BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker

Subject: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 06:48 PM

Who knows well and loves the Bram novel Dracula? Kate has to write a paper, due Tuesday, about the relationships between characters in the novel and the latest corporate collapses, ie, Enron, Qwest, etc. Stuff like:

Establish parallels between key players in corp. scandal and important characters in Dracula.
Examine motives/roles of both corp. execs and characters in Dracula
Conclude if Dracula is really dead at the end of the novel and make it consistent with your economic interpretation of the novel.

HEEEEELLLLLPPPP! I have not read the book and she is a slow reader, only on page 203 of some 400. Somebody please, please help. I have no clue where to start to help her and she has no clues either.

This is for her College English Lit class. Thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 06:50 PM

RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker.... yeah, that f***er is rough trade! Call the damn bouncer!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 06:57 PM

Oh, thanks! That helps! (LOL)

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:16 PM

Sorch:

I understand Jen reads it every years on Halloween, so she probably knows it better than most.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: kendall
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:19 PM

Never cared for that story, in fact, it sucked. Well, Drac did.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:33 PM

Not your favorite vein of drama, Skipper?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:41 PM

I can't e mail Jen and she seldom checks in here.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Gareth
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 08:00 PM

Sorry, Sorcha, this may be politically incorrect -

Count D arrives at Whitby Steps, seduces fair maid, disappears back to Transilvania in cargo container ex London Docks.

Fair maid's fiance has dreams, travells to T' to assist. Accepts unwittingly Count D's hospitallity. Big fight, chase, rechase, all live happily ever after, well apart from exreamly large "hickys on neck".

Correct version,

Count D terrorises county, imperialist venture to USA. Leaves USA with conivence of Customs an Exercise (audited by Arthur A)

Fiance seeks girl. travells with assistance of CIA to Tran's'.

Bribary gets customs clearence, travells to Cast;e D, infiltrates Castle, fight, encourages locals to uprise, Count D staked out. Enron, for a suitable bribe, provide permenant daytlight. Count D ends up in Coffin in Gutamno Bay - GWB2 says we caputured Benladin (Ooops Count D)

Count D offers massive contribution to GWB2's election fund. Count D appointed Prime Minister of Trans' Enron and Arthur A get the contracts.

Fair maid becomes Count D's concubine. Hero terminated with exteam prejudice by "friendly fire"

Sorry best I can do after a few pints.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 08:04 PM

Just remember what the vampire said to the schoolteacher........."See you next period!"

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 08:05 PM

All sounds a rather daft idea. Some teacher showing off in a rather contemptuous way, I'd say.

However I imagine a paper saying that probably wouldn't go down too well.

I suppose one notion to play with would be that the companies involved were walking dead by the time the public became aware of it. And the condition was transmitted from company to company. The process by which that came to light would have an analogy with Van Helsing's pursuit of the vampires, and once the truth came to light they collapsed.And vampires crumble once they are exposed to the light of day.

But it'd be a lot easier with the cartoon Dracula of the movies than with the more complicated narrative of the book. (That might be a line worth pursuing in the paper.)

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 08:13 PM

And there is no question but that Dracula is thoroughly dead and de-vampirised by the end of the book:

It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.

I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.

I can't imagine a valid parallel to this with the companies involved, or any suggestion that, through being revealed as corrupt, and so destroyed, their souls have been saved! They seem much molre like the kind of vampires in the movies, who manage to survive and come back time after time, as thirsty for blood as ever.

Here is an online text of the book - which means it's easy to search for key words and so forth, and lift chunks of text to pad out the paper.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: RangerSteve
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 08:13 PM

