'The Blood is the Life; The Blood is the Life!': Chapters IX-XVI

In order to foster your close reading of the text, I would like to you cite at least one example of the literary techniques or themes listed for each of the following chapters. For Chapters XIII through XVI, I would like each of you to make one talking point, a thesis statement if you will, related to a specific theme or literary element that enhances our sense of the plot conflict for EACH chapter. So…break OUT that DESK LAMP and write that $#%& down in your QUESTbooks.

• Chapter IX

• Triangulation

• Homoeroticism

• Christocentric parallel (think Van Helsing as claiming, or taking on messianic powers

• Chapter X

• Objective Correlative: a sequence of events, cluster of images, setting, etc. employed in a literary work to express a certain emotion and evoke it in the reader or viewer

• Secrecy (withholding information for the sake of protecting a third party)

• Knowledge as power

• Medically authorized vampirism

• The unreliability of human memory (which calls us to question narration)

• Power of positive thinking as healing method

• Van Helsing as a man of extra-sensory perception (ESP)

• Gender role reversals (think in terms of care-taking)

• Literary allusion to Macbeth

• Matrimonial union through blood transfusion (almost implying adultery)

• Homeopathic healing as advantage over modernized medicine

• Repression (think air-tight room)

• Supernatural range of human awareness and capability (which enhances gothic theme of making the improbable possible)

• Chapter XI

• Allusion to Macbeth

• Thin line between sanity and insanity

• Inversion (hint: “bersicker” or “berserker”)

• Allusion to Christ’s blood

• Dreamlike surreality/ supernaturalism

• Allusion to the evil of St. George’s Day

• Chapter XII

• Triangulation

• Secrecy as protection

• Androgyny (in this case: feminine becoming masculine)

• Spiritual adoption

• Virginal purity and innocence