"No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to his heart the morning can be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth. I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon me" (52).
I chose this passage partly because it was ironic and partly because it exemplifies the very literary device-filled nature of Jonathan's writing (or Stoker's...I refer to it as Jonathan's just because the novel is written in the form of his journal entries).
Throughout the novel so far, Jonathan effectively creates mood using diction, repetition of strong words and phrases, and numerous types of figurative language. This passage is full of figurative language, such as the simile (comparing fear to "vaporous garment"), biblical allusion ("dove from the ark"), and metaphor ("courage of the day"). Jonathan is attempting to describe the lightness and peace of the morning, and effectively does so by using words such as "sweet," "dear," "sun," "great," to describe his happiness. He also uses words like "lighted," "vaporous," and "dissolved" to describe morning's lightness...both in the literal sense (daylight) and in the figurative, happy sense.
This passage strikes me as ironic because the night before, Jonathan was in a horrifying situation, fearing for his life, and everything was described so darkly. Now all of a sudden, he wakes up the next morning and feels great. It shows how night and day, dark and light bring such different feelings to him. I was also finding Jonathan a bit stupid just because he thinks everything's okay because it's light out, and he's relishing in his comfort, but he's not realizing that the night is also coming and that everything bad that's been happening to him has been happening at night, and unfortunately morning's light is only a temporary comfort.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Dracula - Blog #1
"I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me; but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to the dawn or at the turn of the tide; anyone who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it." (29-30)
This passage grabbed my attention as I was reading Chapter 2 of Dracula. In this scene, the main character, Jonathan Harker, is alone in his room while staying at Dracula's castle. The novel so far has a very chilling and creepy mood which is created by the diction and abundant visual and auditory imagery. This passage stood out because it seemed particularly chilling and foreboding. The use of the word "chill" at the beginning expresses Harker's fear and uneasiness that he's feeling during his stay in Dracula's castle. The description of feeling a chill before dawn seems ironic because "dawn" has such a postive connotation--bringing light, warmth, and comfort--while "chill" has exactly the opposite connotation. When Harker connects this chilling sensation to death, it gives the passage an even more foreboding mood. I feel like this passage could be possibly foreshadowing a death at the break of dawn later on in the novel because the passage in general seemed a bit too deep in comparison to the more narrative way Harker writes before and after this passage.
***Total side note, but I connected this to the title of the fourth Twilight novel entitled Breaking Dawn. I have yet to read it, but the fact that the title of that book (which is about vampires) appears to be an allusion to Dracula could indicate that there's an important reason why Stephanie Meyer chose "Breaking Dawn" as the title of her novel. Something about dawn in Dracula might be important. In addition, the word "twilight" was used repeatedly throughout the beginning of Dracula (and I connected that to Meyer's novel Twilight), which makes me wonder if twilight and dawn will have some significance throughout Dracula.
This passage grabbed my attention as I was reading Chapter 2 of Dracula. In this scene, the main character, Jonathan Harker, is alone in his room while staying at Dracula's castle. The novel so far has a very chilling and creepy mood which is created by the diction and abundant visual and auditory imagery. This passage stood out because it seemed particularly chilling and foreboding. The use of the word "chill" at the beginning expresses Harker's fear and uneasiness that he's feeling during his stay in Dracula's castle. The description of feeling a chill before dawn seems ironic because "dawn" has such a postive connotation--bringing light, warmth, and comfort--while "chill" has exactly the opposite connotation. When Harker connects this chilling sensation to death, it gives the passage an even more foreboding mood. I feel like this passage could be possibly foreshadowing a death at the break of dawn later on in the novel because the passage in general seemed a bit too deep in comparison to the more narrative way Harker writes before and after this passage.
***Total side note, but I connected this to the title of the fourth Twilight novel entitled Breaking Dawn. I have yet to read it, but the fact that the title of that book (which is about vampires) appears to be an allusion to Dracula could indicate that there's an important reason why Stephanie Meyer chose "Breaking Dawn" as the title of her novel. Something about dawn in Dracula might be important. In addition, the word "twilight" was used repeatedly throughout the beginning of Dracula (and I connected that to Meyer's novel Twilight), which makes me wonder if twilight and dawn will have some significance throughout Dracula.
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