Confirms what I've thought for years, English teachers can be out of their minds. Dracula is meant to be read for entertainment. This reminds me of my 12th grade English class, where we read
The Great Gatsby, analyzed it to death, then MacBeth, compared it to the Great Gatsby, followed by Death of a Salesman, compared it to MacB and the Great G. On to Hamlet, compared to Mac B, D of a S., and the Grt G. Romeo and Juliet, compared to ..... ending with the GG, Hard Times by C. Dickens compared to....again with the GG. Oliver Twist, Fahrenheit 451, all ultimately compared to the Great Gatsby. I think he had a fetish. Comparing Ft451 to the Great G, in my mind, is like comparing harmonicas to Chryslers. I've never met anyone who saw the connection. The only good thing that came of all this was that whenever the teacher gave us a book, I new what the final homework assignment was, although mostly what I learned was how to write reams of BS. Oh, yeah, I just remembered, Gullivers Travels compared to all the rest ending with the Great Gatsby. I graduated highschool in 1968 and still haven't forgotten the horrors of that class. Tell her to write a bunch of hooey and use big words.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 08:32 PM

Well -- you could tell her to write her actual thoughts, and use correct words. Maybe she doesn't have the same teacher you did!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 09:53 PM

Thanks for the validations of my thoughts....will pass along your ideas to her......but still, bloody paper is due Tues.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:16 PM

I think Ranger Steve's got the right idea. Sounds like a real bullshit assignment to me. Tom asks if it was assigned on April 1st . . .

Read the novel years ago and more Bram Stoker as well. None of the movies are at all accurate to the book.

But what it has to do with economics or corporate collapse, I haven't a clue -- and probably neither did Bram Stoker.

Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: NicoleC
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:23 PM

Isn't there a Cliff Notes version? If she can't finish the thing in time to write her paper, it could tell her the important bits -- or even the important bits to read.

Skipping around Dracula would be a hard row to hoe, though. Everything's connected; it'd be hard to keep track.

Shallow comparison to Enron. etc. -- the money-sucking vampires eventually get killed when their fodder rises up and drives a stake through their corporate hearts. Ultimately, the corporation's greatest power is the fear of investors and employees.

She could even veer off on a tangent about how corporations only have the power granted them by the people (of the state), and like the characters of Dracula, the people can rise up and remove parasitic corporations.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:31 PM

It is HARD to imagine a daughter IN A UNIVERSITY who still uses her mother to "bail-her-out" of undisciplined habits.

The best lesson you can teach this child is the discipline of the Wyoming winter wilderness. You prepare - or you die.

A failure in a non-critical "event" which she can repeat is better than failure throughout her life.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

It is hard to "let-go" ...but you can never expect her to fly on her own....until she feels the hard-knock of the ground....and if she doesn't make it....perhaps, she was a rodent and not the bird you believed...like begets ...like.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:34 PM

My condolences. I can't see the relationships. I think that professor needs a stake driven through his/her heart. Don't pay any attention to Gareth, I think he saw a third-rate movie (I saw it on TV as well) that had little to do with the original novel. Or maybe that is where this teacher got the idea and Gareth is on the right track.

Some literature instructors are OK. After reading and analyzing about a dozen novels, the final exam question was: "Select one book. In one page tell what it means to me, to me!" After floundering thoughts about the "great novels" and more than half the time gone, I selected one that hadn't received much attention, a tale by Conrad. His story was the only one that had made a lasting impression on me.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: NicoleC
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:36 PM

Got another one --

While Dracula and the AIDS epidemic are a far better comparison (death, blood, infection), comparing vampirism to the catagious infection of modern corporate corruption would at least strike somewhere near Stoker's parallels. In Europe in Stokers time, vampires were not only undead bloodsuckers, but widely considered to be carriers of infectious disease like TB, Syphilis, etc.

I.E., in order to compete with corporations that use dirty tactics, more corporations use the same misleading tactics, and we get the epidemic we've seen recently of diseased corporations unearthed in their accounting coffins. (Okay, that's going a bit far.)

If you want a movie version that captures the spirit of Dracula, try "Nosferatu" (the original, 1922 silent film, not the 1979 German remake.) Often labelled, "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors"

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 10:45 PM

Personally,

Being a daily reader of the news (less than 5% of the population READ the news daily)...and a devote follower of Stoker's DRACULA (read first in 9th grade - checked out from a reluctant librarian)there are POWERFUL metaphorical parallels.

Your child has a brillant teacher. Sorry your child is not yet worthy.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

A "hint" a family friend, Tom Holland (writer/producer/director) when interviewed regarding "Fright Night" explained that "all vampire stories are tales of seduction." There is your thesis statement - spin the alagorious analogies from there....

