First-Person Narration & Epistolary Format

Suspending Disbelief and Gothic Narration

English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge helped Gothic literature gain popularity by urging readers to suspend their disbelief.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's view

Initially, critics were dismissive of the literary merits of Gothic writing and its depiction of the supernatural or fantastical.
However, English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an advocate of the genre and urged readers to evoke a “willing suspension of disbelief” in order to engage with supernatural aspects of the Gothic.

Meaning: suspending disbelief

Through suspending their disbelief, a reader is able to look past the irrational and become immersed in the Gothic narrative.
It is partly in relation to this need for a reader to suspend their disbelief that Gothic literature (including Dracula) is written in the first person - adding an artificial layer of plausibility to the events, told through the perspective of someone who has ‘experienced’ them.

Dracula - epistolary format

_Dracula- takes the ‘realism’ of a first-person narration a step further in its epistolary format, with multiple narrative perspectives in the form of diaries, journals, ship logs and newspaper reports.
The opening note to the novel explains that “How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made clear in the reading of them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost at variance with the possibilities of latter-day belief may stand forth as simple fact.”

Pall Mall Gazette clipping

The epistolary format really pays dividends in Chapter 11, where the reader first learns through the clipping of Pall Mall Gazette (18 September) how the Count is responsible for the escape of the wolf (old Bersicker) that causes Lucy’s mother to be frightened to death, as detailed in the Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra (17 September, night).

1Context - Gothic Literature

1.1Origins & Conventions of Gothic Literature

1.1.1Origins of Gothic Literature

1.1.2Key Ideas in Gothic Literature

1.1.3Gothic Genre Conventions in Dracula

1.2Vampires in Gothic Literature

1.2.1Vampires

1.3'Terror' & 'Horror'

1.3.1Ann Radcliffe & Lewis' The Monk

1.3.2'Terror' & 'Horror' in Dracula

1.4Narrative Features

1.4.1First-Person Narration & Epistolary Format

2Context - The Victorian Era

2.1The Victorian Era

2.1.1Fin de Siecle

2.1.2The 'New Woman'

2.1.3The Contagious Diseases Act

3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

3.1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

3.1.1Chapters 1-2

3.1.2Chapters 3-4

3.1.3Chapters 5-7

3.1.4Chapters 8-10

3.1.5Chapters 11-12

3.1.6Chapters 13-14

3.1.7Chapters 15-16

3.1.8Chapters 17-18

3.1.9Chapters 19-20

3.1.10Chapters 21-23

3.1.11Chapters 24-25

3.1.12Chapters 26-27

4Character Profiles

4.1Archetypal Gothic Characters

4.1.1Stock & Proppian Gothic Characters

4.2Count Dracula

4.2.1Count Dracula: Character Profile

4.2.2Count Dracula: Different Literary Perspectives

4.3Other Main Characters

4.3.1Jonathan Harker

4.3.2Dr Abraham Van Helsing

4.3.3Dr Jack Seward

4.3.4Mina Harker

4.3.5Lucy Westenra

4.4Minor Characters

4.4.1Arthur Holmwood & Quincey Morris

4.4.2Renfield

5Key Ideas

5.1Key Ideas

5.1.1Transgression of Boundaries

5.1.2The Supernatural & Un-dead

5.1.3Masculinity & Femininity

5.1.4Science, Modernity & Superstition

5.1.5Madness, Illness & Confinement

6Writing Techniques

6.1Writing Techniques

6.1.1Epistolary Form & Narrative Voice

6.1.2Intertextuality & Cultural References

6.1.3Structure

7Critical Debates & Interpretations

7.1Initial Reception of Dracula

7.1.1Initial Reception of Dracula

7.2Modern Reception of Dracula

7.2.1Modern Reception of Dracula

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