Apples

Someone who needs to tape a bright green Post-it note with the word “Think!” written on it (in bright blue gel ink) to her computer monitor does not deserve a  job.  The girl thought this as she placed the note on the bottom left corner of her screen, dangling off at a diagonal, on the verge of falling off, but just hanging on.  Only just.

She fanned through the Post-it note pad with her thumb, blowing the papery smell into her face, again.  She did this with every book, notebook, notepad, anything she could.  It came to the point where the smell of a book could conjure up a memory of another text, one she had long forgotten about.  Most of the time, it just created a certain feeling, something a book made her feel.  She could almost never place the smell to a particular title.  Not that it seemed to matter–or did it?  Would it be better if she could place every smell and sensation to a title?  Would it make her smelling compulsion less weird, more like an exact science?  What makes a compulsion excusable?

She thumbed the acid green paper again.  She’d been doing this for so long, she was beginning to smell apples.

Think, she read, think, think, think.  She shouldn’t need to remind herself to think.

How To: Make Simple Dangle Earrings

I originally wrote this post for my mom’s handmade jewelry shop, Debbie Renee Jewelry.  I just thought I’d post it here too!  Have fun!

You’re probably wondering why an online, handmade jewelry shop like Debbie Renee Jewelry would be showing you how to make some of their earrings, right?  I mean, if you can just make them yourself, why do you need us?

For starters, we love making jewelry and would like to impart to the world some of our creative skills.  Also, we figure it would be nice for our customers to understand the work that goes in to making our handmade beaded jewelry!

Here is what we’re going to show you how to make:  The Royal Purple Dangles (Buy them here!)

These handmade dangle earrings combine real shell beads, cute iridescent glass beads and metal crown charms.  While you will find this product to be pretty simple in structure, you will find as your make your own jewelry that the most difficult part is choosing what to make, from the colors to the design scheme to the supplies.

Before we start… here is what you will need:

1. Needle Nose Pliers:  This will depend on personal preference, but you can either choose needle nose pliers or flat nose pliers for this jewelry project.  The flat nose pliers are handy for closing wire and more heavy-duty tasks, but I prefer the needle nose pliers for most projects.
2. Round Nose Pliers:  The round nose pliers are ideal for jewelry making.  They help create loops when making handmade beaded jewelry.  They are necessary for almost every jewelry project you will undertake.
3. Wire Cutters:  The wire cutters will help shorten the ends of eye and head pins before you need to connect your bead to a chain, charm, etc.  These are also essential in nearly every handmade jewelry project.

Those are the tools that you will need for this project, now I will discuss the supplies you will need!

1. Eye Pins: Eye pins are used to thread beads and attach them to beaded chains, or in this case, to our crown charm.  They come in a variety of metals and colors, but always have a loop on one end.
2. Head Pins:  Head pins cannot make beaded chains like eye pins can.  They are used to create dangles or drops, such as the purple drop beads in our handmade earrings project.
3. Earring Wires:  The earring wires we will use for this project are called fish-hook wires, and are the most common type of ear hooks.
4. Beads and Charms:  For this project, you will need two focal piece charms (like our crown charms… these can also be larger and fancier beads if you prefer) two accent beads for placing above the focal piece, and two dangle beads that will complete the look.
5. Jump Rings: You may also need jump rings in your project, depending on your design.  These rings are taken apart by using two sets of pliers, such as needle nose and round nose, to pull either side of the ring apart at its opening (see picture).

All of these items can be find at any craft store, such as Joann’s, Michaels or Hobby Lobby.  Feel free to use your creative genius to pick out a great design!