Ahhh...I forgot she hasn't finished the book and she doesn't read the news, besides history is boring and if it isn't repetitious plebian prose of c-nt, f-ck, s-ck, wh-re, b-tch, there is NOTHING seductive about it. Education - wasted on the young!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 11:27 PM

LOL, Greg. No, she is still in High School, but taking College English, but thanks for the tip.Love ya,dear!

Nicole, Great help! Thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 11:57 PM

Well he's got one thing right, IMO, they are all tales of seduction. Oh! And, who would've thought?

She's got to keep reading, Sorcha, even if it is the cliffnotes, or at least scan the online version. I would go with the seduction thing, though I think the teacher is spoiling the enjoyment of a good story by such a stupid assignment. Enron/Dracula seduce with promises of immortality, a kind of wealth/riches, have their way, leave the stricken in their wake while the valiant bring to light the evil and triumph ONLY in the novel, not in the Enron debacle; here is where the teacher is full of it...Dracula was undoubtedly done in at the end, while the corps(es) are still at it in some fashion. Oh that it was as easy as driving a stake through their hearts and returning investors their monies!

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 01:59 AM

Oh, Bram, Tom and I throw our pearls before swine....what fools these mortals be. You ain't caught the cigar.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 02:34 AM

HeyaSorcha, Mudcat's got its own Resident Pop-Up! Got the new version of Pop-Up Killer?!

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Hollowfox
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 09:52 AM

*sigh* As much as I hate to recommend this...have her go to the library and look up Dracula in Masterplots. It will give a synopsis of the action in a few pages. Then she can check out a copy of Annotated Dracula, which can give commentary and insights in columns parallel to the text. She has my sympathy for this paper. Perhaps the teacher made some comments in the class that she could use as a hint/jumping off point? Good luck to her.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 10:44 AM

Taking a view from one of the characters in 'Dracula', Zander Nyrond (A 'Filker') came up with the following:

                        MINA'S SONG


It is turn-of-the-century London. In a few short years the world will change beyond recognition; but to the five people in this fashionable drawing room, the status quo seems eternal, unalterable. The four men are relaxing after a hard day pursuing their respective careers; one stamping out the aberrations of madness; one preserving the rule of law; one defending the privileges of the aristocracy in the House of Lords: one carefully inculcating old knowledge in young minds, lest they stray into freethinking and error.
They look with proprietary fondness on the woman as she moves among them, marking with satisfaction her composed, submissive demeanour. Her husband may compare her favourably with three women he once met in a castle, who, though enslaved, dared to defy their master, and thus doubtless merited their deaths. The noble lord may think for a moment of his sweet, gentle bride-to-be who came to her own doom by abandoning the protection of the divine order.
"Sing for us something, Madam Mina," van Helsing says, a kindly suggestion with the force of a command. It is the only sort of communication she receives now from these men who own her. She sits dutifully at the pianoforte, looking from one blandly smiling face to another, wondering whether she will dare, this time, to put aside the familiar Schubert and Chopin and play the song that uncoils dangerously in her heart.

They tell me...I am all right now
They tell me I can go out in the sun.
They tell me the mark is gone from my brow
They tell me the battle is won
So why do I feel betrayed and alone
When I lie with my husband at night?
Why am I no longer happy
Just being all right?

They tell me I am all right now
They tell me I have beaten the curse
They tell me that I was enslaved to the Devil
In danger of death, or far worse
So why do I long for the keenness of senses
Made dull by the sun's cruel light?
Why can I not be content
To be merely all right?

Two old foreign men have fought to the death
Over me, and the older man lost
And now I am saved, and with every breath
I count the unbearable cost
For a moment I've seen what my life could have been
But I'll never know freedom again
Just a nightmare unending of wise, condescending,
Complacent, contemptible MEN...

They tell me that he was a demon
They tell me he killed men for play
But I saw the sadness and pain in his eyes
That only true death washed away
That other man talked about souls now at peace
But he only lived for the fight
And now there is nothing to be
Except simply all right.
I could have been ageless, immortal, and fair,
And joined my dark prince in his flight
But now he is dead, and I...

