I’m so excited that we’re all reading Dracula together. As we temporarily leave our friend Jonathan in Transylvania sans shaving mirror, to catch up with Nerd Queen Mina Murray, I thought I’d volunteer a little close reading walk-through of some of the stuff we’ve already seen. I do this as someone who has 1) seen a bunch of posts saying Don’t Panic Because of Problematic™ Elements and 2) taught Dracula in both literature and history classes because I’m that kind of nerd, I mean professor. Also, I thought it might be helpful to have an illustration of how you (yes, you!) can read and find multiple meanings in a text.
If anyone replies on this post with a variation on “the curtains are blue,” that person is getting blocked. Okay? Are we sitting comfortably? Good. Let’s talk about Jonathan Harker and Orientalism. Conveniently, we can do this using just evidence from Chapters 1-2; but you’ll be able to see more of this throughout the book. The brilliant Edward Saïd came up with the term Orientalism to describe taking “the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning ‘the Orient.’” As it happens, it is super easy to illustrate how Jonathan’s perceptions of his journey participate in Orientalism.
Ex. 1, as he enters Budapest: The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.
So here is Jonathan, in the city of Budapest, which got a massive makeover just five years before, in 1892, to celebrate the 1000-year anniversary of its mythical founding. The fancy imperial architecture is fresh and shiny. Also brand new (as of 1896) is Budapest’s electrified subway, the oldest in continental Europe. But to Jonathan, he’s entering “the traditions of Turkish rule,” which have been rhetorically opposed to European liberalism since at least the late sixteenth century. Before that, it’s muddier, and early modern political realities are much more complicated than that, but I’m not going to digress here on what the history of this region actually is. What’s crucial is that, despite all this complex reality (and the subway system), for Jonathan, he crosses a bridge and BAM, rhetorical departure from the West, entry into the East, which is characterized by sensuality, superstition, and despots (who can be sensual as well as tyrannical. Remind you of anyone?)
Ex. 2, the trains: It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?
Again, we have a simple equation here. The more East you go, the less modernity and technology you have. Orientalism 101. The Count’s elaborate and generous hospitality, too, fits the stereotypes of Oriental rulers. And we’ve already talked a lot about all the peasants and their Primitive Superstitions.™ But wait!
The Eastern peasants, with their multiple local languages and their quaint costumes and their worship at roadside shrines and their reliance on physical totems like the rosary… they are rightabout the way the world of the novel works, and our friend Jonathan, as it happens, is wrong. If Jonathan has a hope of surviving, he had better start relinquishing some of his respectable certainties (who is more respectable than an English solicitor with vague allegiance to the Church of England?) in favor of acknowledging the messy realities of where he finds himself. And all of this is 1) pretty explicit in the text 2) very complex in terms of how it asks us, the readers, to consider how we think about categories like modernity, civilization, and superstition.
Ta-da! See? Lit crit is meant to be fun, actually. [Take a literature or history course if you can; we’re doing this sort of thing all the time.]
there’s also something to be said of how anti-Blackness manifests in anime and other east asian cultures (see e.g. colourism) which ties into the former’s potential nationalistic/imperialist undertones
Chinoiserie originated in France during the 18th century and shares many stylistic similarities wth the undulatingly fluid and organic rococo movement. One of the most obvious and practical parallels is that it encompassed many mediums, from interior design, furniture, garden follies to painting textiles and ceramics. Indeed chinoiserie was everywhere in Europe and was of course drenched with colonial symbolism.
As a concept this style is completely entwined with orientalist principles. It is inspired by ‘the orient’ yet makes no geographic or artistic distinctions between influences and countries. What emerges is a strange idea of China which draws upon imagery from Turkey, India, Egypt and Japan, creating an elaborate exotic fantasy, more a depiction of the designers own imagination than anything resembling reality.
The truth was outside academia in the superficial world of fashion, there was little interest in really exploring and understanding a different culture, what really mattered was following the latest trend. With the influx of Asian products like silk, porcelain and tea, via the East India Company, goods from the 'orient’ were the new symbol of power and wealth. With this mania Europe’s own cultural landscape changed and with it its visual identity.
posting a tiktok here bc she really said it all!!!
edit: i don’t have very many followers so i didn’t expect this to get any notes or anything but now it is! and it’s mostly from terfs! and i want them to know: FUCK YOU. THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. MY BLOG IS NOT FOR YOU. GET OFF.
[VD: A TikTok stitch made by user @staceyismom from user @citizenattorney1’s original video. Citizenattorney1, a white man, says, “The [Asian women] that are here are like, not cool, not nice, I rarely meet a sweet one.” It then cuts to staceyismom, an Asian woman, doing a bunch of exaggerated cutesy poses. She says mockingly, “… Hey, guys, do I seem cool, nice, and sweet enough yet? I just really want this 60-year-old guy to like me. Anyway.” (Cut to a shot where she’s holding the camera closer to her face.) “Pedophilia’s all about like power dynamics and control because it’s so easy to take advantage of like seven-year-olds. And it’s so weird because whenever white men with Asian fetishes talk about Asian women, they always talk about us like we’re babies. East Asians are known for kind of having, like, a babyface, and not having a lot of body hair, and there comes the whole submissive trope. This is also why so many Japanese and Korean people hate weebs and Koreaboos, because—” Cut to a shot where she is once again farther away from the camera and doing cutesy poses. She continues, “—because whenever white girls Asianfish, they always put on, like, this stupid little baby act where they’re like ‘Oh my God, I’m just a cute little Asian babygirl.’” (Cut back to her holding the camera.) “They play into fetishization and add on to negative stereotypes by making themselves look more Asian and then becoming a little uwu baby.” (Cut back to her posing. She addresses citizenattorney1 again:) “Just because no one wants to suck your dick here doesn’t mean you get to go to Asia and then prey on young women, just die alone like you deserve.” End VD]
[ID: A graphic of a skull and crossbones with the words “Terfs fuck off.” End ID]