Now we will begin with our project:

Step #1:

• Set aside your accent beads (that will go above your focal piece), two eye pins and your two earring wires.
• Thread one of the beads through one of the eye pins.
• Then, select an area about 1/4”-1/2” above the bead to cut the eye pin with your wire cutters.  The key to this step is to leave enough room on the eye pin above the bead to be able to make a loop with your round nose pliers.
• Once you’ve decided how much extra pin to cut off, cut the extra off (IF NEEDED).  Then, using your round nose pliers, bend the remaining eye pin above the bead into a 90 degree angle, so it is perpendicular to the rest of the pin. (The picture on the right does not include this step, but this really helps your loop be straight and even with its mirror loop at the bottom.)
• Once you’ve done this, use your round nose pliers to turn the top of your pin into a loop, just as the bottom of your eye pin looks.  When you do this, make sure you choose a spot on your pliers that is wide enough to make a perfect loop.
• Once you made the loop, be sure to leave it open a slight amount.  Then, take one of your fish-hook earring wires and place the loop at the bottom of the hook on to your open loop.  Once you’re done with that, close the loop your bead is on with either your round nose or needle nose pliers.  Make sure it is secure!
• Repeat with second bead, eye pin and ear wire.

Step #2:

• If your focal piece is a metal charm (like our crown charm), continue with this step.  If your focal piece is a large bead (or any piece that can be beaded like any normal bead) repeat step one with two eye pins and your focal piece.  Once you’ve beaded your focal piece, thread it onto the end of your accent bead (like in step one when you threaded it onto an earring wire).
• Set aside your focal pieces and some jump rings.
• In some cases, as with our crown charm, you will not need jump rings at all! Simple open up the bottom look of your accent bead using your round nose pliers.  Then, slip on your charm.  Close up the loop to complete this step.  If your charm is larger than our crown or otherwise needs a jump ring to connect it, continue on with this step.
• Open up a jump ring (as seen in the picture above) and slip on your metal charm.  Then, slip on the bottom loop that your accent bead is threaded on.  Once both are attached to the ring, close the jump ring by reversing the opening movement.  Be sure the closed ends are even!
• Your focal piece should be successfully connected!  If your charm hangs crooked, try adding another jump ring to your connection to manipulate the way it hangs.  Then, repeat with your second set of supplies.

Step #3:

• Now we’re going to use the skill we learned in step one, but substituting a head pin for an eye pin.
• Set aside two head pins and your dangle beads.
• Take one head pin and thread your bead on.
• Next, proceed as in step one by trimming, bending, and making a loop with the head pin.
• Attach your dangle to your metal charm.  You may need to use a jump ring for this!
• Next, close the loop, secure it with some pressure from your needle nose pliers, and you’re done!

Now that you’ve learned this simple style of earrings, you can go on to create more custom designs.  Stay tuned for more tips on making jewelry from Debbie Renee.

ORIGINALLY POSTED HERE:  How To: Make Simple Dangle Earrings

i just can’t ever ever forgive you for this one last time

i see your face, your wretched face

painted on the backs of my eyelids

swimming before my eyes, near sleep

always near sleep

Luminous Detail

9/1/09

AUGUST, 2009: I’m planning for the new school semester, hoping it’s my second-to-last.  After checking my university account to see if our required texts were posted for the fifteenth time in the last week, I was surprised to see that they were in fact posted, and one of my courses required six different novels or short story collections.  I decided to check these out at the local library and get ahead before I started my full-time work / full-time school, semester of death.

Among the items I checked out were, Drown, by Junot Diaz, Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, Play it as it Lays, by Joan Didion, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie, and Libra, by Don Delillo.  After bringing them home and setting them down with a satisfying thud on my coffee table, I began to rifle randomly through the texts, wondering which of them I should read first.  I picked up Solomon, but to now avail.  I read maybe seven pages.  Next, I read through Tonto, and got through page 60 before deciding I needed a change of scenery.  I picked up Play it as it Lays.  I just couldn’t put it down again, until, feeling contemplative and a little disturbed, I set it back down again on top of the pile, finished, beginning to end.

I was able to read the entire novel in about 2.5 hours or less.  Even now, thinking back on the work itself, it seems a bit of a blur.  I cannot recall sharp details, only vague notions of movement and emotion, which is perhaps quite fitting to the novel and the way Didion would have wanted it to be.  I say this because the form of the novel is disjointed, a bit random and not a little haunting.  The emptiness.  It must be the emptiness that affects me so.  And Mariah (mar-eye-uh).  What happened to the modernly-tragic heroin?  Everything and nothing.