I am simply all right.
Condemned to a short, bitter lifetime
Of being all right.

(picked up Here )

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 10:50 AM

Wow! I love it!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 11:30 AM

Outstanding!!

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 11:35 AM

And does poor Renfried represent Mr & Mrs America, trying to get rich on the coattails oftheir more knowledgeable and corrupt betters?

This takes me back to Graduate School when one desperately unhip over the hill hippie wannabe professor had us analyze the Beatles Sgt. Pepper for days. It was a Latin Poetry class!

garg has it right. Seduction is the theme. Who is seduced by whom and with what?

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: NicoleC
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 02:11 PM

I'd say the teacher was doing a fine job of prepping kids for college writing; these kids of far-fetched comparison/contrast papers are ubiquitous in college -- but they do wonders for abstract thinking skills.

Sorch, she's gotta learn to read faster. She'll get hammered in college if she can't; my freshman year I had to plow through at least 1000 pages a week of reading and churn out about 30 pages of writing. I saw a lot of really smart kids being miserable and sleepless with mediocre grades because they couldn't keep up.

You might try to find a speed reading course.   It'll teach her to make the jump from reading individual words to reading phrases and blocks of words. It'll give her more time to party when she does get to college :)

Personally, I wouldn't make seduction the sole thesis unless it's a very short paper. It'll be hard to find much to say on the subject that isn't blatantly obvious... it has no nuances -- one is seduced or one is not, and why. One COULD stretch it out over several pages, but {*snore*}. I think it's a good concept to use in backing up another theory -- it'd be great for a paragraph or two. JMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 03:32 PM

To me, the story of Enron and its executives as well as the investors who helped to built up the prices, was one of unprincipled greed. You could call greed the great seducer, but I hate seeing Bram Stoker's great tale parlayed into an exercise that will destroy the story forever in the minds of the reader.
Bubbles based on greed go back to tulipmania in Holland and similar frenzies.

I prefer to keep my sex and seduction simon-pure!

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Peg
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 04:00 PM

PLEASE don't suggest using Cliff Notes or Masterplots!

Yes, you'll get the plot that way. But you don't get the STORY, because you get no sense of the writer's style. Literature is not about plots; it's about storytelling.

As a teacher of college writing and literature, may I state for the record I think it's far better for a student to read half the orginal novel than a Cliff Notes version. This is simply pointless.

The original assignment seems a bit daft to me, unless one considers corporate greed to be akin to "bloodsucking" or "draining the life" our of people or our economy...also, there is the question of versions of morality. The Crew of Light thinks they are fighting some great evil with their stakes and garlic. But Dracula gives pleasure and a form of immortality to his victims...

There are some interesting books and articles out there having to do with "psychic vampirism"--psychic vampires being peope who can drain the energy of others. Many of them aren't aware they're doing it. Think about the people you know; is there anyone in your circle of friends/acquaintances who literally leaves you feeling drained, depressed or exhausted?

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 04:16 PM

Guess I won't mention that there are more than a few movie versions that stick to the original.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 04:24 PM

I *am* a college English teacher, and I'd like someone to tell me, at last, just why Stoker's Dracula is *really* about "seduction" rather than *really* about the existence of motivated human evil, its ability to thrive on and destroy the innocent, and the grim task of heroically opposing it ? (In more general terms, fighting the vampires.)

Furthermore, the purpose of reading literature, it seems to me, is to *experience the reading of it* and in some meaningful way bring it into your life - and not to use shortcuts, bailouts, etc., mainly for the purpose of providing oh-so-ingenious "answers" to tendentious assignment questions.

Hmmm, guess I'll remain anonymous for the present.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Pushkin
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 06:14 PM

There are similarities between Count D and corporate state or corporations.   D drinks the blood of society to survive and in a metaphorical way corporate state or corporations also do this, ie drink the life force of society.

Both can be classed as parasites depending upon one's viewpoint. If one takes the classical view of communism then the capitalist state, eg corporations, are blood sucking vampires ergo Count Dracula.   

