| Summary: | 碩士 === 淡江大學 === 英文學系碩士班 === 102 === Abstract:
Our fascination to Gothic fiction never fades away since the 18th century, even nowadays, vampires and other immortal monsters become a new fashion in literature and art. What Gothic genre attracts audience are not only the horrifying elements from terror and death, but also the imagination from the uncertainty that gothic fiction reveals us. This thesis aims to discuss the represented aesthetics of terror and death through the imagery of vampires and undead monsters in gothic fiction. From different historical and cultural backgrounds, the anxiety and desire are read closely in the three Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, “Ligeia,” “The Fall of the House of Usher ”and“ Eleonora,” Irish novelist Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Bram Stoker''s Dracula, through psychoanalytic perspectives.
In introduction, I briefly explain the theme and theoretical frameworks of this thesis. In Ann Radcliffe’s essay “On the Supernatural in Poetry,” she characterizes the distinction between “Terror” and “Horror,” two representative features in Gothic fiction. Moreover, with the elements of Romanticism, gothic fiction became a literary genre since the 18th century. Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker, both considered as gothic writers, terror, horror and undying love are represented in their works. On the basis of their writing styles, I reconsider the similarities in their stories through psychoanalytic perspectives from Lacan’s concept of object a.
In Freud’s The Ego and the Id, he talks about concept of conflicts and anxiety by repressed thoughts. In Chapter One, I reconsider the male “unreliable” narrators’ nostalgia and impact resulted from their loss of the mysterious and undying females, which eventually lead to their self-destruction. Under the structure of Freudian concept, anxiety and self-destruction are dealt with through psychoanalysis point of view.
In Chapter Two, through Freudian concept of Anxiety in The Ego and the Id, I reconsider the repressed desire and anxiety of the late-Victorians in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. With the social, cultural and religious conversion, the late-Victorians released their repression through vampiric imagery like Dracula. Both Freud and Lacan use the term “other,” referring to the other person or order, but Lacan uses the big other to emphasize the distinction between the ego and the Other. On the scheme of the Other, I deal with the repressed desire and struggle of Mina Murray and Lucy, who suffer from the social and gender unfairness in late-Victorian Era.
In Chapter Three, the comparison between Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Coppola’s movie Bram Stoker''s Dracula is the main issue. The novel deals with terror and repression, but the film deals with love and desire. According to Lacan, desire is the leftover when “demand” is subtracted from “need,” and anxiety occurs around desire. Under this structure, the fear of masculinity in this film will be dealt with through psychoanalytic viewpoint of Lacan’s anxiety. Moreover, I reconsider the love between the Count and Mina through psychoanalytic perspective.
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