I loved it in spite of itself.

Total Geek-a-Zoid?

Geek-a-Zoid:  Term used by my husband and I when either party demonstrates characteristics so ultimately dorky that no other layman’s term will do.

Geek-a-Zoid.  I was dubbed a Geek-a-Zoid yesterday for admitting that I like the movie “Reign of Fire.”  My husband laughed when he saw the first dragon appear, after I convinced him to watch it with me when it came on AMC.  Apparently, Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale fighting dragons in a post-apocalyptic world classifies as a dorky kind of movie.  Still… I like this movie!  I don’t know why.  The dragons are cool, okay?!

Am I totally alone here?  I know this is not a very well-known film, but does that make me a geek-a-zoid?

Thankful

New job, new office, new chair, new desk, and most importantly… NEW VIEW!

In an amazing stroke of luck, I managed to start my job the exact time that another person decided to switch seats… leaving me with the most amazing view in the whole place!  A great corner desk with 2 giant windows in front of me, overlooking beautiful Utah Valley.  I am so lucky!

Yay for me!

Ode to a Tweet

A recent statistical report came out with the startling information that Twitter usage has grown 1300% since last year!  As evidence to this fact, I was oblivious to the social networking site 6 months ago but am now a frequent user.  But why is there this sudden jump in popularity?  Why is Twitter attracting users that reject Facebook and Myspace as tawdry child’s play?

The answer is in the tweets.  Just look at them.  Browse around, view the trending topics.  Twitter allows millions of different users to say whatever is on their mind at the time, no matter how mundane.  Twitter allows people to advertise their businesses and blogs.

On another note, Twitter also functions like the real world.  Unlike Facebook, many political leaders and celebrities use Twitter.  Like real life, Twitter is also in part a popularity contest: The more followers you have, the better you are.

In a nutshell, Twitter is a miniature version of our reality.  In praise of this great social networking tool, I hereby dedicate this ode:

Ahh… Twitter.  Without you, people would have no one to talk to about their lunch.  Without you, people would not be able to share their philosophical insights on pizza toppings.  Without you, millions of blogs would go unread.  Without you, inspirational quotes from great leaders would be forgotten.  Without you, I would have never discovered Etsy.  Without you, hundreds of small online businesses would have zero web traffic.  Without you, Conan O’Brien would not be funny.  Without you, the Iranian people’s efforts to expose and correct corruption in their nation would be silenced forever.  And most importantly, without you Twitter, the world would have been wrongly deprived of this beautiful ode!

Dracula Comes to Hogwarts

Alyssa Udall

English 2600

Critical Introduction to Literature

Utah Valley University

April 26, 2009

Philip Nel, in his 2005 article titled, “Literature, Marketing and Harry Potter,” outlines the immense popularity of J.K. Rowling’s series of novels with a description of a political cartoon by Dan Wasserman:

In July 2000, The Boston Globe‘s Dan Wasserman drew a cartoon that predicted what would become… [of] Harry Potter’s literary legacy. Several months ahead of the beginning of the Harry Potter marketing bonanza and more than a year before the release of the first Potter film, Wasserman’s cartoon shows two children walking down a city street. One child holds a Harry Potter novel; and everywhere they look, advertisements announce all variety of Harry merchandise. A shop’s sign offers “Harry Wares.” A restaurant offers “Potter Pies,” “Wizard Fries,” and “Happy Harry Meals!” An eyeglass store proclaims “Just In-Harry Frames.” A poster (located, perhaps appropriately, on a trash can) invites them to “Visit the Harry Potter Theme Park.” And a store’s display window reminds passers-by that “We carry a full line of Harry schlock!”, including robes, wands, and “muggle mugs.” One child says to the other, “I can already see how it ends-the dark forces win.” (Wasserman). In July 2000, such a cartoon was a satirical comment on the culture industry. Less than two years later, it became merely descriptive.

