"There are Kisses for Us All": The Undying Appeal of the Vampire Narrative
MA Thesis, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Bram
Stoker's Dracula (1897) is the most enduring depiction of the vampire in all of fiction, for Stoker created a compelling character that continues to fascinate modern audiences. Anne Rice resurrected the vampire with her fresh perspective in Interview with Vampire (1976), which became an instant cult classic and, along with its sequels, soon earned a mainstream readership. Vampire literature drew Victorian and ancient audiences with equal fervor, and continues to enchant present day readers. That such seemingly disparate cultures converge in their interest in vampires suggest that vampire fiction must be accomplishing some important cultural work that transcends any particular historical moment. Focussing on Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, two of the seminal vampire treatments up to the present day, this thesis traces the manner in which each author crafted novels that communicate so well with so many.
“'But One Expects That': Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and the Shifting Light of Scholarship.”
PMLA (Publication of the Modern Language Association)
When feminist critics of the 1970s rediscovered "The Yellow Wallpaper," they constructed an interpretation of the story and the history of its publication and reception. Subsequent critics lent authority to an emerging set of accepted "facts": nineteenth-century audiences read the tale as a ghost story rather than as a critique of the sexual politics of marriage; Gilman fought valiantly against hostility from the entrenched hierarchy of male editors who refused to publish her work; and irate male physicians censured the story once it appeared. By reexamining the documentary evidence on which those "facts" are based, we examine the role that ideology plays in gathering and interpreting evidence. Gilman's story serves as a fine but certainly not a unique example of how scholarship is as grounded in historical biases as the literature it seeks to illuminate.