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Description:
Dracula was either a nationalist book about vampires or a vampire book about nationalism... or maybe it was a nationalist Vampire book about capital... nobody really knows for sure.
Transcript
- 00:02
On one hand Dracula is definitely the story of the Dracula [Dracula stood in a corridor]
- 00:06
shocker the title is a pretty big giveaway but on the other hand Dracula
- 00:10
is about a whole lot more like any good work of fiction there are layers of
- 00:13
metaphor and subtext flowing underneath the story like raging underground river [Dracula with a snorkel underground]
- 00:17
sounds cool in theory but it probably make for some pretty bad tubing and
Full Transcript
- 00:21
Dracula touches on so much stuff from nationalism to capital and beyond that [Nationalism, Capital and Beyond appears in a library]
- 00:26
it's a tough to tell what it's really about but whatever it is it's definitely about
- 00:31
more than vampires with goofy accents I want to suck your blood.
- 00:36
Let's think about the nationalism angle for a bit in chapter
- 00:41
three during a long talk about Johnathan and Dracula the count talked [Dracula and Johnathan talking outside of a castle]
- 00:44
proudly about his family history, maybe a bit to proudly he says We Szekelys
- 00:48
have a right to be proud for in our veins flows the blood of many brave
- 00:53
races who fought as the lion fights for lordship blood is too precious a thing
- 00:59
in these days of dishonourable peace and the glories of the great races are as a
- 01:05
tale that is told.. that's how they talked really I'd like a tape recording from the actual [Dracula thinking about writing in his diary]
- 01:10
thing I will sounds like a fun post dinner conversation right when Dracula says
- 01:14
that in order veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion
- 01:18
fights... he's talking a language of
- 01:21
nationalists and it's folks who treasure identities grounded in ethnicity. Remind [nationalism definition]
- 01:27
you of anyone? and in talking about few days of dishonorable peace, Dracula's
- 01:33
coming pretty close to the nationalist idea that the various nations really [Dracula stood beside Hitler]
- 01:36
ought to be at war with the stronger prevailing and the weaker most
- 01:40
definitely not prevaling thinking Darwin there, sort of twisted.. Even though Dracula was
- 01:45
written decades before the rise of National Socialism in Germany. The count[Hitler thinking about Dracula's influence]
- 01:49
would fit right in there with Hitler and his pals which really doesn't bode well
- 01:52
for well either of them. Looking elsewhere though we find capital coming to the forefront in Chapter four when Jonathan's hanging out at Dracula's [Jonathan hanging out in Dracula's house]
- 02:00
place he's examining the contents of a room he's probably looking for the count's
- 02:04
diary so he can blackmail him with secret crushes he says the only thing I
- 02:09
found was a great heap of gold in one corner Gold of all kinds Roman and
- 02:14
British and Austrian and Hungarian and Greek and Turkish money covered with the
- 02:19
film of dust as though it had lain long in the ground
- 02:23
none of it that I noticed was less than 300 years old there were also chains and
- 02:28
ornaments some jewels with all of them old and stained
- 02:32
though no diary what a bummer but this emphasizes the fact that Dracula's not [Dracula beside a pile of money]
- 02:36
only some old vampire he's an extremely rich old vampire yeah well.. well
- 02:43
that means the threat he poses to London isn't just a whole lot of unsightly neck [People in London looking threatened]
- 02:48
wounds but the metaphorical threat of an old aristocracy trying to use it's
- 02:52
capital, wealth to conquer the West well sure a big bag of money might not
- 02:56
seem of threatening as fangs but when it comes to political influence the [Dracula carrying a big pile of money to Hitler]
- 03:00
ability to buy weapons too - you can only bite your way to so much power so which
- 03:04
one is it? Is Dracula about nationalism or capital capitalism or both or neither
- 03:09
or typewriters or blood well the short answer is we don't know our theses about [Dracula holding a flag of nationalism and capital capitalism]
- 03:14
nationalism and capital capitalism each depended on single passages better than
- 03:19
nothing but not great it really beefed up these thesis, yeah try saying
- 03:24
that five times fast.. we need to find at least three examples the one example
- 03:28
might be chance to a coincidence but three makes a pattern and don't worry too [passages of Dracula novel]
- 03:32
much if it seems like Dracula is about a whole bunch of things, rich-text tend to
- 03:36
touch on a lot of ideas, so don't be surprised if Dracula is actually about
- 03:40
nationalism a capital technology and Dracula's secret crush on Jennifer Anniston [Nationalism and Capital capitalism flag either side of Dracula]
- 03:46
at least assuming that what his diary would say he wants to suck your
- 03:50
blood be friends, yes be friends..blah [Dracula watching Friends on the TV]
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