The development of the Harry Potter novels, their characters, and their entire world is hardly noticeable in 2009 where pop culture paraphernalia is not out of the ordinary, but ordinary.  The Twilight novels by Stephenie Meyer, the Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana, and other currently relevant trends come to mind as comparable to the popularity of Harry Potter.  However, as one looks back at literary greats of the past, one might wonder whether or not their entrance into society today would provoke such pandemonium.  The reintroduction of certain greats like Pride and Prejudice into modern culture via film adaptations certainly makes the proposal probable.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is by no means popular at all today.  Like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the work’s characters and general nature are well known, but the substance of their actual text is virtually neglected.  For example, nearly every literate being on the planet is aware of the villains Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster, yet who knows who Jonathan Harker is?  How many people are keenly unaware that Frankenstein is not the monster, but its creator?  Despite this general miss-portrayal of the actual story of Dracula, its villain and basic theme are very well represented in popular culture by films, novels, and general knowledge.

Because Dracula is not as popularly read in today’s society as the Harry Potter novels are, the media representations and general knowledge of the story are skewed.  However, both reactions show the effect that gothic fantasy and a bit of magic can have on a population.  The fantastically popular Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling, and the notorious Dracula, by Bram Stoker, are both monstrously well-known and extremely similar in device and theme.

A very important development in both Harry Potter and Dracula is the very otherworldliness of the tales.  Just as Jonathan Harker scarcely believes the supernatural elements of Count Dracula’s character while cooped up in his castle, a young Harry Potter can hardly believe the half-giant Hagrid’s words when he tells him: “Harry — yer a wizard” (Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone 39).  Although there is an obvious contrast, Jonathan cannot believe the atrocity of Dracula’s being and Harry cannot believe his joy and hearing that he could do magic, the overarching theme of fantasy is the same.

An important notion in both the series of Harry Potter novels and Dracula is the significance of scars.  Lord Voldemort, the villain in the J.K. Rowling’s saga, attempts to vanquish Harry when he was just a baby, but fails, giving Harry a lighting-shaped scar on his forehead.  Mina Harker, in Dracula, is bitten by the Count, and receives a scar on her forehead when Van Helsing attempts to bless her with a piece of the “Sacred Wafer” (Stoker 295).  However, this action “had burned the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal” (Stoker 295).  Both Harry and Mina’s scars are evidence of their connection with evil.  Harry realizes in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that he was able to see, periodically, into Lord Voldemort’s mind.  This is explained by Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: “… the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him… the killing curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul was blasted apart from the whole… part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which gives him… a connection with Lord Voldemort’s mind that he has never understood” (Rowling 686).   This also occurs with Mina, as she is able to tell Van Helsing and the others where Dracula is and what his plans are.  Another factor of this connection between the works is that both Voldemort and Dracula are ignorant of the fact that their victims can see into their mind, and are using the information acquired therein to destroy them.  The extremely sharp parallels between the use of scars in both Harry Potter and Dracula are uncanny.

One of the most convincing parallels between the Harry Potter novels and Dracula is the similar nature of the works’ villains: Lord Voldemort and Dracula (respectively).  The physical descriptions of both villains are strikingly similar: both have red eyes, wide nostrils and a chalky white pallor.  Another interesting connection is their names: Lord Voldemort and Count Dracula.  Both villains create an air of aristocracy about them by having their followers address them as “Count” and “Lord.”  In fact, here there exists an interesting sub-parallel between the characters of Wormtail in Harry Potter and Renfield in Dracula. Both characters are seriously devoted to their masters: Wormtail’s “Yes, m-my Lord,” (Rowling, Deathly Hallows 7) is strangely prevalent in Renfield’s “I am here to do Your bidding Master” (Stoker 121).  The evident evil of both Dracula and Voldemort is mysterious to the “good” forces in the works.  Just as Van Helsing and crew attempt to understand the inexplicable power of the Count, Dumbledore tries to work out Voldemort’s state of being, stating that “Lord Voldemort has seemed to grow less human with the passing years, and the transformation he has undergone seemed to me to be only explicable if his soul was mutilated beyond the realms of what we might call ‘usual evil’…” (Rowling, Half-Blood Prince 502).  Dracula once tells Jonathan Harker, “I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters… I love the shade and the shadow” (Stoker 48).  This overall darkness is also reflected in Voldemort’s ability to “drain peace, home, and happiness out of the air around” (Pennington 83).

