'Madness' and 'Sleep' in Dracula

We're mind-mapping 'sleep' in Dracula for next week but just to blog about what we did in lesson...we read about and discussed ideas regarding 'madness' and 'sleep' within Dracula.

Madness
We learnt about mental illness and madness within the context of the Victorian era and how views were changing - it seems during the 19th Century people were gradually beginning to recognise madness as a mental affliction as opposed to a physical one (thanks to developments within the fields of science and psychology) and something that can be cured and helped...in this sense, society was becoming more tolerant of those classed as 'mad', searching for the reasons why and looking for solutions to the problems as opposed to simply imprisoning those branded 'mad' and making sure they're cut off from society...interestingly, those considered to be mad were confined so as to prevent them from causing any harm to the public and society however the things we discussed last lesson got me wondering whether it was society that causes the madness in the first place...external factors as opposed to internal, mental ones...as we talked about, Renfield in many ways has the mind of a sane mad (as we see in Chapter 18 as he speaks with great clarity, perception and objectivity of his own madness) and is, perhaps, deemed mad because he is being controlled and made to do things against social norms because, for some reason, Dracula is his master. Similiarly, reading the article Mr Francis posted a link to about madness in relation to women - some people, especially in Victorian times when there was a very strict social and moral code, people may have been considered mad simply because they failed to comply with social norms - Dracula, for example, follows his natural instinct in drinking blood and is considered 'mad' and a 'supernatural being' because he goes against what is generally accepted as right. Seward can be seen as representing the changes in opinion towards those considered 'mad' as (starting in Chapter 5) we see him attempting to explain why his patients (namely Renfield) have become 'mad'...reflects, to an extent, the Victorian obsession with advancing and improving...strange mix in Victorian socirty between this obsession and the fixation on simply covering things up (but I won't waffle on about facades again...)

Sleep
As I said, I won't go into this in too much detail as we're mind-mapping on the topic for next week. Basically, we discussed the importance of sleep in Dracula...with the themes of asleep/awake, dead/alive a key elements of gothic literature. We discussed and read about how sleep is a time when the mind is more 'lax' and 'unrestricted' and isn't filtered...meaning it goes with instinct as opposed to complying with social codes (no sense of propriety in sleep) which ties in with what I was saying about madness. Is to be mad simply to do things that are socially unusual or unacceptable? We also touched upon ideas regarding sleep as a mystical state, as a dark state (associated with night...and the time of Dracula) and Freud's ideas and theories on sleep being another level of consciousness.

Finally...seeing as Rosie's started a trend of YouTube video links on her blogs...and tying in with the idea of talking to yourself being the first sign of madness (see...it is relevant!), here's the real Count talking to himself, rifling through Jonathan Harker's letters (he says he wrote them himself...yeah right...he's just plain nosey) and calling his bats 'my children'. My personal favourite moment is the Count's joke about the mirror...it's a terrible joke really but terrible enough for it to be funny. Well...I laughed anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xunXQPEcoHM&feature=related