“Enter Freely”: Epistolarity as a Mechanism for Cognitive Dissonance and Inversion of the Gendered Agency/Obedience Binary in Bram Stoker’s Dracula Öffentlichkeit

Abstract

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the epistolary form acts as a mechanism through which reader and character alike are forced to confront their more ethically dubious and/or socially unconventional urges and desires. This thesis examines that confrontation, specifically in the reader, through the lens of Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory, and posits that the text provokes an aroused physiological state (heightened breath rate, pulse rate, etc.) largely by generating cognitive dissonance within the reader. The epistolary form forces the reader to infer the characters’ attraction to the villainous Dracula, thereby implicating the reader in the ostensible moral wrongdoing of the character. Additionally, epistolarity forces the reader to voyeuristically infringe upon the privacy of the protagonists in the same way that the novel’s primary villain does. The reader is subsequently left to wrestle with the dissonance provoked by their wrongdoings, which generates an aroused physiological state easily misattributed to fear. Secondarily, this thesis argues that epistolarity acts as a tethering space for protagonists in which to perform socially acceptable behavior and desires. As exposure to Dracula, whose own performance of sexuality and gender is very fluid, increasingly untethers characters like Jonathan and Mina Harker from their own gendered selves, they simultaneously cease to become tethered to the epistolary form altogether. As narrators, they retreat from the epistolary, and the performative act of transcribing one’s internal world. In essence, epistolarity symbolizes the end of their performance of social normalcy as Dracula uproots the foundations of their “civilized” Victorian world. 

Table of Contents

Introduction...................................................................................................1

Chapter One: Who Am I? Epistolarity as a Mechanism to Facilitate Reader Cognitive Dissonance in Bram Stoker's Dracula....................................................................8

How Does the Epistolary Form Implicate the Reader in Character Immorality in Dracula?............................................................................................................................10

"The Count shall not yet know my secret": The Non-Consensual Intimacy of Epistolarity..........................................................................................15

Cognitive Dissonance as a Product of Reader Induction in Bram Stoker's Dracula......19

Arousal Misattribution: The Affective Significance of Cognitive Dissonance............23

Chapter 2: Harker v. Harker: Dracula as a Harbinger of Identity Instability in the Epistolary Form.............................................................................................27

Harker v. Harker: Inversion of Gender Roles and Sexuality in Response to Dracula......28

“Castles in the Air”: Contrasting the Harkers’ Relationships with Motifs of Agency and Submission...........................................................................................35

Freedom in Silence: The Epistolary Form as an Expression of Gender Role Compliance and Defiance........................................................................................39

Works Cited..................................................................................................48 

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	English
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Literature, English Psychology, Social
Stichwort	Epistolary Cognitive Dissonance
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Emma Davenport , Emory University
Committee Members	Jessica Barber , Emory University Brad Hawley , Emory University

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