Just as Dracula takes the blood of countless innocents, including Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker in the novel, Voldemort takes Harry’s blood.  Voldemort does this in order to complete a complex rebirth, which Dumbledore explains to Harry: “He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it… believing it would strengthen him” (Rowling, Deathly Hallows 709-710).  Just as Dracula feasts on human blood in order to remain immortal, Voldemort takes the blood of Harry, his nemesis, in order to become more powerful.  In fact, the idea of immortality is extremely important to both villains.  As Dracula is undead and immortal, so Voldemort seeks to be so.  At a very young age, Dumbledore and Harry discover that Voldemort “was doing all that he could to find out how to become immortal” (Rowling, Half-Blood Prince 499).  Even as Dracula keeps his immortal life by bringing others into that undead state, Voldemort murders vast amounts of people in order to become so as well, again going beyond “usual evil” (Rowling, Half-Blood Prince 502).

Another important aspect of the immortality of Voldemort and Dracula is their respective objects that enable their perpetual life: horcruxes for Voldemort and boxes of earth for Dracula.   A horcrux is an extremely dark object that Voldemort uses to store part of his soul in, just in case the soul in his body is every destroyed.  However, just one horcrux was not enough for Voldemort, as he wished to go “further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality,” so he created seven (Rowling, Half-Blood Prince 501).  Therefore, in order to vanquish Lord Voldemort, Harry and his companions must first destroy his seven horcruxes before going after the demon himself.  This plot device is scarily familiar to those who have read Dracula.  Dracula sleeps in earthen crates filled with dirt from his homeland, Transylvania.  In order to confront Dracula, Van Helsing and company must first sterilize or otherwise destroy his boxed fortresses, leading them on a gripping chase to discover every crate.  The fact that the “good” forces must embark on a chase for dark objects that prolong the villain’s life in order to overcome “evil”, provides an almost shocking consistency between Harry Potter and Dracula.

Despite their overwhelmingly different contexts, Harry Potter and Dracula have both grown into somewhat of modern myth.  The fact that both works can impact modern society to the degree that they have is a telling sign of literature’s longevity and ability to work its magic on culture.  Although Dracula did not create the intense following and creation of merchandise as Harry Potter has, the name of the evil vampire himself has become part of humanity’s general vocabulary.  The effects of the Harry Potter novels and Stoker’s Dracula on culture, and culture’s effect on them, display the powerful ability of literature to shape society.

Works Cited

Nel, Philip.  “Is There a Text in This Advertising Campaign?: Literature, Marketing and Harry Potter.”  The Lion and the Unicorn 29 (2005): 236-267.

Pennington, John.  “From Elfland to Hogwarts, or the Aesthetic Trouble with Harry Potter.”  The Lion and the Unicorn 26 (2002): 78-97.

Rowling, J.K.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  New York: Scholastic Inc, 2007.

—.  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  New York: Scholastic Inc, 2005.

—.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  New York: A.A. Levine Books, 1998.

Stoker, Bram.  Dracula.  Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002.

Walk Out The Beast: Dracula and Mr. Hyde

English 3655: Victorian British Literature

Utah Valley University

April 25, 2009

“… unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere modernity cannot kill.”

Jonathan Harker from Dracula (Stoker 60)

Jonathan Harker, the modern Englishman, sent to Transylvania on business, writes this shorthand note down in his diary at Castle Dracula, shortly before he would encounter three female vampires who thirst for his blood.  Harker’s remarks, however, would eventually form one of the most dominant themes in Dracula.

Two fin de siècle works that question Victorian ideals are Dracula (1897), by Bram Stoker, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), by Robert Louis Stevenson.  The darkness surrounding late-nineteenth century England certainly permeates these works.  Both works express not only a renewed sense of the Gothic but a doubt in the effectiveness of modern science.  Although the works Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde differ in many ways, both exhibit villains that are primitive creatures of excess and that cannot be vanquished by modern scientific means.

