ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Stoker - Bram Stoker Videos 11 videos

Dracula
27348 Views

What is Dracula really about? Just Count Dracula? Or is there more to it than vampires? This video addresses some major ideas in Bram Stoker’s cl...

Dracula: Father of the Modern Vampire
17557 Views

There are plenty of famous vampires that send chills up our spines, but Dracula was and still is the king of them all. No one else can touch him. N...

Dracula Part 1: Course Introduction
29641 Views

Readers may be already be familiar with Dracula, but what about the mathematician and author, Bram Stoker? And yes, he graduated with a degree in m...

See All

Dracula Part 6: The Narrative Structure 1002 Views


Share It!


Description:

Mina must be a wonderful scrapbooker if she was able to put Dracula together using nothing more than letters, journals entries, and newspaper articles. We’d let her join our mom’s scrapbooking club, but something tells us scrapbooks full of undead horror wouldn’t fit in too well with “baby’s first Christmas” and “Lucy bakes her first pie!”


Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:06

Dracula

00:09

The Narrative Structure

00:11

a la Shmoop

00:13

Take us through the narrative structure of Dracula.

00:17

How is the narrative of Dracula structured?

00:20

Yeah, so Dracula is an interesting narrative experiment.

00:23

It doesn't have an omniscient narrator

00:25

like most Victorian novels.

00:27

It consists of

00:29

a variety of epistolary documents.

00:33

So, the epistolary --

00:35

So, an epistle is a letter.

00:37

- Like a letter like, "Dear Bob..." - "Dear Bob."

00:40

"I no longer want you in my life."

00:42

- "Sincerely, Lucy." - Yeah, right.

00:44

So it consists of

00:46

journal entries, diary entries,

00:49

letter correspondence between two people,

00:53

phonographic records,

00:55

bits of newspaper.

00:58

So there's no master narrator who narrates all of this.

01:02

[ manic giggle ]

01:04

There's a...

01:06

beginning intro to the novel that says that everything here has been collated,

01:12

presumably by Mina Harker.

01:14

So it's just really all the documents relating to Dracula

01:17

that have been organized in a narrative form.

01:20

- A few recorded Skype sessions. - Yeah, basically.

01:23

If it was today, it would be Skype sessions.

01:25

[ groan ]

01:28

[ whoop ]

01:29

How is the narrative of Dracula structured?

01:35

[ angelic harmony ]

Related Videos

The Importance of Being Earnest Summary
123040 Views

They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...

The Giver Summary
105893 Views

Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...

Invisible Man (Ellison)
1818 Views

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
1257 Views

Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...

Quotes: A fool's paradise
296 Views

Find out the meaning behind "a fool's paradise."