Yes Dracula is dead at the end of the novel but if you wish to take the Hollywood view he can be resurrected, as can corporations, particularly with slippery lawyers:-) As for a direct comparison between the characters of the novel and those involved in corporate collapses, that I can't say as I'm not too familiar with any recent collapses other than the Guinness scandal a few years ago. The only comparison I can make is that of Renfrew (not sure of spelling!, (Dracula's mad admirer!), and those that work for corporations - They are all slavishly obedient and lack humanity.   Once you fall under Dracula's spell you become his willing slave. The same can be said for those climbing the corporate ladder.

This comes from the Orc and not me and I deny all responsibility and all the usual clauses etc etc etc.

I shall start singing 'Shall we dance' in a minute.....

Pushkin (dictated by Orc)

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 06:37 PM

Easy enough to fake ths kind of stuff using the cinema versions. A lot harder with the books. It's a game, so it it should be approached as a game. A pretty silly game, so cheating is in order.

Actually Bram Stoker's book is riddled with racism directed at gypsies. As well that this seems to have been dropped, in the translation to the big screen.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Cluin
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 07:02 PM

Sounds like another English Lit. teacher coming up with some daft thesis and forcing their students to develop their Bullshit Quotient another notch, thereby ruining the enjoyment of another book for all involved.

I guess that doesn't help with the assignment though, does it?

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Mudlark
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 07:05 PM

Nigel...thanks for that...the lead in and Mena's Song are both mindblowers...hadn't expected to find something so fetching in this thread...

Sorcha...if she's really up against it, and can't come up with anything she might courageously take a different tack...one that makes sense to her...lead in with a couple of BS paragraphs about the original precis, then go on with her own. She will get something out of writing it, that way, whatever the grade.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Gareth
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 07:16 PM

Actually "Q" it was the 'Comic Book' version, but hey, whatthe hell, I think Cliun may have a valid point.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 07:35 PM

A story such as Dracula can be used as a source for a kind of myth - and that is what has happened to it in all its translations and adaptations. The myth being about a conspiracy of powerful and evil people intent on seizing and holding power, and very hard to defeat, and only to be defeated by a kind of ruthless fanaticism.

A very scary and rather dangerous myth actually, which can be applied in all kinds of contexts - anti-semitic contexts, anti-red contexts, anti-capitalist contexts...

Of course it's possible to apply it so that Enron's executives were the vampires. Or perhaps Bin Laden. Or for that matter you could have an Al Qaida version in which they were the vampire hunters.

The thing is, in no sense is Bram Stoker's story about any of those things. That's pretty obvious about the things that happened long after the book was written, but it's equally true about things that predated it. To use a distinction that Tolkien made in respect of the Lord of the Rings, it isn't an allegory of things that happen in the real world, it an example of a story which is applicable to such things.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 08:10 PM

Racism directed against gipsies? Most non-gipsies hated gipsies in Bram Stoker's time. The social beliefs of the time must be considered when reading older literature (1897). The racism was reinforced by the teaching of the time. This from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Ed., 1911.
""Less than fifty years from the time that they emerge out of Hungary, or even from the date of the Charter of the Emperor Sigismund, they found themselves exposed to the fury and the prejudices of the people whose good faith they had abused, whose purses they had lightened, whose barns they had emptied, and on whose credulity they had lived with ease and comfort. Their inborn tendency to roaming made them the terror of the peasantry and the despair of every legislator who tried to settle them on the land. Their foreign appearance, their unknown tongue and their unscrupulous habits forced the legislators of many countries to class them with rogues and vagabonds, to declare them outlaws and felons and to treat them with extreme severity." Later on in the essay, in comments on assimilated gipsies, it is stated that they "retain some of the prominent features of their character, such as the love of inordinate display and gorgeous dress; and their moral defects not only remain for a long time as glaring as among those who live the life of vagrants but even become more pronounced."