The phrase fin de siècle, meaning “end of the century” in literal terms, was much more than a mere description of the decline of the Victorian age, but a form of ideology.  Such writers as Wilde, Stephenson, and Stoker essentially “helped free English literature from moral inhibition” (Damrosch 2061) through work that was called decadent for its abandonment of, or rebellion against, moral and sexual mores of the day.  Such decadence brought with it a renewal of Gothic themes in literature, of which “darkness was the controlling theme” (Elbarbary 115).  Another key element of “fin de siècle Gothic” that can certainly be seen in Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is “its questioning power of late-nineteenth century positivist science and its appropriation of the discourse of degeneration” (Clausson 63).  This “degeneration” was described by Max Nordau in his 1892 Degeneration as “a morbid deviation from an original type” (Stoker 391; his italics).  This definition was used by many late-nineteenth century scientists to develop a method of discovering criminals by physical deformities, for degenerates could be either physically or mentally degenerate, and “Vice, crime and madness are only distinguished from each other by social prejudices” (Stoker 392).  The social upheaval of fin de siècle literature was fueled by a renewed interest in the dark and occult, as well as a fascination with criminals, madman and monsters.

This late-nineteenth century England’s discovery of the term “degenerate” was very important, because it allowed society to declare people to be innately proposed to crime from birth.  This also implies that criminals could not be “cured” by science, but were innately delinquent.  This sense of degeneration as an irreversible human trait which certain individuals were predisposed towards is evident in both villains of Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Because this defect in character and body could not be remedied, the ineffectiveness of science against these enemies is brutally evident.

Dracula and Mr. Hyde lack both a “sense of morality and of right and wrong,” which “constitute the chief intellectual stigmata of degenerates,” (Stoker 393).   For Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde’s lack of morality and social customs frees him from the strain of Victorian life.  It also, however, makes Hyde extremely hard to control and even more difficult to catch.  Dracula, also fits the description of a degenerate, as he also has “the irresistible craving for evil for its own sake, the desire not only to extinguish life in the victim, but to mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh, and drink its blood,” (Stoker 388).  The similarities to the Count in that phrase are painfully evident.  He, however, takes the “evil” even further by dooming his victims to his damned, undead state.  Nordau calls this inability or unwillingness to uphold basic social mores as “moral insanity” (qtd. in Stoker 393).  This “moral insanity” makes Dracula and Mr. Hyde degenerates, because “for them there exists no law, no decency, no modesty” (Stoker 393).  Unfortunately, this makes the capture and defense against such enemies impossible, for those trying to stop them still conform to the standards of society which the Count and Mr. Hyde so readily ignore.

Mr. Hyde’s physical deformities also play a role in his degeneracy.  Dr. Jekyll, in writing his confession, describes a surprising side effect upon his first transformation into Edward Hyde: “I stretched out my hands exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost my stature” (Stephenson 44).  This loss of height or shrinking of Dr. Jekyll as he turns into Hyde are not the only physical changes, for every onlooker notes “the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity” (Stephenson 17) of him, and Jekyll himself states that “evil… had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay” (Stephenson 45).  This connection between evil and physical deformity is another characteristic of degeneration.  Indeed, Cesare Lombroso in Criminal Man (1911), states that physical deformities were consistently “found in criminals, savages and apes” (qtd. in Stoker 388).  Therefore, Hyde’s physical flaws are both evidence to his degenerate nature and his primitiveness.

The monster villains of Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are both described as primitive, yet in completely separate ways.  Dracula, the notoriously evil vampire himself, is hundreds of years old, and although he is knowledgeable of many aspects of the modern world, he surrounds himself by antiquity.  For example, his mansion, Count Dracula, is an extremely secluded location that requires multiple means of transportation to reach.  Jonathan Harker remarked upon his journey to Castle Dracula, that “every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians” (Stoker 28).  Harker, a modern Englishman, visiting a less-developed Eastern country, Transylvania, is instantly surrounded by peasantry who firmly believe in these superstitions.  Strong belief in superstition is often associated with more primitive cultures, as modern science frequently dispels such beliefs which are not founded therein.  Another aspect of the Eastern primitiveness as described in the novel is the religious fervor of the local people, which Harker describes as “the self-surrender of devotion” in which the people “seemed to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world” (Stoker 33).  Because Dracula is surrounded by such a troglodytic setting, he too is seen as such.

