it's epistolic, some are more interesting than others (like Seaward's diaries), but generally the characters don't do much until Lucy dies.The book gets interesting again when our characters go gravedigging, and then when Dracula attacks. Though the very ending felt a bit rushed.7 or 8/10As for the racism and antisemitism, Stoker isn't even trying to hide it, though I agree with Renshaw's view, Dracula is Romanian, but his characteristics could easily be substituted for antisemitic tropes. But it's also important to remember that alot of the tropes were tropes which were often substituted for Eastern Europeans in general.Like, there's a sexual undercurrent to his blood-drinking, which Harker describes in chapter 3, and that was ascribed with Slavs, Jews, and Romanians alike.
Ejacula.Draculation.
>>25387039Modern (pre-brexit) retelling of Dracula would have the count immigrate to Britain as a lowly plumber
People drone on a lot about this in the British schooling and university system, unfortunately my sister imbibed this bad take as one of her few faults as a thinker and believes that Bram Stoker accidentally caused the anti-immigration act and prejudice against eastern Europeans. Things couldn't be further from the truth since there were many other social factors that caused anti-immigration sentiment to take off, with literature at best acting as a mirror rather than determining politics. And anti-eastern European sentiment itself is really just a way to make anti-Jewish sentiment sound different (why is anyone's guess) - huge amounts of shtetl Jews were moving into Britain at the time.The novel itself is interesting and deep but generally academics consider it lowbrow and will refuse to discuss it even though it's got real merits.
