Non-Human Knowledge in Bram Stoker's Dracula :

This is a book one has to revisit once in a while. Finally it dawned on me that Dracula scares us because the fiend knows something we don't. Non-human knowledge. Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of the scariest books ever written. The reasons for its perennial appeal are basically two: (1) the vampire theme in which the supernatural is thrown into the natural world (2) Writing techniques: use of Absolutes. At one point he says, "There are far worse things awaiting than death." Ah, what could that be? The only exploration of the other shore, comparable to Dracula, is Marciano Guerrero's Poison Pill in which the Vampire Donato Sabellius tempts the hero Ivon Bates with "knowledge," just as the serpent tempted Adam and Eve, or Calypso Ulyses. Stephen King--the unsurpassed master of horror--on the other hand, terrifies us with human knowledge. Sins. Transgressions. Cruelty. King, with adroit prose and even voice, knows that fear is a visceral emotion--primal and vestigial. Yet, what always puts a chill in my heart and mind is the lingering question: what worse things did Dracula refer to? What does Donato Sabellius know that we don't? Because the novel Dracula does raise questions rather answer them, it will go on delighting readers for many generations. And what a treat it is! The author doesn't spare a single rhetorical figure to touch the reader's central nervous system where horror resides. In some scenes, the narrating voice employs the 'Nominative Absolute' to add the sensation of simultaneity. While we think that Hemingway was the inventor of the Absolute, Stoker was way ahead of him. Hemingway abused the technique, Bram Stoker was measured and sober in his use of it. Mary Duffy's e-book has an entire chapter of this technique. Though we, humans, instinctively seek beauty in what we read, we find it in Dracula, not in the theme or the plot, but in the composition itself, since it is beautifully written. Readers and writers who are serious about literature will find plenty of material that tingles the spine--and that is what literature accomplishes. What makes Dracula a beautiful piece of work? There's only one answer: it is well balanced, it is harmonious, and its sentences sparkle with a radiance that is short of wondrous. The writing techniques I employ in this article are all explained in Mary Duffy's writing manual: Mary Duffy's Writing Guide Augustine, City of God Austen J, Pride and Prejudice Austen J, "Marriage Proposals and Me" Austen J, Emma Borges, The Aleph C. Bronte, Jane Eyre Burroughs E,Tarzan Cervantes, Don Quijote Chaucer, Wife of Bath Coelho P,The Alchemist Coyle H, They Are Soldiers Dante, New Life Dickens C, David Copperfield Dostoevsky, Crime&Punishment ConanDoyle,Hound of Baskervilles Dubner S, Superfreakonomics DuMaurier D, Rebecca Ellis B. E. American Psycho Fitzgerald S, Great Gatsby Flaubert G, Madame Bovary Fleming I,Doctor No Freud S, Leonardo Da Vinci Friedan B, Feminine Mystique GarciaMarquez, Of Love & OtherDemons GarciaMarquez,OneHundredYrs Guerrero M,ThePoison Pill Grass G, The Tin Drum Harris T, Hannibal Rising Heidegger M,House of Being Ishiguro K, Remains of The Day Johnson S,Rasselas Kafka,Metamorphosis Kosinski J, The Painted Bird Lee H,To Kill a Mockingbird McBain Ed,Gutter and Grave Murakami H,Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Nabokov V, Lolita Meyer, S, Twilight Ortega,Dehumanization of Art Poe E A, Gordon Pym Prose F, Reading Like a Writer Rushdie S,Midnight Children Sabatini R, Scaramouche Spark M, Prime of Miss Brodie Stendhal, Red and Black Sterne L,Tristram Shandy Stevenson R, Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde Stoker B, Dracula Thackeray W,History of Pendennis Tolstoy L, Anna Karenina Trollope A, Autobiography Unamuno M, Tragic Sense of Life Voltaire, Candide Webb J, Fields of Fire Wharton E, The House of Mirth Woolf V, To The Lighhouse The secrets of 'no-doze' prose: Mary Duffy's Sentence Openers Image via Wikipedia Lindsey Vonn Back to main page

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