An Article Analysis of Cannon Schmitt's

"Mother Dracula: Orientalism, Degeneration, and Anglo-Irish National Subjectivity at the Fin de siècle"

by

Jack Brimhall

In her essay, Schmitt focuses on two main points. First, she makes note of Orientalism, "the West’s construction of a reified and stereotyped East," being the dominant discourse in Dracula (27). Cannon proposes that Jonathan Harker, "representative middle-class Englishman and narrator of the first section of the novel," orientalizes Eastern Europe and Count Dracula through two topics (28). First, Schmitt believes that Harker does this through the reference of time. For example, take the very first line of Chapter one in Stoker’s Dracula. It reads, "Left Munich at 8:35 p.m. on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late" (Stoker 31). Then later Harker says, "It seems to me that the further East you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?" (Stoker 33). Schmitt contends that, for Harker, the lateness of the trains reflect the frequent lack of punctuality present in the orient. This is a necessary, fundamental, and correct analysis of exactly what Orientalism truly is; the non-European stereotypes that suggested "Orientals" were inferior to people from the Western culture.

Her second topic, from the first main point, is that "the touristic appreciation for and appropriation of local color – here, in the form of food," is another familiar orientalizing focus (28). Schmitt makes note of the fact that in the same journal that Harker complains about the trains, he also praises the eastern cooking. He says, "I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called ‘paprika hendl,’ and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians" (Stoker 31). Schmitt’s point here is that "Dracula does not construct the East as a uniformly retrograde anti-West. Rather, the East is denigrated but at the same time invested with desire. The eastern inability to be punctual irritates Harker, but eastern food – this Carpathian ‘national dish" – is suitable for export to England…" (28).

Next, Schmitt ties in Derrida’s concept of Binary Opposition by calling Dracula "an epic struggle between East and West" (29). Here, she pits the East directly against the West and, at the same time, wittingly pits the "occident" against the "orient." Here, the occident being a "common ground for all Western nations" (30). This Binary Opposition of East against West, leads Schmitt to her second main point dealing with Orientalism; that the characters arrayed against the Count are "occidentalized" and surpass national differences (30).

Here, "the occident is an explicitly Western modernity that takes the form of various technologies conspicuously present throughout the novel: the Kodak camera, the telegraph, the phonograph, the typewriter, the reliable train" (30). Furthermore, "representatives of the West," embrace this seemingly sparkling technology to bring an end to Dracula (30). This superior technology and lifestyle display Orientalism at its finest.

Next, Schmitt tries to tie in Terry Eagleton’s feminist deconstruction with Orientalism, and veers of the path toward her main thesis. She contends that "through the body of woman" the West is defined. She states that the "foreign of Western femininity – and in particular that aspect of femininity known as maternity – galvanizes Western resistance" (31). While this may be true, it is touched on very briefly.

In order to solidify her analysis of Dracula, Schmitt moves to the second section of the text and makes note of other characters in the novel. First, Lucy Westerna’s very name "signals her role as bearer of occidental identity" (31). After Lucy becomes "vamped," she "appears transformed" to the other occidental characters. Schmitt believes that she looked as if from the East and less like the West. "Her sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and her purity to voluptuous wantonness (Stoker 249). In other words, she was turned from an occident to an orient.

However, this does not mean that the novel desires to replace the East with the West. According to Schmitt, the aspirations are completely opposite. "The Eastern vampire’s destruction of the maternal and the reclamation of women by way of its restoration is central to Dracula’s attempt at replacing multiple national identities with a single Western one" (32). The Count himself exhibits a keen awareness of this with his already perfect English and willingness to improve on that.

Schmitt then moves to Mina; who’s "cultural transfusion carries a double" character (37). "That Mina’s son Quincey traces his lineage back, not only to all the Westerners in the novel, but to a vampire as well" (37). This sets up Schmitt’s point that "Orientalism in Dracula functions as a denial at the level of discursive assertion of what the plot itself confirms: that between West and East, human and vampire, there is no difference" (37). But she does waver a bit later saying, "fundamental racial identities remain intact: East is East and West is West and ever more shall be so" (37).

The essay by Cannon Schmitt, although well written, seemed to be sketchy at times. Schmitt focuses her essay on Said’s Orientalism, but often looses sight of her main point as she continually creates new thesis topics. Foucault, as with other theorists, often becomes the center of attention in parts of the essay; however, to be fair, one must acknowledge the truth in that Said was greatly influenced by Foucault. Also, her connection between Orientalism and Binary Opposition was quite clever. However, while validating one point, Schmitt would change subjects, as well as theorists, and move toward a different topic. In one section of her essay, Schmitt, when talking about Orientalism "as the dominant discourse in Dracula," abruptly moved toward a "social form that Michel Foucault, in the History of Sexuality, calls ‘blood relations’" (29). I found her argument, that Jonathan Harker orientalized Eastern Europe through his narratives, to be quite interesting and accurate. However, by substantiating her argument that the East is not a retrograde anti-west, through the fact that Harker is pleased with the "eastern cuisine," is weak – at best. Her problems seem to stem from the fact that she tried to integrate five paper topics into one in under twenty pages. She made valid points, but on too many subjects.

©2000 Jack Brimhall. All Rights Reserved. Published by "The Wretched" Through Express Written Permission of the Author.