This week I looked at Eve, Mariah and Caitlyn’s commonplace book entries regarding Dracula. It was interesting to see what they chose to focus on within the contemporary criticism for the novel. Eve and Caitlyn chose to look at the sexuality aspect of the novel and Mariah focused mainly on the setting of the novel and the use of the characters to depict Victorian beliefs. Despite the difference in appearance Mariah’s entry could be tied to the other two entries because one of the things that Victorian England had a issue with was the idea of sexuality which is the focus of a portion of the novel.

Another interesting aspect of all the commonplace entries this week was the use of images. There was a different focus for all the images depending on the book, but they were all enlightening. Mariah focused on the setting of the novel so she included images including a map of Transylvania and some paintings from the British Library of different settings within the novel. Caitlyn included images from modern movies based on the novel which shows the sexuality in Dracula and reminds people that we are still interested in monsters such as Dracula. Eve included a drawing of Dracula with what can be believed to be one of his victims which shows the monstrosity and sexuality of the novel.

Something that I am curious about after looking at all of the commonplace book entries is the role of sexuality in the novel. I am interested in why Bram Stoker chose to have that be one of the main aspects of his novel and if it has anything to do with his relationship with Oscar Wilde that Eve mentioned in her commonplace entry.