Stephenson creates a “Victorian gentleman-scientist” that accidentally “regresses to an ape-like primitive” (Clausson 64), who is the principle villain in the novella.  This villain is Mr. Hyde, who is described as a literal animal due to his primitive behavior and loss of human qualities that regulate societies.  Hyde’s primitiveness is characterized by many instances in which characters refer to him as “ape-like”.  This animalistic quality makes Hyde both formidable and dangerous, for he neither holds himself accountable for his actions nor allows the law to hold him accountable.  Jekyll’s creation, therefore, is close to invincible, due to his lack of human qualities that quarantine excess and his ability to hide beneath Jekyll’s gentlemanly glow.

Count Dracula’s primitive, degenerate nature makes him immune to the weapons of modern science.  Jonathan Harker, imprisoned within Count Dracula’s castle, begins to notice the Count’s curious abilities: his lack of reflection in the mirror, his mysterious appearances and disappearances, and his reptile-like scaling of the castle walls.  Indeed, he first abandons Western reason by questioning Dracula’s basic makeup: “What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of a man?” (Stoker 58).  This question did not come easily to Harker, a modern gentleman suddenly surrounded by all matters of antiquity and other-worldliness.  After strange encounters with the Count, Harker would remark that “he must have been mad for the time” (Stoker 51), for he would not abandon what he has come to know as “reason” so readily.  In fact, Harker does not believe all that he experiences in Castle Dracula until his encounters are confirmed by Van Helsing, upon his reading of the diary Harker kept.  Therefore, Dracula’s very existence defies Western science, as no character was readily able to except the existence of such a creature.

Upon the recognition of Dracula’s nature, Harker, Van Helsing, and others in that league result to methods that rely on religion as the main weapon against the vampire.  Their previous attempts using modern science failed, such as Lucy Westenra’s blood transfusions, locks on doors, and the crew of the Demeter ship, who attempt to kill Dracula only to find that their “knife went through It, empty as the air” (Stoker 105).  In fact, is seems as if “Science is utterly humbled in the pursuit of Dracula” (Clausen 245).  Van Helsing leads the defense against Dracula, using key elements from the Catholic religion to tackle the vampire.  He describes the nature of their quest, stating: “All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions… these things… are everything” (Stoker 243).  Despite the fact that many members of the league belong to the Church of England, classically in conflict with the Catholic church, they readily accept Van Helsing’s plan.  It is a desperate situation indeed when “in order to defeat Dracula, four education western European men… violate all their modern habits of mind by adopting attitudes and rituals that are not merely Christian but in most cases explicitly Catholic and medieval” (Clausen 246).  The use of crucifixes and the sacred host turn the league’s effort to defeat Dracula into a sort of religious mission.  Van Helsing explains their goal: “Thus are we ministers of God’s own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him” (Stoker 316).  When modern science fails to serve its purpose, Harker, Van Helsing and company venture into superstition and primitive methods to rid the world of Count Dracula.

As the novella progresses, Mr. Hyde can only be controlled by sheer willpower on the part of Dr. Jekyll, as his scientific methods become ineffective.  Throughout Jekyll’s experience with Hyde, he soon realizes, “with an almost morbid sense of shame,” (Stephenson 42), that he must resist the urge to make the transformation, in order to avoid such instances as the death of Sir Danvers.  However, as he “sought with tears and prayers” to deny Hyde his appearance, Jekyll explains his eventual downfall: “it was as an ordinary secret sinner that I at last fell before the assaults of temptation” (Stephenson 50).  As a result, the draughts and potions which the doctor uses to assimilate the transformation become useless.  Jekyll explains the phenomenon, noting: “Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened as Edward Hyde” (Stephenson 47).  Mr. Hyde grows in power as Jekyll continually transfers his consciousness to him, rendering science’s remedies ineffective.  The only defense against Hyde’s rampage is “Christian humility,” and as Jekyll’s “predicaments become clear to himself, he turns increasing back toward religion,” (Clausen 244), much as the characters in Dracula do when science fails them.

