Dracula, Faust, and, of course, Potter

Published
by
A.D.
on January 12, 2008
in Film and Harry Potter
. Tags: , , , .

Well I’m sure glad that Dan keeps himself on the theology, thus justifying this as a theology blog, cause I would like to write about Dracula tonight. I just finished Bram Stoker’s wonderful (and big) book, and then watched the Coppola film version of it. The movie is so-so (who the hell did Keanu Reeves sleep with to get these roles???); the big change Coppola makes is to throw in a love story between Count Dracula and his youthful love (way back in 1460 something). Due to Turkish treachery she commits suicide, the church (Romanian Orthodox I think?) shouts blasphemy, her soul is to rot in hell, and Dracula commits himself to evil. A little cheezy, but it actually pays off in the end, for Coppola then has the 19thc. Dracula fall in love with the British Mina, who is basically a reincarnation of his ancient Romanian darling. At the end Mina redeems the Count and sends his soul to heaven, which, though the the love story is not in the book, is pretty true to Bram’s plot, in which Mina emphasizes the save-ability of the vampires (of course they are saved by having their hearts run through with a stake and their heads chopped off!). This is, of course, the Faust myth, and a surprisingly reliable duplication of it. For even though Faust sells his soul to the devil, and messes pretty seriously with some good German souls, at the end he still gets into Paradise, due to Mephistopheles getting distracted by a cute boy angel (!!no kidding!!). I’m sure people have written scads on this topic, but what is probably less noticed is how close Harry Potter fits into (and I would argue, nicely completes) the Faust myth. Especially as concerning Dracula, in which Rowling borrows the device of the good guy and the bad guy having a telepathic communication (Mina and Dracula, Harry and Voldemort). Mina also wears a scar on her forehead where she is burned by the host, due to her burgeoning vampire blood, which cannot bear the sacrament. There are many other parallels as well, but the main theme, I believe, is the importance of redeeming the devil figure. Whether it is Milton’s Satan, Goethe’s Faust, (hell, even the damned in Dante), Frankenstein, Dracula, or Voldemort (and Snape too), it is the possible redemption of these devilish figures which really lights up these texts. I think Rowling does a great job of addressing this in her final book with the wailing baby figure which shows up in the sequence in King’s Cross station, clearly at least part of Voldemort’s soul. This is perhaps her most poetic moment. . . . In all these literary creations death and life are maddeningly enmeshed but what separates them can become razor sharp as well. There is a big difference between a dying life (that maintains itself in love as it struggles with death, as Jacob with the Angel {of death?}) and a living death, the undead, nosferatu, which, in a mockery of life takes blood to perpetuate its unliving undying death. All these Faust myths have a bit of that Germanic moral tone as well, in that we must, as Christians, look very carefully at what it means to be granted immortal life. Does it mean we have power over death, power to never die, power to rule nature and disease? Or is it perhaps the gift to die in the name of love, which is what God means by life, but we misunderstand him sometimes. . . .

6 Responses to “Dracula, Faust, and, of course, Potter”

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  1. 1 matslacker
    January 14, 2008 at 11:44 pm

    I can confirm your Romanian Orthodox assumption, given that there are several Romanian Orthodox folks in my Church–including a few from Transylvania. I can also confirm that Transylvanians speak with a pretty righteous Dracula-like accent. I can also confirm that bringing up Dracula with them is like bringing up polygamy with Mormons.

  2. 2 Dan
    January 15, 2008 at 9:42 am

    So, Matslacker, to recap your confirmations:
    1. Good
    2. Better
    3. Best, but potentially awkward, and might be running for president?

  3. 3 Nate
    January 17, 2008 at 1:37 pm

    I gotsta add (and nothing but love to whoever did this layout) that readability would be much improved (for me, at least) by changing .entry-content { text-align: justify; } to text-align: left;. Having all that bizarre spacing really messes with ye olde noggin’.

  4. 4 Davis
    January 24, 2008 at 3:36 pm

    The whole subject freaks me out completely - Carry on!

  5. 5 Janet Blumberg
    February 14, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    I “gotsta” agree with Nate. Choose align left when you’re drafting the post — I think that will do it. I really hate reading with the irregular spacings created by justifying the right margin…. Glad I’m not alone on this.

    Hi y’all. I’m back. Aron, that’s a great thesis you are unfolding about the redemption of the bad guy(s) being the/a source of particular tension/interest in mythic narratives.

    Rowling said she was (also) interested in why and how people choose to go along with a status quo or power structure instead of resisting in the name of conscience, something our country was prone to after 911. I wonder if all evil comes out of the sense of being attacked or having been robbed of what is most precious to the self?

    Lastly, Aron’s point about the redeemability of all sinners including Dante’s being a point of fascination is upheld by the way in Purgatorio we are fascinated to see a notorious sinner saved in the final instant of his life by turning to Mercy, whereas in the Inferno we meet a sinner who had thought himself perfectly safe from hell, because he had been pardoned in advance for his treacherous acts by the Pope himself.

    But I don’t think Dante’s “sinners” are personally in hell. I think the historical persons are chosen to represent “states of the soul” that are in themselves hellish, because they are impenetrable by the divine Goodness, unless they are relinguished in the course of life by turning back to God.

    Dante did not presume to know who was in hell or not. This is a commedia, a dramatic presentation of the nature of goodness, evil, and the redemptive power of knowing clearly what makes God God (that is, goodness, mercy, exchange of giving, generosity as opposed to pettiness). This is all dramatized on the back of a fictional or poetical narrative about a journey through the realms of the dead. (In the letter to Can Grande, Dante points out that the literal level of his great narrative is a fiction, the spiritual levels are the reality of the poem. We miss this because we equate literal with real, being the modern little dimwits that we all are!)

  6. 6 scott
    February 16, 2008 at 11:38 am

    >I wonder if all evil comes out of the sense of being attacked or >having been robbed of what is most precious to the self?

    Janet, I would agree that some evil is a response to being attacked, etc. But I don’t think all evil can be accounted for in this way. There’s always the case of the Original fall of Adam and Eve, and if you are so minded, also the fall of Lucifer. Anselm treats this topic in his interesting treatise ‘On the Fall of the Devil’. There, he postulates that it was possible for Lucifer (and by extension Adam and Eve) to sin/do evil b/c in Lucifer’s will there are 2 affections: one for the good in itself, and one for the good for oneself. Anselm postulates that at the first instant of Lucifer’s created existence, he could act on one of these two affections; he choose to act on the affection for the good for himself, and this was his sin; for he did not first love the good in itself, who is God. And when asked why Lucifer choose to act on one affection over the other, he appeals to the irreducible decision of the will, ‘the will just wills’. This isn’t a non-rational willing, for it is based on and aimed at particular cognitive content.

    If Anselm is right, or close to being right, then this is one instance where ‘being attacked’ is not the basis for doing evil. Unless we take ‘being attacked’ fairly generally to include, ‘being faced with a choice that must be made’. But I would think the ‘evil act’ is the act of willing and not in the moment of decision naturally/logically prior to the act of willing.

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