Free English Literature Dissertations - Julia Kristeva Considers That Horror Emerges As A Result Of People’s
Julia Kristeva considers that horror emerges as a result of people’s inability to accept reality. This means that when people see a terrifying monster or a corpse, they experience shock, because they constantly suppress the idea of death, but in certain moments they suddenly collide with it. According to Kristeva, The corpse, seen without God and outside of science, is the utmost of abjection. It is death infecting life. Abject26. This is just the case with the figure of a famous monster Dracula created by Bram Stoker in 1897. The novel belongs to one of the best literary novels of horror genre and thus, it is exposed to a great variety of film adaptations, especially such a successful film as Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Coppola. In Stoker’s novel horror is embodied not in the very figure of Dracula, as he rarely appears throughout the narration, but in the very mood of this gothic literary work that uncovers the consequences of Dracula’s actions that destroy people’s identities beyond recognition. Thus, Bram Stoker is interested in the analysis of inner worlds of his characters, of their fears and psychological injuries, as they realise their changed identities or as they struggle against supernatural powers. In order to explain psychological disorders of these characters and the deepest mechanisms of their psyches, Stoker applies to hypnotism, phrenology and other methods utilised by psychologists. For instance, the writer introduces Freud’s psychological concept of father’s murder and Jung’s idea of hunting the beast.
In this regard, there is a considerable change from Stoker’s gothic interpretation of such monsters as Dracula and modern interpretation of Coppola’s film, despite the fact that the filmmaker tries to conform to this original literary work. In Victorian times people were horrified by monsters because of their suppressed desires, as Freud’s theory of repression demonstrates. Even Dracula reveals this suppression in his search of female victims and his uncontrollable sexual desires; however, contrary to human beings, Dracula receives freedom that provides him with a possibility to behave in a way he wants and to satisfy his needs. Thus, Dracula follows his desires and natural instincts; at times he even reveals a certain attraction to males, especially towards Jonathan when he drives female vampires away from this man, claiming that This man belongs to me27. For Victorian readers the figure of Dracula was terrifying, intensified by such gothic elements as an ancient castle in Transylvania, where Dracula is finally destroyed together with his three female vampires. However, as modern people have acquired freedom and have eliminated certain social restrictions, such monsters as Dracula and vampires evoke sympathy and affinity in readers and viewers.
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