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Comparing Vampires In Beloved And Harriet Jacob's Incidents

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Vampires have been seen throughout history as bloodsucking, evil monsters who come out at night to prey upon the innocent by piercing their flesh with their fangs. While this is true, there are more than just this type of literal vampires in literature. In Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, he describes vampires as any older figure that represents corrupt values who violates young women and leaves them helpless followers in his sin. Although characters in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl did not suck anyone’s blood or run away at a glimpse of sunlight, they are still vampires. Slave owners in these novels are vampires as they exploit young women and strip them of their …show more content…

In Jacob’s novel, Dr. Flint, the protagonist’s master, constantly sexually exploits Linda Brent throughout their time together. There are numerous occasions in which Dr. Flint offers Linda safety, protection, and housing in exchange for sexual favors. At one point in the novel, he intends to build Linda a house four miles away from town where she can live as his sex slave. In response to his proposition, Linda thinks, “I’d have rather live and die in jail, than drag on, from day to day, through such a living death” (Jacobs 38). Constant exploitation of slaves is also seen through Schoolteacher, the slave owner in Morrison’s Beloved. Although it is not sexual exploitation, Schoolteacher constantly exploits Sethe, the novel’s protagonist, through her work. He takes his mistreatment of Sethe to the extreme when he takes measurements of her and studies her biology to configure the extent of which she can work. While Schoolteacher is not sexually exploiting Sethe as Dr. Flint does to Linda, he is severely oppressing Sethe by treating her as though she is an animal and pushing her to the extreme limits in work just to better his plantation. In both cases, the men have no concern for the well-being of the women and completely misuse and objectify them for their own personal gain. This is the reason why the authors portray these men as vampires. By giving them vampire like characteristics, the

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The extreme cruelty experienced by the victims of the South’s “peculiar institution” in Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, reflect the inhumanity of the time period’s slave owners and the impact they had on their slaves both physically and mentally. Harriet’s transfer to the Flint’s household offers several examples of the malice the owners hold in quick succession. The Flint’s have their own ways of treating the cooks, both callous. Mrs. Flint spits into the pots and pans, rendering any food left within them .

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1845. A few years later, in 1861, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Jacobs, was published. Similarly, the two narratives are written in the first person, illustrating the author’s personal experience in slavery and their successful battle for freedom. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs have one very important element in common: knowledge. Their education and the awareness of their situation certainly helped them in escaping, and was a key element in successfully gaining freedom.

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It’s globally known that the relationship between slaves and owners were abusive and unbalanced. Both male and female slaves endured horrible conditions and punishments brought on by their masters, but a woman’s slave-experience proves to be very different than a man’s. While women had to experience the abuse that came with their race, they also had to experience the oppression that came along with their gender. Regardless of viewing and treating them as animals, many male slave owners still had a sexual attraction and sense of protection over the female slave- sometimes even developing feelings for them. This creates a dangerous situation where not only the men have control over how the women work, but they have control over their body and emotions.

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According to Roth, however, the true nature of the novel lies in the identification with Dracula and “a fantasy of matricide underlying the more obvious parricidal wishes” (Roth 415). To begin, Jonathan, Van Helsing, Seward and Holmwood are all incredibly attracted to the female vampires, and they want to express their sexuality as Dracula can. Clearly, the problem appears when the Count is simply a projection of their repressed desires. This should be clear, as the Van Helsing group seem to take pleasure in all their sexually fulfilling and righteous. Seward even contemplates killing Lucy with savage delight (Stoker 188).

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Living in the Flint’s home, Linda and William are experiencing intense abuse and harrassment. Linda especially is being continuously harassed by Dr. Flint, and Mrs. Flint becomes very jealous and aggressive. Linda describes her as lazy when running her home, but energetic when whipping her slaves. Rather than find sympathy for their enslaved, many plantation mistresses would turn against them for “seducing” their husbands. Linda tells the story of an enslaved mother giving birth to her master’s child with extreme complications, while her mistress stands above her jeering that she deserves to die.