The essayist in Chamber's Enc. of 1890 takes a more tolerant view: "The better sort are quick-witted, courteous, likable, trustworthy---." Later is the statement that "their vices are ascribable to centuries of opression." A much more liberal view.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: curmudgeon
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 09:00 PM

This assignment is patently absurd. However, since the paper must be written, begin with Pushkin/Orc's thesis; it's better than none and not all that farfetched. Also consider Jonathan Harker (Arthur Anderson) sent to Dracula to pursuade him to part with a substantial sum to gain the "protection" afforded by his purchase of Carfax Abbey. And don't forget Van Helsing, a Harker "insider" who "blew the whistle" on the count. This is all really gobbledegook, but if written up convincingly should make for a passing grade at the least.

BTW, the toady's name is RENFIELD.

I've seen all of the "reputable" Dracula films. many of which were not, and the closest to the book is "The Horror of Dracula" Hammer Films.

Good Evening -- Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 10:13 PM

Dracula on line: Dracula

Hate to read books on line- much prefer to have the book in hand. But for those with the computer disease, there it is. May have been posted before, but too much to read through now.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 10:48 PM

Much more suitable for the assignment would have been "The Monster Men," by Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Monster Men
Gad! Some of the Tarzan books on line here as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 11:15 PM

This assigment is genuinely idiotic, Sorcha, if you don't mind my saying so., How dare he enforce such an off-the-wall, dis-located interpretation on an inexperienced college student? He's just dumping his agenda on them and disguising it as a learning experience!!

"My view of the world is deep, profound, and right. Discuss..."

Ridiculous, and in my opinion a serious betrayal of trust and a lapse from his charter.

Dracula -- the novel -- has nothing to do with corporations, for Christ's sake.

It's just ridickle-dockle!!

If he wants to flaunt a left-wing agenda, he should stick to Sinclair Lewis.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 11:44 PM

Working on my Master's, someone in Admin. noted that there was no Civics course credited from High School! By regulation, everyone had to have had the course, or must take it in university. A number of us from other states were caught up. The instructor was a young, very left-wing twit. He loved assigning essays. We went to work producing stuff an old Commie of the 30s would have enjoyed. The fellow seated next to me was the son of a Republican National Committeeman (exact position forgotten). We passed the course with A's.

When trash is required, writing to the teacher's bias is at least 75% of the grade mark.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 12:30 AM

Ya' know Sorch, ever since this thread started I've been thinking about it and I haven't changed my mind a bit. This is about as stupid a fuckin' assignment that I've ever heard. Tell the Prof or whatever that you think (as I do) that the biggest scandal in the country is the belief that the American Educational System is worth a shit. BTW, it qualifies as a corporation on several levels. Suggest that like Dracula, it sucks the blood of it's victims (under educated taxpayers) and benefits only itself in return without passing on anything good and much that is bad to the victim. Many of these victims go on to become a part of the corporation themselves (vampires=teachers,admins,etc,) and the worst of these need a stake through the heart for inflicting themselves on helpless others coming along the way.

Turn that in accompanied by a sharpened stake and a mallet with a note attached that says, "You know what to do....I can help" In the meantime, have Kate finish the book which is a wonderful work and should be read for enjoyment. I hate symbolism and even more, I hate the people who MUST make a symbol out of everything!!! Reminds me of a panel discussing James Dickey's book, "Deliverance." Several folks had analyzed/symbolized it to death and when James Dickey took the podium, he thanked them all and said he had no idea that his book was about those things and he thought he should read it again himself!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: Amos
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 01:10 AM

If I were teaching this course and someone tuirned in Spaw's note and mallet and stake, I think I'd have to give him an A for creativity, even if I had to give him a C- for following directions badly. But, we have plenty of people who can follow directions, and not enough who can genuinely be creative. I dare ya!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 02:48 AM

This was my favorite book in high school, and I read it several times. I must admit, it was a little long in the tooth.

Subject: RE: BS: Sorch needs help w/Bram Stoker
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 02:51 PM

If someone turns in the WEDs (Weapons of Educator Destruction) as Spaw suggests, get ready for a school lock-down and a government assault er..intervention ala These Paranoid Times.

Spaw, I hate it when someone has to analyse and look for symbolism in a good yarn, too. I went to see The Doors with a friend I'd never been to a movie with before. She drove me nuts analysing and *reminiscing* throughout the entire show. I never went to another movie with her. Why can't something just be a good story/movie/book, etc?