Pleaseh,help me with my bachelor thesis topic

[english_home]

Hello,
I am going to write my bachelor thesis in Gothic literature and I am supposed to examine the female characters in Dracula. Now, comes the question-can somebody who has read more about the literary criticism, suggest me with which chraracters I can compare Lucy and Mina? Thank you.

[kelby_lake]

I haven't read Dracula, but if you listed the qualities that you think that Lucy and Mina have and that you want to compare with other characters, I might be able to help.

[Prince Smiles]

Perhaps post your ideas first, then people may join in and add their suggestions.

Refresh my memory, who did the The Count bite first at the cemetery in Whitby? Was it Lucy or Mina? I think it was Lucy. In that case Mina was the fiancee of the lawyer. Both the girls from what I remember were both of pretty much the same character and temperament. Van Helsing cut Lucy's head cut, erm, wonder if there is any symbolism there?
I am sure many scholars have written papers on Dracula and women's roles in society, emancipation, etc. There must be plenty of secondary sources available.

I will tell you who I liked the best, and that was the three so called 'bribes of Drac' in his castle. Those chicks ruled.

Dracula formed part of what is known as 'Invasion Literature'. You could have a rummage around in the novels that form the invasion literature genre for other female characters for a comparative study.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_literature

Also Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' may well be a helpful read.

Best luck with your paper, and well done for choosing a brilliant piece of fiction to study.

[mal4mac]

Invasion literature? That seems a stretch. Can you have a one man invasion?

One theme that's quite similar is where an evil aristocrat, or cad, pursues a young women. One example is found in "Nicholas Nickleby", where Nicholas' sister is pursued and Nicholas himself plays the van Helsing role. Another example of a vampire-like-cad is George Wickham in Pride & Prejudice.

[Prince Smiles]

Wiki: 'Dracula (1897) also tapped into English fears of foreign forces arriving unopposed on its shores, although between 1870 and 1903 the majority of these works assumed that the enemy would be France, rather than Germany.'

The ease with which Dracula in the guise of a dog disembarks from the Russian ship, the Demeter and the havoc he reaps during the voyage is chilling stuff.


Can you have a one man invasion?

If there ever was a candidate for a one-man invasion army, I'd say The Count is right in the running.

[mal4mac]

Someone just pulled me up for quoting Wikipedia. I won't do that, but you certainly need more than that. A random Wikipedia quote is not impressive. I never for one moment thought that Dracula's landing was anything like the D Day landings - *that* was an invasion. I mean if an Al Qaeda terrorist sneaks through Heathrow is that an invasion of London? Hardly. Does it even make you afraid of an invasion? Hardly.

I agree that the ease with which Dracula disembarks, and the havoc he reaps during the voyage is chilling stuff. But it's like the chill you get from a well planned, seemingly all to easy, terrorist attack, like 9/11, but this is nothing to do with invasion. It's not like Nazi planes bombing the hell out of London, with forces in France (almost) ready to take over the whole of the UK. That sticks in the memory as a really serious problem, a real threat of invasion, compared to which Dracula and Al Qaeda are very minor problems (except for the few characters to which they are an immediate problem!)

[sandy14]

Invasion literature? That seems a stretch. Can you have a one man invasion? .

Not so much of a stretch. The Glorious Revolution, the 1715, 1745 and even the battle of Sedgemoor featured individuals turning up, claiming the throne and raising an army of local supporters around them.

British literature is full of non-British people turning up and upsetting the applecart one way or the other. The foreign is equated with exoticism mostly - Middlemarch is a prime example, although it's been twenty years since I read it.

[ennison]

I think the main word above is "army". Maybe the Pelvis was a kind of one-man invasion with a hidden "army" of disc jokers and execs and PMTensing screechers from rent-a-crowd