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Analogous in form to the spiritual autobiography, the slave narrative emphasizes the difficulty of upholding moral goodness under the weight of slavery. By revealing herself as a “fallen woman” Jacobs creates a hazardous problem, capable of eliminating the sympathies of a primarily white audience. Moreover, Jacobs risks portraying herself as an impure woman, whose virtuousness departs from the piousness and gracefulness typically exemplified by the ideal woman or “angel in the house,” according to the “Cult of True Womanhood.” Therefore, in an effort to preserve the ethos of her argument, Jacobs attributes her unchaste condition to the systemic effects of American slavery. Hoping to destroy the ideology of benign paternalism, Jacobs reveals her consequential ethical dilemma through a faint description of her master’s, Dr. Flint’s, licentious behavior.

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When Harriet turns fourteen, she mentions how Dr. Flint acts to her: “He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him- where I saw a many forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature” (30). Harriet divulges that Dr. Flint not only has no respect for his wedding vows, but is also sexually abusing a girl forty years younger than him, who can do nothing to defend herself because she is his property.

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The major theme in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker is the threat of female sexual expression. During this time period, female sexual behavior was frowned upon. Women were said to have to be either a virgin or a wife and mother. Social standards were very strict during this time, making it unheard of for women to show sexual expressions. In is era, the main concern was the role women had in society.

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At first glance, the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker appears to be a typical gothic horror novel set in the late 1890s that gives readers an exciting look into the fight between good and evil. Upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that Dracula is a statement piece about gender roles and expectations for men and women during the Victorian age. Looking at the personalities, actions, and character development of each of the characters in Dracula bring to light startling revelations about Victorian society and how Stoker viewed the roles of men and women during this time period. To really understand Dracula, it is important to note that this novel was written during a time “of political and social upheaval, with anxieties not just about the

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The four pieces of literature to be compared in this comparison are Dracula by Bram Stoker, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) by Francis Ford Coppola, Nosferatu (1922) by F.W. Murnau, and Dracula (1931) by Tod Browning. In these works of fiction, there are answers to what it would have felt like to be a vampire, what it would have felt like to have a vampire in one’s life,

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Introduction Literature has proved to be throughout time a powerful tool for creating enduring myths, legendary characters and fictional stories, making thus the truth irrelevant as long as the narrative was gripping. Such aspects, together with the context and period into which a novel was written brought to life stories that have become immortal and are going to last for eternity. This seems to be the case of the 19th century author Bram Stoker, who, upon fact, legend and fiction brought to life his eponymous vampire: Count Dracula, a sinister and monstrous predator who thrived on the blood of living souls. Regarded by many as the defining work of Gothic fiction, Stoker’s fin-de-sìecle novel achieved a pervasive hold on Western

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Dracula is about vampires in general, the myth, the mystery and the horror. Even though Dracula wasn’t the first vampire story, it was the first really popular one. Throughout the novel, the author, Bram Stoker, portrays many different aspects of women's roles in the 19th century. With the use of imagery and symbolism, the theme of sexuality and gender roles has an enormous presence in the novel. Social gender roles of women and men during the Victorian Era were very strict and looked upon differently than any other time period.

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The topic I have chosen for my essay is how Dracula is meant to remind society of the importance of religion, specifically Christianity, in Stoker’s time. I intend to do this through analyzing symbols in Dracula, drawing connections between these symbols and Christianity, and analyzing the implications Stoker attempts to make. I chose this topic because vampires and their sacrilegious implications, such as burning when touching a cross, have always been of interest to me, hence why I chose to study Dracula in the first place. My thesis is: Stoker uses Count Dracula as symbol to represent what society may become if they abandon religious beliefs.

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Slaves faced extreme brutality and Morrison focuses on rape and sexual assault as the most terrifying form of abuse. It is because of this abuse that Morrison’s characters are trapped in their pasts, unable to move on from the psychological damages that they have endured. “Morrison revises the conventional slave narrative by insisting on the primacy of sexual assault over other experiences of brutality” (Barnett 420). For telling Mrs. Garner what they had done, she was badly beaten by them, leaving a “chokecherry tree” (16) on her back. But that was not the overriding issue.

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Comparison of Dracula and Twilight’s vamps Characterisation of Dracula and Meyer’s vamps in these two books is entirely different. Through Stephanie Meyer 's novel vampires are illustrated as inhumanity attractive, powerful almost human creation. Her vampires have major advantages over Stocker 's they are described almost without any weaknesses. Despite of vamps ' reputation they can consume garlic and drink animal blood which is enough for survival, cannot transform into a bat or wolf but some of them have special talents as reading in others minds (Edward), steering emotions (Jasper) or see the future (Alice).

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