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The Meaning of Dracula’s Castle

October 20, 2019

academia, criticism, Dracula, Gothic, reality, Victorian, vision

Note: the following article on the meaning of Dracula’s castle is a modified excerpt from my article “Philosophical Idealism and Vision in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Photographs, Sight, and Remote Viewing as Tools of Reality Rendering”. Word and Image: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches. Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2014.

Feel free to also take a look at my other academic publications.

The importance and meaning of Dracula’s castle in the novel becomes evident for a variety of reasons. In general temporal terms, the castle of Dracula serves as a generic reminder and connects with the Gothic tradition.

Examining the text itself, the novel essentially begins and ends with the castle. In fact, the novel ends in the castle twice: the first time in Mina’s last journal entry, describing the seeming destruction of Count Dracula in his home ground (D, 401) and the second in Jonathan Harker’s note, revealing their pilgrimage of sorts to the very same place seven years later (D, 402).

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How Speaking Another Language Can Improve Your Writing

October 15, 2019

Writing

experience, experiencing, foreign, language, writing

Speaking another language has always been something I’m good at. My native language is not English; Greek isProblematically for the concept of "native language", I often feel unable to come up with a word in Greek that I know perfectly well in English—I had to look up Arrogant yesterday. Needless to say, the issue is far more pronounced with terminology. I feel entirely unable to express myself in Greek when it comes to, say, the Gothic (my academic field of expertise), or aviation (one of my interests). Put simply, I have no idea what Non-normative Uncanny Other or Compressor Stall are in Greek.. I am also fluent in Finnish and, having lived in Italy, I do understand Italian fairly well. I’m also currently learning Japanese, just for fun.

Or then again, maybe not.

Learning a new language can and should be fun, but if the expression “just for fun” implies only a casual process lacking any true significance, let me dispel that impression.

Speaking a new language, besides offering a great way to tickle your brain and expand your horizons, can be a vital tool for a writer. Writing is about experiencing the world, attempting to understand it, and offering an alternative reality; a new way of thinking. Speaking another language helps the writer by occupying each and every part of this chain.

Speaking another language can help you experience the world in ways your native language might not. This way, it can offer you additional tools for understanding your surrounding environment, at the same time providing you with inspiration to alter it.

How, you might ask. It’s a fair question. So, let’s take a closer look at the intricacies of speaking another language and, particularly, how speaking another language can help you become a better writer.

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Review of Interpreter of Maladies

October 8, 2019

Book Review, Criticism

book, fiction, India, Indian, literature, review

Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, is a collection of short stories all featuring characters from the Indian subcontinent. However, this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Ultimately, Interpreter of Maladies is a story about humanity; what it means to be a stranger in a strange land or – more subtly – a stranger in your own soul.

Indeed, what Lahiri’s prose reveals is not the differences between the cultures of India and Britain or the Unites States. After all, most of the characters are Indian expats in the West. Rather, the true focus is the uncanny, outright disturbing degree of similarity between people with vastly different backgrounds.

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