Late Victorian works tended to reflect a questioning disposition, as the great English Empire began to wane and the glory of the Industrial Revolution faded.  This curious disposition was caused by a general fear that “intellectual or evolutionary advance might all too easily turn into its opposite, regression” (Clausson 242).  As a result, literary works aimed to “create a pure art of flawless formal design, divorces from moral concerns but open to hitherto unexplored subject matter” (Damrosch 2059).  This idea is reflected in the primitive nature of the principle villains in Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  As the main characters are attacked by troglodytic beings, they must stray from their scientific Victorian views in order to counteract their blows.  This transition was not done easily, for Van Helsing notes: “A year ago which of us would have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific, skeptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century?” (Stoker 243).

Works Cited

Clausen, Christopher.  “From the Mountain to the Monsters.”  Sewanee Review 115.2 (2007): 239-250.

Clausson, Nils.  “Degeneration, Fin-de-Siècle Gothic, and the Science of Detection: Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and the Emergence of the Modern Detective Story.”  Journal of Narrative Theory 35.1 (2005): 60-87.

Damrosch, David.  The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2B:  The Victorian Age. New York:  Pearson Education, 2004.

Elbarbary, Samir.  “Heart of Darkness and Lat-Victorian Fascination with the Primitive and the Double.”  Twentieth Century Literature 39.1 (1993): 113-128.

Stephenson, Robert Louis.  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  New York: Dover Publications, 1991.

Stoker, Bram.  Dracula.  Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002.

How to Get Free Pizza from Domino’s

“We’re getting pizza tonight right?  Before the Jazz game comes on?”

I had been craving pizza all day long.  I don’t know why, but when I set my mind on something that I want to eat… I must eat it!

“Okay, so the game starts at seven, so we better order the pizza by 6:30, and it’s 4:30 now, so just two and half hours until pizza!”

My husband shakes my head at my remarks, wondering why I am so excited for this pizza.

6:30 PM: I call the local Domino’s Pizza and order a large pepperoni.  We have this wonderful thing called a Starving Student Card that gives us a large, one-topping pizza for $4.99.  So, we’re already getting a great deal.

6:49 PM: We pick up the pizza for $4.99.  I get in the passenger seat of the car, and John (husband) asks, “Does it look good?”  I say, “Yeah… well it smells good.  I didn’t look at it.”  We drive away.

6:55 PM: We get home from picking up the pizza.  I’ve set up plates, napkins, cups and soda on the table.  I am SO prepared for the feast.  We say a prayer to bless the food, and John opens the box.

It’s cheese.

“Did you not check it when we got it? –It’s okay,” John says.  I can tell he’s trying not to be upset.

What did I do?  I cried.  Literally, cried.  Tears rolling down my face I say, “I’m sorry! I’m so mad that it’s just cheese… what do we do?  Do we call them back?  I’ll call them back!”

John feels bad for me and hugs me, laughing a little.  I’m laughing a little too… why should an absence of a condiment move me to tears?  I have no answer.  I guess I was just really looking forward to the meal.

6:58 PM: I call Domino’s back.  They are very sorry that they got our order wrong, and the next pizza we order is completely free.  Whichever size or kind we want.  Awesome.  We’re pretty satisfied with that.  We eat our cheese only pizza, which was actually pretty good for just cheese, and watch the game.

A couple of days later we order a large BBQ Chicken pizza… free of charge.  Awesome!  It was delicious.

Today, we call in to order a large pepperoni for $4.99, and the nice lady on the phone informs me that we have a free pizza on our account.  Hmm… interesting development to the story.

“Umm, I think we’ve already used that free pizza,” I tell her.  Honesty is the best policy!

“Well,” the girl tells me, “It’s still on your account, so you can go ahead and use that today.”

Awesome.  We get a large Hawaiian on thin crust instead of pepperoni.

Moral of the story… it pays to complain.

AND… don’t check the box!